General reviews and summaries: The functions of the cerebrum

Shepherd Ivory. Franz
1914 Psychological bulletin  
The study, or science, of cerebral function is, like many other sciences, in a complex stage of its development. The relation of the brain to other parts of the body or to mental processes is no longer considered to be a mysterious matter, nor are the simple explanations of its functions believed to be entirely satisfactory. The collection of facts has proceeded to such a point that it is now generally recognized that even the relations of the cerebral cells to the production of movement are
more » ... to be explained in a simple manner. Many observations of motor, sensory and association disturbances accompanying cerebral lesions have been recorded which can not be explained by the older hypotheses, and which, in fact, negative them. Some have been insisting for a number of years that the cerebral relations are not simple, but because of certain practical needs and applications, the discrepancies have been largely disregarded. It must be understood that cerebral relations are not becoming complex in the sense that more areas with definite functions are being discovered, but in the sense that many functional variations are being recorded, that there are many so-called anomalous disturbances associated with cerebral lesions. For this reason the simple explanations or theories are no longer acceptable, and many which have hitherto been considered almost like statements of fact are undergoing radical modifications. The general belief that aphasias in right-handed people are produced exclusively by lesions in the left hemisphere and in lefthanded people by corresponding lesions in the right hemisphere is not borne out by a number of cases, and it is valuable to have the additional negative case which has been described by Long (6). On autopsy, Long discovered in this left-handed individual that •For last previous review see PSYCHOL. BULL., 1913, 10, 125-138.
doi:10.1037/h0069885 fatcat:fw7ui6sqf5btdo55c2qfa5tyee