Timeline Brain

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1848        Sep 13, Dr. John Martyn Harlow treated Phinneas Gage in Vermont for a head injury from a tamping iron that had pierced the man’s skull during a blasting accident. Gage survived until 1860, but with definite personality changes that Dr. Harlow tracked.
    (ON, 10/02, p.9)(Econ, 12/23/06, Survey p.3)

1857        Paul Broca, a French neurologist, discovered that particular regions of the brain are specialized for particular functions. In 1861 he authored a classical paper that detailed damage in the brain’s left temporal lobe to loss of speech.
    (WSJ, 10/11/02, p.AB1)(http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Broca/perte-e.htm)

1902        Feb 21, Dr. Harvey Cushing, US brain surgeon, performed his 1st brain operation.
    (MC, 2/21/02)

1920-1950    Fore people of Papua New Guinea were devastated by an epidemic of kuru, a brain-destroying disease caused by abnormal proteins called prions.
    (SFC, 4/11/03, p.A6)

1923        Apr 7, The 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic was performed at Beth Israel Hospital in NYC by Dr K. Winfield Ney.
    (MC, 4/7/02)

1949        Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz (1874-1955) won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his pioneering work in prefrontal brain lobotomy. It was later rejected as a valid medical technique.
    (SFEC,11/2/97, Z1 p.6)(WUD, 1994, p.925)(SFC, 10/8/01, p.A17)

1956        John McCarthy (1927-2011), computer science pioneer, led the first conference on “artificial intelligence” at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He coined the term to attract funding for the conference.  
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCarthy_%28computer_scientist%29)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.114)

1973        Neurologist Oliver Sachs (1933-2015) authored “Awakenings.” In 1990 it was turned into a film featuring Robin Williams.
    (SFC, 8/31/15, p.A12)

1975        California enacted a strict fire-safety law requiring that furniture withstand 12 seconds of flame without catching fire. Manufacturers used large amounts of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) to comply. In 2012 researchers said PBDEs appear to delay the neurological development of children of children. In 2013 state officials moved change Technical Bulletin 117 easing the requirements on flame retardants. 
    (SFC, 11/15/12, p.A16)(SFC, 2/9/13, p.A1)

1976        Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008) wrote "Computer Power and Human Reason." He described here his program called ELIZA that demonstrated a conversation between a patient and a computer posing as a psychiatrist.
    (I&I, Penzias, p.144)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Weizenbaum)

1980        Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to one or more traumatic events, was first defined.
    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder)(Econ, 10/24/15, p.14)

1981        Jun 5, The Federal Centers for Disease Control published the first report of a mysterious outbreak of a sometimes fatal pneumonia among gay men. The syndrome was named Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in 1982. Within 10 years the disease killed 110,000 Americans. People infected with HIV came to be defined as having AIDS when their immune system became so weak that they got one of 26 specific illnesses including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, pneumonia, brain infections and some other cancers.
    (SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.4)(SFC, 7/21/00, p.B2)(AP, 6/5/02)

1982        Psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky authored “Judgment Under Uncertainty,” revealing many of the hard-wired flaws that shape human behavior. Kahneman and Tversky were later hailed as the fathers of behavioral economics.
    (WSJ, 1/24/09, p.W8)(Econ, 10/29/11, p.99)
1982        Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, neurologist, reported the discovery of an infectious agent that linked certain animal and human diseases. His lab identified a tiny molecule in the membrane of cells that he called a proteinaceous infected particle, or prion for short. In 1996 it is suspected that this is the agent involved in the bovine mad-cow disease and the rare human Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
    (WSJ, 3/25/96, p.B7C)

1983        Harvard Prof. Howard Gardner authored “Frames of Mind” in which he proposed the "multiple intelligence theory," which held that there are multiple types of intelligence, such as athletic prowess and musical ability, beyond the traditional math and verbal skills.
    (WSJ, 4/1/02, p.A1)(Econ, 4/17/04, p.80)

1987        An English edition of “The Mind of a Mnemonist” by Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1902-1977) was published.
    (http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=12247)

1989         Gerardo Beni and Jing Wang introduced the expression “swarm intelligence” (SI) in the context of cellular robotic systems. Marco Dorigo (b.1961) helped found the field. It describes the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial. The concept is employed in work on artificial intelligence.
    (Econ, 8/14/10, p.65)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence)

1990        The KE family were brought to the attention of the scientific community about this time. Over three generations of this family, about half the family members suffer from a number of problems, the most obvious of which is severe difficulty in speaking. A mutation of the FOXP2 brain gene was later related to language loss.  
    (http://www.evolutionpages.com/FOXP2_language.htm)(Econ, 12/31/11, p.67)

1992        After hearing about his cutting-edge research on the brain and emotions through mutual friends, the Dalai Lama invited Richard Davidson, a University of Wisconsin-Madison neuroscientist, to his home in India to pose a question: Scientists often study depression, anxiety and fear, but why not devote your work to the causes of positive human qualities like happiness and compassion? In 2010 the Dalai Lama marked the opening of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the university's Waisman Center.
    (AP, 5/14/10)

1994        Marvin Minsky wrote in a Scientific American article that: "In the end we will find ways to replace every part of the body and brain and thus repair all the defects and injuries that make our lives so brief."
    (Hem., 2/96, p.95)
1994        Oct, R.I. Hernstein and Charles Murray published "The Bell Curve." The book asserted that the US is fast becoming an "IQ meritocracy," in which bright people are channeled into High-paying jobs while the very dull, including many from minority groups, disproportionately become welfare recipients, unwed teenage mothers, school dropouts and criminals.
    (WSJ, 10/20/94, p.B1)

1995        Jeffrey Friedman of Rockefeller Univ. and others announced the discovery of leptin, a protein produced by fat cells, that signal the brain to reduce dietary intake.
    (SFC, 6/30/00, p.A3)

1996        Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience ay NYU, authored “The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life.”
    (Econ, 7/26/08, p.83)

1997        Mar 5, Brain researchers announced that some instinctual behavior was successfully transferred between chicken and quail embryos. The young birds did not live past 14 days.
    (SFC, 3/5/97, p.A4)

1997        Aug 27, It was announced that the diet drugs, Redux and Pondimin, caused brain damage in animals at doses similar to those taken by humans.
    (WSJ, 8/27/97, p.A1)

1997        Oct 6, Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, a neurologist from UC, won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the new class of proteins called prions described as "an entirely new genre of disease-causing agents." [see 1982] In 1998 researchers at UCSF developed a sensitive technique for rapid detection of the infectious proteins.
    (SFC, 10/7/97, p.A1)(SFC, 9/30/98, p.A7)(AP, 10/6/98)

1998        A brain implant let a paralyzed stroke victim move a cursor on a computer screen to point out simple phrases. [see Apr 13, 2004]
    (SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
1998        Cybernetics Prof. Kevin Warwick had a chip implanted into his arm for 9 days to monitor his body's electrical signals and transmit results to a computer. He followed up with a more sophisticated chip in 2000.
    (SFC, 4/3/00, p.E16)

1999        Sep 13, Researchers reported that gene therapy restored vigor to aged brains in experiments with monkeys.
    (WSJ, 9/14/99, p.A1)

2000        Dec 1, In South Africa the government agreed to accept a $50 million donation of the drug fluconazole from Pfizer to treat a brain inflammation associated with AIDS. Recent approval was also given for nevirapine, a drug to reduce transmission of the AIDS virus to a fetus.
    (SFC, 12/2/00, p.A12)

2000        Dec 22, A 2nd genetic link factor for Alzheimer’s was reported on Chromosome 10. the 1st variant was known as ApoE4. the new gene was suspected in playing a role in the production of the AB42 protein that makes the plaques scattered through the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
    (SFC, 12/22/00, p.D3)

2001        Apr 10, Doctors in San Diego implanted genetically modified cells in to the brain of a 60-year-old woman with early Alzheimer’s disease in an effort to slow her mental decline.
    (SFC, 4/11/01, p.A3)

2002        Jan 7, Scientists reported that symptoms of Parkinson’s were relieved in rats when stem cells were injected into their brains.
    (WSJ, 1/8/02, p.A1)

2002        Mar 6, It was reported that a 3-year study of heavy marijuana users showed that long-term pot smoking impaired brain function.
    (SFC, 3/6/02, p.A2)

2002        Mar 14, It was reported that scientists had developed a brain implant that allowed monkeys to control a computer cursor by thought alone.
    (SFC, 3/14/02, p.A2)

2003        May 7, It was reported that scientists had altered a common cold virus to destroy a common brain tumor in mice.
    (WSJ, 5/7/03, p.D7)

2003        May 12, A British government doctor reported that the brains of at least 20,000 people, many of them depressed or mentally ill when they died, were removed without their families' consent from 1970-1999.
    (AP, 5/12/03)(USAT, 5/13/03, p.10A)

2004        Mar 17, Harvard researchers reported that an enzyme in the brain appears to regulate appetite and weight.
    (WSJ, 3/18/04, p.A1)

2004        Apr 13, The FDA approved a clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a brain-computer interface.
    (SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)

2004        Jul 30, Scientists reported the creation of synthetic prions and showed they could replicate without genetic material and cause brain disease in laboratory animals.
    (SFC, 7/30/04, p.A3)

2004        Harvard Prof. Howard Gardner authored “Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People’s Minds.
    (Econ, 4/17/04, p.80)

2004        Dr. Edelman and associates in San Diego, Ca., constructed Darwin IX, a mobile physical device equipped with artificial whiskers and a simulated nervous system based on the neuroanatomy of the rat somatosensory system. The team built machines run by computer programs to work the way they thought that brains work and then studied the results.
    (Econ, 12/23/06, Survey p.11)(http://tinyurl.com/yhzf5s)

2004        Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee authored “On Intelligence.”
    (Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.31)

2005        Mar 5, It was reported that an experimental technique called deep-brain stimulation was effective in turning off depression.
    (Econ, 3/5/05, p.78)

2005        Jul, A paper by Francis Crick (d.2004) and his collaborator Christof Koch appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the royal society. It addressed the neurological basis of human consciousness. They suggested various regions of the cortex could be bound together into one cohesive, conscious experience by the claustrum, a thin sheet of grey matter beneath part of the cortex.
    (Econ, 7/30/05, p.73)

2006        Aug 17, Scientists believe they have found a key gene that helped the human brain evolve from our chimp-like ancestors. In just a few million years, one area of the human genome seems to have evolved about 70 times faster than the rest of our genetic code. It appears to have a role in a rapid tripling of the size of the brain's crucial cerebral cortex, according to an article published in the journal Nature.
    (AP, 8/17/06)

2006        Marvin Minsky authored “The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind.
    (SSFC, 12/10/06, p.M1)

2007        Sep 20, It was reported that Arizona Prof. Piere Balthazard planned to use data from brain scans of visionary leaders to plot a map of a “leader’s” brain. He then planned to use the map to help train others use their brains similarly.
    (WSJ, 9/20/07, p.B1)

2007        Sep 24, An Australian man was conscious and spoke to his medical team during life-saving brain surgery in what doctors are claiming as a world-first procedure with cutting-edge technology.
    (AP, 9/24/07)

2007        James R. Flynn (b.1934) authored “What Is Intelligence.” He discovered that IQ scores increased from one generation to the next for all of the countries for which data existed. This came to be called the Flynn effect.
    (http://moreintelligentlife.com/node/654)(Econ, 7/3/10, p.76)
2007        Lumos Labs launched Lumosity, a website of online games designed to improve users’ cognitive performance.
    (Econ, 8/10/13, p.56)

2008        Apr 25, China banned a controversial type of irreversible brain surgery used to treat schizophrenia.
    (WSJ, 4/28/08, p.A11)

2008        May 6, Canadian researchers reported that suicide victims who were abused as children have clear genetic changes in their brains in a finding they said shows neglect can cause biological effects.
    (Reuters, 5/6/08)

2008        Aug 29, French neurosurgeons said they had successfully treated brain tumors through ultra-keyhole surgery, using a tiny fiber-optic laser to destroy cancerous cells.
    (AFP, 8/29/08)

2008        Nov 6, Japanese researchers said they had created functioning human brain tissues from stem cells, a world first that has raised new hopes for the treatment of disease.
    (AFP, 11/6/08)

2008        Dec 2, Henry Molaison (82), a native of Connecticut, died. In the 1950s he had his medial temporal lobes removed by surgery to alleviate his grand mal epileptic seizures. From that point on he was unable to form new memories. Scientists learned from Molaison that the hippocampus is crucial in forming some long term memories, but not for maintaining or retrieving them.
    (Econ, 12/20/08, p.146)

2008        Torkel Klingberg authored “The Overflowing Brain: Information Overload and the Limits of working Memory.”
    (WSJ, 12/13/08, p.A17)
2008        Paul R. McHugh, M.D., authored Try to Remembers: Psychiatry’s Clash over meaning Memory and Mind,” in which he recounts the history of the movement to recover “repressed” memories of abuse.
    (WSJ, 11/20/08, p.A19)

2009        Oct 1, Mattel planned to release its Mindflex toy, which allowed users to lift a ball and send it through an obstacle course using brain control interface technology.
    (SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A8)

2009        Dec 15, Australian scientists reported the discovery of an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter, unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.
    (AP, 12/15/09)

2009        Iain McGilchrest authored “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.” He noted how the left side of the brain specializes in narrowly focused attention and how the right side attends to broader contexts.
    (Econ, 11/28/09, p.99)
2009        Alva Noë, a philosopher at UC Berkeley, authored “Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness.”
    (SSFC, 3/1/09, Books p.J5)

2010        Jan 4, A new report by Canada's Alzheimer Society said Canadians are developing dementia at such a rapid rate that dealing with the problem will cost a total of more than C$870 billion ($835 billion) over the next 30 years unless preventive measures are taken.
    (Reuters, 1/4/10)

2010        Jul 11, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals presented a study that demonstrated a new brain scan to detect the brain plaques in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.
    (SFC, 7/13/10, p.A7)

2010        Nicholas Carr authored “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.”
    (SSFC, 6/6/10, p.F1)
2010        Carl Schoonover authored "Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century" (Abrams 2010).
    (www.livescience.com/14413-brain-images-portraits-mind.html)
2010        Barbara Strauch authored “ The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain.”
    (SFC, 6/7/10, p.E1)
2010        Shankar Vedanta, India-born Washington Post science journalist (b.1969), authored: “The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars, and Save Our Lives.”
    (www.answers.com/topic/shankar-vedantam)
2010        The Allen Institute for Brain Science, founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, launched its human brain atlas.
    (Econ, 9/7/13, TQ p.25)

2011        Feb 12, US researchers said that people who used two specific varieties of pesticide, paraquat and rotenone, were 2.5 times as likely to develop Parkinson's disease.
    (AFP, 2/13/11)

2011        Feb 16, The IBM computer named Watson beat two former Jeopardy champions, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, finishing a 3-day match at the TV quiz show.
    (SFC, 2/17/11, p.D4)

2011        Feb 21, Tom DeBaggio, herb grower and Alzheimer’s patient, died in Virginia. His work included “Losing My Mind” and “When It Gets Dark.”
    (Econ, 3/5/11, p.93)

2011        Mar, IBM began teaching a computer chip, called Synapse, to play Pong. The chip was designed to learn through experience and after a few weeks it was nearly unbeatable.
    (SFC, 11/7/11, p.D1)

2011        May 31, A World Health Organization panel reported that radiation from cell phones “is possibly carcinogenic” to humans.
    (SFC, 6/1/11, p.A5)

2011        Jun 17, It was reported that scientists at Wake Forest have designed a brain implant that restores lost memory function and strengthens recall of new information in laboratory rats.
    (SFC, 6/17/11, p.A17)

2011        Sep 14, Japanese researchers from Hitachi working with university scientists unveiled a headset they say can measure activity in the brain and could be used to improve performance in the classroom or on the sports field.
    (AFP, 9/14/11)

2011        Sep 15, British scientists reported that fluctuating levels of the brain chemical serotonin, often brought on when someone hasn't eaten or is stressed, affect brain regions that enable people to regulate anger.
    (Reuters, 9/15/11)

2011        Sep 28, A British High Court judge said in a landmark ruling that a brain-damaged, minimally conscious woman should not be allowed to die.
    (Reuters, 9/28/11)

2011        Sep 29, The Journal of Psychopharmacology reported that researchers at Johns Hopkins had found psilocybin mushrooms can make people more open in their feelings and aesthetic sensibilities.
    (SFC, 9/30/11, p.A9)

2011        Michael Gazzaniga authored “Who’s In Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain.”
    (Econ, 12/17/11, p.149)
2011        Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner (2002), authored “Thinking, Fast and Slow.” He noted a two tier model of cognition: ”System 1,” which is quick and intuitive, and “System 2,” which is slow and deliberate.
    (Econ, 10/29/11, p.98)
2011        Michael Shermer authored “The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies – How We construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths.”
    (Econ, 6/18/11, p.90)

2012        Apr 12, Brazil's supreme court voted 8-2 to authorize abortions in cases of fetuses with no brains.
    (AP, 4/12/12)

2012        Oct 12, Italy’s top court sided with doctors who blamed a non-cancerous brain tumor in businessman Innocenzo Marcolini on electro-magnetic radiation from his cell phone.
    www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/19/us-italy-phones-idUSBRE89I0V320121019)

2012        Oct, In San Francisco a new brain health center opened as part of the California Pacific Medical Center. It was later named the Ray Dolby Brain Health Center after Ray Dolby, the founder of Dolby Laboratories. In 2014 the Ddolby family acknowledged a $21 million donation to make the center possible.
    (SFC, 9/18/14, p.A1)

2012        Jonah Lehrer (31) authored “Imagine: How Creativity Works.” Lehrer later admitted plagiarism and resigned from The New Yorker. He made a promise to help fix any inaccuracies in his work.
    (Econ, 3/17/12, p.93)(http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2012/07/31/the-fall-of-jonah-lehrer/)
2012        Leonard Mlodinow authored “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. ”
    (Econ, 4/28/12, p.89)

2013        Feb 20, It was reported that the US National Institutes of Health is in the planning stages of a massive effort called the Brain Activity Map (BAM) to understand how neurons actually process information. On March 7 protagonists published a manifesto for BAM in Science.
    (SFC, 2/20/13, p.D3)(Econ, 3/9/13, p.79)

2013        Apr 2, Pres. Obama unveiled the so-called Brain Initiative, a plan to map the human brain and study how it is wired up at all levels.
    (SFC, 4/3/13, p.A1)

2013        May 22, The 5th edition of the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” was released. This marked its first major revision since 1994.
    (SFC, 5/22/13, p.C1)

2013        Oct 18, Canada’s Supreme Court, in the case of a severely-brain damaged man, ruled that family, not doctors, should decide when to cut off life support.
    (AFP, 10/18/13)

2014        Mar 19, IBM said it is teaming up with the New York Genome Center to help fight brain cancer. IBM said its Watson cloud computing system will be used in partnership with the genetic research center to help sequence DNA for the treatment of glioblastoma, the most common type of brain cancer in US adults.
    (SFC, 3/20/14, p.C2)

2014        Jul 7, In an open letter, more than 190 neuroscience researchers on called on the EU to put less money into the effort to "build" a brain, and to invest instead in existing projects. The 10-year $1.6 billion Human Brain Project is largely funded by the European Union.
    (AP, 7/7/14)

2014        Aug 21, A new study suggested that there is an oversupply of synapses in at least some parts of the brains of children with autism.
    (SFC, 8/22/14, p.A6)

2014        Nov, Amazon unveiled the Echo, a 9-inch cylindrical voice command device that plays music, provides news and answers basic questions. It was offered to members of Amazon Prime for $99.
    (SFC, 1/29/15, p.C1)(http://tinyurl.com/mmlp28z)

2014        Nick Bostrom authored “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies,” an examination of artifical intelligence.
    (Econ, 8/9/14, p.68)
2014        Susan Greenfield authored “Mind Change: How Digital Technologies are Leaving their Mark on our Brains.”
    (Econ, 8/30/14, p.72)

2015        Jul 22, Researchers at the Alzheimer’s Association Int’l. Conference in Washington, DC, announced that an antibody called solanezumab appeared to slow the progress of the disease.
    (Econ, 7/25/15, p.63)

2015        Aug 30, Oliver Sacks (b.1933), neurologist and writer, died at his home in NYC. His books included “Awakenings” (1973), “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” (1985), and “The Island of the Colorblind” (1977).
    (SFC, 8/31/15, p.A12)(Econ, 9/5/15, p.90)

2015        Steve Silberman authored “Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity.”
    (Econ, 8/22/15, p.68)

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Subject = Brain
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