Neuroanatomy/psychobiology History of Neuroanatomy/psychobiology

Archaeologists searching in regions with a history of advanced civilizations have found evidence of the knowledge of brain surgery, using techniques thought to be unknown to practitioners of medicine before the 19th century.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus Dated and authenticated at 16th Century BC. It is believed to be a copy from a text 1,000 years older. Details surgical procedures, 48 of which are traumatic injuries, and many of those are for brain injuries, with descriptions of the physical exam, treatment, and prognosis. Cranial sutures, meninges, external surface of the brain, cerebrospinal fluid, and intracranial pulsations are described in detail.

The earliest evidence of brain surgery is thought to be from the middle stone age (10-12,000 years ago, found in a site on the Dnieper River in Russia. There is another site in Spain where a skull with trepanation dates to 10,000 BP. The skull above is from Peru and dates to approximately 400 BC.

Brain Salad Surgery

You hold ‘em. I’ll cut.

Trepanation (from the Greek trypanon for drill, or auger) is a procedure by which pressure is relieved from the surface of the brain. Trepanation from the Kashmir region of India/Pakistan, dated approximately 2000 B.C.

Tools, such as these replicas, were first made of stone, but were still capable of making perfect holes as seen in this specimen from the late neolithic period.

Trephinations were mainly used to relieve pressure on the skull, caused by swelling of the brain, much the same way a person relieves the pressure of a subungal hematoma.

Head injuries in ancient times were mainly due to blunt force trauma from a club or stone. Today they are most frequently caused by automobile accidents,

Sports and recreation,

hydrocephaly,

aneurysms, which are caused by arterial, or venal blockage,

(Brett Michaels survived a brain aneurysm)

Shaken-Baby Syndrome,

animal bites (rabies), and many other causes.

What’s your problem man?

Bowling anyone?