Milestones in Neuroscience Research
0 to 1500 AD | 1500 to 1600 AD | 1600 to 1700 AD | 1700 to 1800 AD
1800 to 1850 AD | 1850 to 1900 AD | 1900 to 1950 AD | 1950 to present
4000 B.C. to 0 A.D
ca. 4000 B.C. - Euphoriant effect of poppy plant reported in Sumerian records
ca. 4000 B.C. - Clay tablets from Mesopotamia discuss how to use alcohol to dilute medicine
ca. 2700 B.C. - Shen Nung originates acupuncture
ca. 1700 B.C. - Edwin Smith surgical papyrus written. First written record about the nervous system
ca. 1400-1200 B.C. - Ayuvedic system of Hindu medicine develops
ca. 500 B.C. - Alcmaion of Crotona dissects sensory nerves
ca. 500 B.C. - Alcmaion of Crotona describes the optic nerve
ca. 500 B.C. - Empedocles suggests that "visual rays" cause sight
460-379 B.C. - Hippocrates discusses epilepsy as a disturbance of the brain
460-379 B.C. - Hippocrates states that the brain is involved with sensation and is the seat of intelligence
387 B.C. - Plato teaches at Athens. Believes brain is seat of mental process
335 B.C. - Aristotle writes about sleep; believes heart is seat of mental process
335-280 B.C. - Herophilus (the "Father of Anatomy"); believes ventricles are seat of human intelligence
280 B.C. - Erasistratus of Chios notes divisions of the brain
0 A.D. to 1500
177 - Galen lecture On the Brain
ca. 100 - Marinus describes the tenth cranial nerve
ca. 100 - Rufus of Ephesus describes and names the optic chiasm
ca. 900 - Rhazes describes seven cranial nerves and 31 spinal nerves in Kitab al-Hawi Fi Al Tibb
ca. 1000 - Alhazen compares the eye to a camera-like device
ca. 1000 - Al-Zahrawi (also known as Abulcasis or Albucasis) describes several surgical treatments for neurological disorders
1025 - Avicenna writes about vision and the eye in The Canon of Medicine
1088 - Abu Ruh writes The Light of the Eyes describing several eye operations
1260 - Louis IX founds the Hopital des Quinze-Vingts, the first institution for the blind
1316 - Mondino de'Luzzi writes the first European anatomy textbook (Anothomia)
1402 - St. Mary of Bethlehem Hospital is used exclusively for the mentally ill
1410 - Institution for the mentally ill established in Valencia, Spain
1500 - 1600
1504 - Leonardo da Vinci produces wax cast of human ventricles
1536 - Nicolo Massa describes the cerebrospinal fluid
1538 - Andreas Vesalius publishes Tabulae Anatomicae
1543 - Andreas Vesalius publishes On the Workings of the Human Body
1543 - Andreas Vesalius discusses the pineal gland and draws the corpus striatum
1549 - Jason Pratensis publishes De Cerebri Morbis, an early book devoted to neurological disease
1550 - Vesalius describes hydrocephalus
1550 - Bartolomeo Eustachio describes the brain origin of the optic nerves
1561 - Gabriele Falloppio publishes Observationes Anatomicae and describes some of the cranial nerves. Separate trochlear and abducens nerves identified
1562 - Bartolomeo Eustachio publishes The Examination of the Organ of Hearing
1564 - Giulio Cesare Aranzi coins the term hippocampus
1573 - Constanzo Varolio names the pons
1573 - Constanzo Varolio is first to cut brain starting at its base
1573 - Girolamo Mercuriali writes De nervis opticis to describe optic nerve anatomy
1583 - Felix Platter states that the lens only focuses light and that the retina is where images are formed
1583 - Georg Bartisch publishes Ophthalmodouleia: das ist Augendienst with drawings of the eye. 1586 - A. Piccolomini distinguishes between cortex and white matter
1587 - Guilio Cesare Aranzi describes ventricles and hippocampus. He also demonstrates that the retina has a reversed image
1590 - Zacharias Janssen invents the compound microscope
1596 - Sir Walter Raleigh mentions arrow poison in his book Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana
1600 - 1700
1601 - Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente publishes Tractatus de Oculo Visusque Organo describing the correct location of the lens relative to the iris
1604 - Johannes Kepler describes inverted retinal image
1609 - J. Casserio publishes first description of mammillary bodies
1611 - Lazarus Riverius textbook describing impairments on consciousness published
1621 - Robert Burton publishes The Anatomy of Melancholy about depression
1623 - Benito Daca de Valdes publishes the first book on vision testing and eyeglass-fitting
1641 - Franciscus de la Boe Sylvius describes fissure on the lateral surface of the brain (Sylvian fissure)
1644 - Giovanni Battista Odierna describes the microscopic appearance of the fly eye in L'Occhio della Mosca
1649 - Rene Descartes describes pineal as control center of body and mind
1650 - Franciscus de la Boe Sylvius describes a narrow passage between the third and fourth ventricles (the aqueduct of Sylvius)
1658 - Johann Jakof Wepfer theorizes that a broken brain blood vessel may cause apoplexy (stroke)
1661 - Thomas Willis describes a case of meningitis
1662 - Rene Descartes De homine is published (He died in 1650)
1664 - Thomas Willis publishes Cerebri anatome (in Latin)
1664 - Thomas Willis describes the eleventh cranial nerve (accessory nerve)
1664 - Gerardus Blasius discovers and names the "arachnoid"
1665 - Robert Hooke details his first microscope
1667 - Robert Hooke publishes Micrographia
1668 - l'Abbe Edme Mariotte discovers the blind spot
1670 - William Molins names the trochlear nerve
1673 - Joseph DuVerney uses experimental ablation technique in pigeons
1681 - English edition of Thomas Willis' Cerebri anatome is published
1681 - Thomas Willis coins the term Neurology
1684 - Raymond Vieussens publishes Neurographia Universalis
1684 - Raymond Vieussens uses boiling oil to harden the brain
1686 - Thomas Sydenham describes a form of chorea in children and young adults
1695 - Humphrey Ridley describes the restiform body
1695 - Humphrey Ridley publishes The Anatomy of the Brain
1696 - John Locke writes Essay Concerning Human Understanding
1697 - Joseph G. Duverney introduces the term "brachial plexus"
1700 - 1800
1704 - Antonio Valsalva publishes On the Human Ear
1705 - Antonio Pacchioni describes arachnoid granulations
1709 - Domenico Mistichelli describes pyramidal decussation
1709 - George Berkeley publishes New Theory of Vision
1717 - Antony van Leeuwenhoek describes nerve fiber in cross section
1721 - The word "anesthesia" first appears in English (in Dictionary Britannicum)
1736 - Jean Astruc coins the term reflex
1740 - Emanuel Swedenborg publishes Oeconomia regni animalis
1749 - David Hartley publishes Observations of Man, the first English work using the word "psychology"
1750 - Jacques Daviel performs the first cataract extraction on a living human eye
1752 - The Society of Friends establishes a hospital-based environment for the mentally ill in Philadelphia
1755 - J.B. Le Roy uses electroconvulsive therapy for mental illness
1760 - Arne-Charles Lorry demonstrates that damage to the cerebellum affects motor coordination
1764 - Domenico F.A. Cotugno describes spinal subarachnoid cerebrospinal fluid; shows that ventricular and spinal fluids are connected
1764 - The interventricular foramen (Foramen of Monroe) is named after Alexander Monroe; it was described earlier by Vieussens
1766 - Albrecht von Haller provides scientific description of the cerebrospinal fluid
1772 - John Walsh conducts experiments on torpedo (electric) fish
1773 - John Fothergill describes trigeminal neuralgia (tic douloureux, Fothergill's syndrome)
1773 - Sir Joseph Priestley discovers nitrous oxide
1774 - Franz Anton Mesmer introduces "animal magnetism" (later called hypnosis)
1776 - M.V.G. Malacarne publishes first book solely devoted to the cerebellum
1777 - Philip Meckel proposes that the inner ear is filled with fluid, not air
1778 - Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring presents the modern classification of the twelve cranial nerves
1779 - Antonius Scarpa describes Scarpa's ganglion of the vestibular system
1781 - Felice Fontana describes the microscopic features of axoplasm from an axon
1782 - Francesco Gennari publishes work on "lineola albidior" (later known as the stripe of Gennari)
1782 - Francesco Buzzi identifies the fovea
1783 - Alexander Monro describes the foramen of Monro
1784 - Benjamin Rush writes that alcohol can be an addictive drug
1784 - Benjamin Franklin mentions bifocal eyeglasses in a letter to George Whatley
1786 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the locus coeruleus
1786 - Samuel Thomas Sommering describes the optic chiasm
1786 - Georg Joseph Beer founds the first eye hospital in Vienna
1790 - Johannes Ehrenritter describes the glossopharygeal nerve ganglion
1791 - Luigi Galvani publishes work on electrical stimulation of frog nerves
1791 - Samuel Thomas von Soemmering names the macula lutea of the retina
1796 - Johann Christian Reil describes the insula (island of Reil)
1798 - John Dalton, who was red-green colorblind, provides a scientific description of color blindness
1800 - 1850
1800 - Alessandro Volta invents the wet cell battery
1800 - Humphrey Davy synthesizes nitrous oxide
1800 - Samuel von Sommering identifies black material in the midbrain and calls it the "substantia nigra"
1801 - Thomas Young describes astigmatism
1801 - Adam Friedrich Wilhelm Serturner crystalizes opium and obtains morphine
1808 - Franz Joseph Gall publishes work on phrenology
1809 - Johann Christian Reil uses alcohol to harden the brain
1809 - Luigi Rolando uses galvanic current to stimulate cortex
1811 - Julien Jean Legallois discovers respiratory center in medulla
1811 - Charles Bell discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord
1812 - Benjamin Rush publishes Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind
1813 - Felix Vicq d'Azyr discovers the claustrum
1817 - James Parkinson publishes An Essay on the Shaking Palsy
1818 - Library of the Surgeon General's Office established (later to become the Army Medical Library and then the National Library of Medicine)
1820 - Galvanometer invented
1821 - Charles Bell describes facial paralysis ipsilateral to facial nerve lesion (Bell's palsy)
1821 - Francois Magendie discusses functional differences between dorsal and ventral roots of the spinal cord
1822 - Friedrich Burdach names the cingular gyrus
1822 - Friedrich Burdach distinguishes lateral and medial geniculate
1823 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens states that cerebellum regulates motor activity
1824 - John C. Caldwell publishes Elements of Phrenology
1824 - Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens details ablation to study behavior
1824 - F. Magendie provides first evidence of cerebellum role in equilibration
1825 - John P. Harrison first argues against phrenology
1825 - Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud presents cases of loss of speech after frontal lesions
1825 - Robert B. Todd discusses the role of the cerebral cortex in mentation, corpus striatum in movement and midbrain in emotion
1825 - Luigi Rolando describes the sulcus that separates the precentral and postcentral gyri
1826 - Johannes Muller publishes theory of "specific nerve energies"
1827 - Francois Magendie discovers foramen of Magendie
1827 - E. Merck & Company market morphine
1832 - Justus von Liebig discovers chloral hydrate
1832 - Jean-Pierre Robiquet isolates codeine
1832 - Massachusetts establishes a "State Lunatic Hospital" for the mentally ill
1832 - Sir Charles Wheatstone invents the stereoscope
1833 - Philipp L. Geiger isolates atropine
1834 - Ernst Heinrich Weber publishes theory of "Just Noticeable Difference" or "Weber's Law"
1836 - Marc Dax reads paper on left hemisphere damage effects on speech
1836 - Gabriel Gustav Valentin identifies neuron nucleus and nucleolus
1836 - Robert Remak describes myelinated and unmyelinated axons
1836 - Charles Dickens (the novelist) describes obstructive sleep apnea
1837 - Jan Purkyne (Purkinje) describes cerebellar cells; identifies neuron nucleus and processes
1837 - The American Physiological Society is founded
1838 - Robert Remak suggests that nerve fiber and nerve cell are joined
1838 - Theordor Schwann describes the myelin-forming cell in the peripheral nervous system ("Schwann cell")
1838 - Jean-Etienne-Dominique Esquirol publishes Des Maladies Mentales, possibly the first modern work about mental disorders
1838 - Napoleonic Code leads to the requirement of facilities for the mentally ill
1838 - Eduard Zeis publishes study about dreams in people who are blind
1839 - Theordor Schwann proposes the cell theory
1839 - C. Chevalier coins the term microtome
1839 - Francois Leuret names the Rolandic sulcus for Luigi Rolando
1840 - Adolph Hannover uses chromic acid to harden nervous tissue
1840 - Jules Gabriel Francois Baillarger discusses the connections between white and gray matter of cerebral cortex
1840 - Adolphe Hannover discovers the ganglion cells of the retina
1841 - Dorothea Lynde Dix investigates brutality within mental hospitals in the United States
1842 - Benedikt Stilling is first to study spinal cord in serial sections
1842 - Crawford W. Long uses ether on man
1842 - Francois Magendie describes the median opening in the roof of the fourth ventricle (foramen of Magendie)
1843 - James Braid coins the term "hypnosis"
1844 - Robert Remak provides first illustration of 6-layered cortex
1844 - Horace Wells uses nitrous oxide during a tooth extraction
1846 - William Morton demonstrates ether anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital
1847 - Chloroform anesthesia used by James Young Simpson
1847 - American Medical Association is founded
1847 - The American Association for the Advancement of Science is founded
1848 - Phineas Gage has his brain pierced by an iron rod
1848 - Richard Owen coins the word "notochord"
1849 - Hermann von Helmholtz measures the speed of frog nerve impulses
1850 - 1900
1850 - Augustus Waller describes appearance of degenerating nerve fibers
1850 - Marshall Hall coins the term spinal shock
1850 - Emil Du Bois-Reymond invents nerve galvanometer
1851 - Heinrich Muller is first to describe the colored pigments in the retina
1851 - Marchese Alfonso Corti describes the cochlear receptor organ in the inner ear (organ of Corti)
1851 - Hermann von Helmholtz invents ophthalmoscope
1852 - A. Kolliker describes how motor nerves originate from the neurons in the anterior horn of the spinal cord
1852 - George Meissner and Rudolf Wagner describe encapsulated nerve endings later known as "Meissner's corpuscles"
1853 - William Benjamin Carpenter proposes "sensory ganglion" (thalamus) as seat of consciousness
1854 - Louis P. Gratiolet describes convolutions of the cerebral cortex
1855 - Bartolomeo Panizza shows the occipital lobe is essential for vision
1855 - Richard Heschl describes the transverse gyri in the temporal lobe (Heschl's gyri)
1856 - Albrecht von Graefe describes homonymous hemianopia
1859 - Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species
1859 - Rudolph Virchow coins the term neuroglia
1860 - Albert Niemann purifies cocaine
1860 - Gustav Theodor Fechner develops "Fechner's law"
1860 - Karl L. Kahlbaum describes and names "catatonia"
1861 - Paul Broca discusses cortical localization
1861 - T.H. Huxley coins the term calcarine sulcus
1862 - William Withey Gull describes clinical signs of syringomyelia
1862 - Hermann Snellen invents the eyechart with letters to test vision
1863 - Ivan Mikhalovich Sechenov publishes Reflexes of the Brain
1863 - Nikolaus Friedreich describes a progressive hereditary degenerative CNS disorder (Friedreich's ataxia)
1864 - John Hughlings Jackson writes on loss of speech after brain injury
1865 - Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters differentiates dendrites and axons
1865 - Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters describes the lateral vestibular nucleus (Deiter's nucleus)
1866 - John Langdon Haydon Down publishes work on congenital "idiots"
1866 - Julius Bernstein hypothesized that a nerve impulse is a "wave of negativity"
1867 - Theodore Meynert performs histologic analysis of cerebral cortex
1868 - Julius Bernstein measures the time course of the action potential
1868 - Friedrich Goll describes the fasciculus gracilis
1869 - Francis Galton claims that intelligence is inherited (publication of Hereditary Genius)
1869 - Johann Friedrich Horner describes eye disorder (small pupil, droopy eyelid) later to be called "Horner's syndrome"
1870 - Eduard Hitzig and Gustav Fritsch discover cortical motor area of dog using electrical stimulation
1870 - Ernst von Bergmann writes first textbook on nervous system surgery
1871 - Weir Mitchell provides detailed account of phantom limb syndrome
1872 - George Huntington describes symptoms of a hereditary chorea
1872 - Sir William Turner describes the interparietal sulcus
1873 - Camillo Golgi publishes first work on the silver nitrate method
1874 - Jean Martin Charcot describes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
1874 - Vladimir Alekseyevich Betz publishes work on giant pyramidal cells
1874 - Roberts Bartholow electrically stimulates human cortical tissue
1874 - Carl Wernicke publishes Der Aphasische Symptomencomplex on aphasias
1875 - Sir David Ferrier describes different parts of monkey motor cortex
1875 - Richard Caton is first to record electrical activity from the brain
1875 - Wilhelm Heinrich Erb and Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal describe the knee jerk reflex
1876 - David Ferrier publishes The Functions of the Brain
1876 - Franz Christian Boll discovers rhodopsin
1876 - Francis Galton uses the term "nature and nurture" to explain "heredity and environment"
1877 - Jean-Martin Charcot publishes Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System
1878 - W. Bevan Lewis publishes work on giant pyramidal cells of human precentral gyrus
1878 - Claude Bernard describes nerve/muscle blocking action of curare
1878 - The first Ph.D. with "psychology" in its title is given to Granville Stanley Hall at Harvard University
1878 - Paul Broca publishes work on the "great limbic lobe"
1878 - W.R. Gowers publishes Unilateral Gunshot Injury to the Spinal Cord
1878 - Harmon Northrop Morse synthesized acetaminophen (paracetamol)
1878 - Louis-Antoine Ranvier describes regular interruptions in the myelin sheath (nodes of Ranvier)
1879 - Camillo Golgi describes the "musculo-tendineous organs" (later to be know as the "Golgi tendon organs")
1879 - Mathias Duval introduces an improved method of embedding tissue using collodion
1879 - Hermann Munk presents detailed anatomy of the optic chiasm
1879 - William Crookes invents the cathode ray tube
1879 - Wilhelm Wundt sets up lab devoted to study human behavior
1880 - Jean Baptiste Edouard Gelineau introduces the word "narcolepsy"
1880 - Friedrich Sigmund Merkel describes free nerve endings later known as "Merkel's corpuscles"
1881 - Hermann Munk reports on visual abnormalities after occipital lobe ablation in dogs
1883 - Sir Victor Horsley describes effects of nitrous oxide anesthesia
1883 - Emil Kraepelin coins the terms neuroses and psychoses
1884 - Franz Nissl describes the granular endoplasmic reticulum ("Nissl Substance")
1884 - Karl Koller discovers anesthetic properties of cocaine
1884 - Georges Gilles de la Tourette describes several movement disorders
1884 - Theodor Meynert publishes A Clinical Treatise on the Diseases of the Forebrain
1885 - Paul Ehrlich notes that intravenous dye does not stain brain tissue
1885 - Carl Weigert introduces hematoxylin to stain myelin
1885 - Ludwig Edinger describes nucleus that will be known as the Edinger-Westphal nucleus
1885 - Hermann Ebbinghaus publishes On Memory
1886 - Joseph Jastrow earns the first Ph.D. from the first formal PhD program in psychology at Johns Hopkins University
1886 - V. Marchi publishes procedure to stain degenerating myelin
1887 - Sergei Korsakoff describes symptoms characteristic in alcoholics
1887 - The National Institutes of Health established
1887 - Alfred Binet and C. Fere publish Animal Magnetism, a study on hypnosis
1887 - Adolf Eugen Fick makes the first contact lens out of glass for vision correction
1888 - William Gill describes anorexia nervosa
1888 - William W. Keen, Jr. is first American to remove intracranial meningioma
1888 - Hans Chiari introduces the term "syringomyelia"
1888 - Giovanni Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as "Martinotti cells"
1889 - Santiago Ramon y Cajal argues that nerve cells are independent elements
1889 - William His coins the term dendrite
1889 - Sir Victor Horsley publishes somatotopic map of monkey motor cortex
1889 - Carlo Martinotti describes cortical neuron with ascending axon (this neuron now bears his name, Martinotti cell)
1889 - F.C. Muller-Lyer discovers the Muller-Lyer illusion
1890 - Wilhelm Ostwald discovers the membrane theory of nerve conduction
1890 - William James publishes Principles of Psychology
1890 - The term "mental tests" was coined by James Cattell
1891 - H. Quincke introduces the lumbar puncture
1891 - Wilhelm von Waldeyer coins the term neuron
1891 - Luigi Luciani publishes manuscript on the cerebellum
1891 - Heinrich Quinke develops the lumbar puncture (spinal tap)
1892 - Salomen Eberhard Henschen localizes vision to calcarine fissure
1892 - American Psychological Association formed
1892 - Arnold Pick first describes "Pick's disease"
1893 - Paul Emil Flechsig describes myelinization of the brain
1893 - Charles Scott Sherrington coins the term proprioceptive
1894 - Franz Nissl stains neurons with dahlia violet
1894 - Margaret Floy Washburn is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. (Cornell University) in psychology
1895 - William His first uses the term hypothalamus
1895 - Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen invents the X-ray
1895 - Heinrick Quincke performs lumbar puncture to study cerebrospinal fluid
1895 - Formalization of the cranial nerve number system published in Basle Nomina Anatomica
1896 - Max von Frey details "stimulus hairs" to test the somatosensory system
1896 - Rudolph Albert von Kolliker coins the term axon
1896 - Camillo Golgi discovers the Golgi apparatus
1896 - Joseph Babinski describes the Babinski Sign
1896 - Emil Kraeplein describes dementia praecox
1897 - Ivan Petrovich Pavlov publishes work on physiology of digestion
1897 - Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the oscilloscope
1897 - John Jacob Abel isolates adrenalin
1897 - Charles Scott Sherrington coins the term synapse
1897 - Ferdinand Blum uses formaldehyde as brain fixative
1897 - Acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) is synthesized by Felix Hoffmann
1898 - Charles Scott Sherrington describes decerebrate rigidity in cat
1898 - Edward Lee Thorndike describes the puzzle box
1898 - Bayer Drug Company markets heroin as nonaddicting cough medicine
1898 - John Newport Langley coins the term autonomic nervous system
1898 - Angelo Ruffini describes encapsulated nerve endings later known as Ruffini corpuscles
1899 - Francis Gotch describes a "refractory phase" between nerve impulses
1899 - Bayer AG markets aspirin
1899 - Karl Gustav August Bier uses cocaine for intraspinal anesthesia
1900 - 1950
1900 - Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams
1900 - Charles Scott Sherrington states that cerebellum is head ganglion of the proprioceptive system
1900 - M. Lewandowsky coins the term "blood-brain barrier" (Bluthirnschranke) [ref: Aschner and Kerper, Mol. Biol. and Tox. of Metals, 2000]
1902 - Julius Bernstein proposes membrane theory for cells
1902 - Physiologist Ida Hyde is the first woman elected to the American Physiological Society
1903 - Ivan Pavlov coins the term conditioned reflex
1903 - Alfred Walter Campbell studies cytoarchitecture of anthropoid cerebral cortex
1904 - Procaine is synthesized
1905 - Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon have their first intelligence test
1905 - John Newport Langley coins the phrase "parasympathetic nervous system"
1906 - Alois Alzheimer describes presenile degeneration
1906 - Golgi and Cajal-Nobel Prize-Structure of the Nervous System
1906 - Sir Charles Scott Sherrington publishes The Integrative Action of the Nervous system that describes the synapse and motor cortex
1907 - Ross Granville Harrison describes tissue culture methods
1907 - John Newport Langley introduces the concept of receptor molecules
1908 - Vladimir Bekhterew describes the superior nucleus of the vestibular nerve (Bekhterew's nucleus)
1908 - Victor Alexander Haden Horsley and Robert Henry Clarke design stereotaxic instrument
1908 - Willem Einthoven makes string galvanometer recordings from the vagus nerve
1909 - Harvey Cushing is first to electrically stimulate human sensory cortex
1909 - Korbinian Brodmann describes 52 discrete cortical areas
1909 - Karl Jaspers publishes General Mental Illness
1910 - Emil Kraepelin names Alzheimer's disease
1911 - Allvar Gullstrand-Nobel Prize-Optics of the eye
1911 - Eugen Bleuler coins the term schizophrenia
1911 - George Barger and Henry Dale discover norepinephrine (noradrenaline)
1912 - Original formula for the intelligence quotient (IQ) developed by William Stern
1913 - Santiago Ramon y Cajal develops gold chloride-mercury stain to show astrocytes
1913 - Edwin Ellen Goldmann finds blood brain barrier impermeable to large molecules
1913 - Edgar Douglas Adrian publishes work on all-or-none principle in nerve
1913 - Walter Samuel Hunter devises delayed-response test
1914 - Robert Barany-Nobel Prize-Vestibular apparatus
1914 - Henry H. Dale isolates acetylcholine
1915 - J.G. Dusser De Barenne describes activity of brain after strychnine application
1915 - Aspirin becomes available without a prescription
1916 - Richard Henneberg coins the term cataplexy
1916 - George Guillain, Jean Alexander Barre and Andre Strohl describe an acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (Guillain-Barre Syndrome)
1916 - Shinobu Ishihara publishes a set of plates to test color vision
1918 - Walter E. Dandy introduces the ventriculography
1919 - Cecile Vogt describes over 200 cortical areas
1919 - Walter E. Dandy introduces the air encephalography
1919 - Gordon Morgan Holmes localizes vision to striate area
1919 - Pio del Rio Hortega divides neuroglia into microglia and oligodendroglia
1920 - Society of Neurological Surgeons is founded
1920 - Henry Head publishes Studies in Neurology
1920 - Stephen Walter Ranson demonstrates connections between the hypothalamus and pituitary
1920 - John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner publish experiments about classical conditioning of fear (Little Albert experiments)
1921 - Otto Loewi publishes work on Vagusstoff
1921 - Hermann Rorschach develops the inkblot test
1921 - John Augustus Larsen and Leonard Keeler develop the polygraph
1921 - del Rio Hortega describes microglia
1922 - Army Medical Library established (was the Library of the Surgeon General's Office)
1924 - Charles Scott Sherrington discovers the stretch reflex
1925 - C. von Economo and G.N. Koskinas revise Brodmann's cortical nomenclature of the cerebral cortex
1926 - Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing publish paper describing more the 2,000 neuroepithelial neoplasms
1927 - Chester William Darrow studies galvanic skin reflex in US
1928 - Philip Bard suggests the neural mechanism of rage is in the diencephalon
1928 - Walter Rudolph Hess reports "affective responses" to hypothalamic stimulation
1928 - John Fulton publishes his observations (made in 1926 and 1928) of the sounds of blood flowing over the human visual cortex
1929 - Hans Berger publishes his findings about the first human electroencephalogram
1929 - Karl Lashley defines "equipotentiality" and "mass action"
1927 - J. Wagner-Jauregg - Nobel Prize-Malaria to treat dementia paralyses
1928 - Edgar Douglas Adrian publishes The Basis of Sensation
1929 - Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser publish work on the correlation of nerve fiber size and function
1929 - Walter B. Cannon coins the term homeostasis
1930 - John Carew Eccles shows central inhibition of flexor reflexes
1931 - Ulf Svante von Euler and J.H. Gaddum discover substance P
1932 - Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska invent the electron microscope
1932 - Jan Friedrich Tonnies develops multichannel ink-writing EEG machine
1932 - Edgar Douglas Adrian and Charles S. Sherrington share Nobel Prize for work on the function of neurons
1932 - Jan Friedrich Toennies and Brian Matthews design the differential amplifier
1932 - Smith, Kline and French introduce the first amphetamine, Benzedrine
1933 - Ralph Waldo Gerard describes first experimental evoked potentials
1934 - S. Howard Bartley performs studies on cortical visual evoked potentials in rabbits
1935 - Dexedrine (an amphetamine) introduced to treat narcolepsy
1935 - Frederic Bremer uses cerveau isole preparation to study sleep
1936 - Egas Moniz publishes work on the first human frontal lobotomy
1936 - Henry Hallett Dale and Otto Loewi share Nobel Prize for work on the chemical transmission between nerves
1936 - Walter Freeman performs first lobotomy in the United States
1937 - James Papez publishes work on limbic circuit
1936 - Massachusetts General Hospital has first EEG laboratory
1937 - Heinrich Kluver and Paul Bucy publish work on bilateral temporal lobectomies
1937 - James W. Papez develops "visceral theory" of emotion
1937 - John Zachary Young suggests that the squid giant axon can be used to understand nerve cells
1938 - Isador Rabi coins term "magnetic resonance"
1938 - B.F. Skinner publishes The Behavior of Organisms that describes operant conditioning
1938 - Albert Hofmann synthesizes LSD
1938 - Ugo Cerletti and Lucino Bini treat human patients with electroshock
1938 - Franz Kallmann publishes The Genetics of Schizophrenia
1939 - Carl Pfaffman describes directionally sensitive cat mechanoreceptors
1939 - Nathaniel Kleitman publishes Sleep and Wakefulness
1942 - Stephen Kuffler develops the single nerve-muscle fiber preparation
1943 - John Raymond Brobeck describes hypothalamic hyperphasia
1944 - Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser share Nobel Prize for work on the functions of single nerve fiber
1946 - Theodor Rasmussen describes the olivocochlear bundle (bundle of Rasmussen)
1946 - President Truman signs the National Mental Health Act
1947 - The American EEG Society is founded
1948 - The World Health Organization is founded
1949 - Kenneth Cole develops the voltage clamp
1949 - A.C.A.F. Egas Moniz-Nobel Prize-Leucotomy to treat certain psychoses
1949 - Walter Rudolph Hess receives Nobel Prize for work on the "Interbrain"
1949 - Horace Winchell Magoun defines the reticular activating system
1949 - John Cade discovers that lithium is an effective treatment for bipolar depression
1949 - Giuseppi Moruzzi and Horace Winchell Magoun publish Brain Stem Reticular Formation and Activation of the EEG
1949 - National Institute of Mental Health was formally established
1949 - Donald Olding Hebb publishes The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory
1950 - present
1950 - Karl Lashley publishes In Search of the Engram
1950 - Eugene Roberts and J. Awapara independently identify GABA in the brain
1950 - The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke established (it has gone through several name changes)
1951 - MAO-inhibitors introduced to treat psychotics
1951 - B.F. Skinner describes shaping in a paper titled How to Teach Animals
1952 - Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley first describe the voltage clamp
1952 - The Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published by the American Psychiatric Association
1953 - Brenda Milner discusses patient HM who suffers from memory loss of hippocampal surgery
1953 - Eugene Aserinski and Nathaniel Kleitman describe rapid eye movements (REM) during sleep
1953 - H. Kluver and E. Barrera introduce Luxol fast blue MBS stain
1953 - Stephen Kuffler publishes work on center-surround, on-off organization of retinal ganglion cell receptive fields
1954 - James Olds describes rewarding effects of hypothalamic stimulation
1954 - John Lilly invents the "isolation tank"
1954 - Chlorpromazine was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
1956 - L. Leksell uses ultrasound to examine the brain
1956 - National Library of Medicine named (was the Army Medical Library)
1956 - Rita Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen isolate and purify nerve growth factor
1957 - W. Penfield and T. Rasmussen devise motor and sensory homunculus
1957 - The American Medical Association recognizes alcoholism as a disease
1958 - Haloperidol introduced as a neuroleptic drug
1959 - P. Karlson and M. Lusher coin the term "pheromone"
1960 - Oleh Hornykiewicz shows that brain dopamine is lower than normal in Parkinson's disease patients
1961 - Georg Von Bekesy awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the function of the cochlea
1961 - Levadopa successfully treats parkinsonism
1962 - Eldon Foltz performs the first cingulotomy to treat chronic pain
1963 - John Carew Eccles, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Fielding Huxley share Nobel Prize for work on the mechanisms of the neuron cell membrane
1965 - Ronald Melzack and Patrick D. Wall publish gate control theory of pain
1965 - Drug Abuse Control Act
1967 - Ragnar Arthur Granit, Halden Keffer Hartline and George Wald share Nobel Prize for work on the mechanisms of vision
1968 - Alexander Romanovich Luria publishes The Mind of a Mnemonist; A Little Book About a Vast Memory
1968 - National Eye Institute is established
1969 - D.V. Reynolds describes the analgesic effect of electrical stimulation of the periaqueductal gray
1970 - The Society for Neuroscience is formed
1970 - Julius Axelrod, Bernard Katz and Ulf Svante von Euler share Nobel Prize for work on neurotransmitters
1972 - Godfrey N. Hounsfield develops x-ray computed tomography
1973 - Candace Pert and Solomon Snyder demonstrate opioid receptors in brain
1973 - Sinemet is introduced as a treatment for Parkinson's disease
1973 - Konrad Z. Lorenz, Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch share Nobel Prize for work on ethology
1973 - Timothy Bliss and Terje Lomo describe long-term potentiation
1974 - National Institute on Drug Abuse established
1974 - International Association for the Study of Pain founded
1974 - John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz discover enkephalin
1974 - M.E.Phelps, E.J.Hoffman and M.M.Ter Pogossian develop first PET scanner
1974 - First NMR image (a mouse) is taken
1975 - John Hughes and Hans Kosterlitz publish work on enkephalins
1976 - Choh Hao Li and David Chung publish work on beta-endorphin
1976 - Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann develop the patch-clamp technique
1977 - Roger Guillemin and Andrew Victor Schally share Nobel Prize for work on peptides in the brain
1981 - David Hunter Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel-Nobel Prize-visual system
1981 - Roger Wolcott Sperry awarded Nobel Prize-functions brain hemispheres
1982 - Bengt Ingemar Bergstrom, John Robert Vane and Sune K. Bergstrom awarded Nobel Prize for the discovery of prostaglandins
1986 - Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini awarded Nobel prize for their work on the control of nerve cell growth
1987 - Fluoxetine (Prozac) introduced as treatment for depression
1990 - U.S. President George Bush declares the decade starting in 1990 the "Decade of the Brain"
1991 - Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann share the Nobel Prize for their work on the function of single ion channels
1992 - National Institute on Drug Abuse becomes part of the National Institutes of Health
1993 - The gene responsible for Huntington's disease is identified
1994 - Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell share the Nobel Prize for their discovery of G-protein coupled receptors and their role in signal transduction
1997 - Stanley B. Prusiner awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of prions; a new biological principle of infection
2000 - Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel share the Nobel Prize for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system
2004 - Linda B. Buck and Richard Axel share the Nobel Prize for their discoveries about odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system