Wilder Penfield's Influence On The Brain

The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader about Wilder Penfield and his research over electric brain stimulation. This essay will give a brief biography of Wilder Penfield, a description of his research, and finally discuss the insight his experiments provided and the influence they had on our body and behavior in general.

Wilder Penfield was born in Spokane, Washington, on January 26th, 1891. He spent most of his youth with his mother in Hudson, Wisconsin. In 1904 his mother told him about the Rhodes Scholarship, which is awarded annually for students who study at Oxford University, she said confidently that it was the scholarship for him. Against his better judgment he prepaid over the next few years to become an athlete at Princeton University. While there he decided to pursue medicine like his father and grandfather before him.

In the 1950s, Penfield tried to treat patients with epilepsy by using a mild electric stimulation to the brain. He thought the electric currents would trigger the cause of epilepsy allowing him to pinpoint and remove or destroy it. During his experimental surgery Penfield discovered that stimulation anywhere on the cerebral cortex could bring responses. He also discovered that

stimulation of the temporal lobes could trigger integrated responses such as memories that included sound, movements, and even color. The patients were fully conscious with the aid of local anesthetics, as he opened their skull to conduct his experiments.

Thanks to Dr.

Penfield’s recherce and brain stimulation he was able to map the brain and its functional organization in living people. During his experiments he found that sending a shock to certain parts of the brain would have different reactions. By using this method Penfield was able to find the cause of epilepsy seizers and destroy it. In one case the patient would smell burnt toast right before a seizer, he used this knowledge to probe the limbic system to recreate the smell. None of this would have been possible without the map he created, the map was so influential that it is still used today. However, we no longer need to cut open the skull to see what inside, thanks to modern medicine MRIs are used to see what’s going on in our

heads.

Dr. Penfield’s recherce has made an impact on the way we go about diagnose patients with mental problems. Some of his achievements include writing books in medical and diverse non-medical subjects, created the Montreal neurological institute, and improved neuroscience techniques with a cure for epilepsy (Canadian Encyclopedia, 2015). His scientific papers and handbooks are still being used today as standard references on brain function (US National Library of Medicine, 1977). Penfield also founded the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, which is the world’s leading destination for brain research and advanced patient care.

In conclusion, Dr. Penfield’s life can be summed up by nothing less than extraordinary. With the motto, "Brain surgery is a terrible profession. If I did not feel it will become different in my lifetime, I should hate it." (1921). And titles like “the greatest living Canadian”, there is no doubt that he has made a positive impact on everything he touched. One thing to take away from this article is compassion and dedication. With these two traits, Dr. Penfield developed many ground breaking techniques and discoveries that improved the lives of all his patients.