After providing all the funding for The Brain from Top to Bottom for over 10 years, the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction informed us that because of budget cuts, they were going to be forced to stop sponsoring us as of March 31st, 2013.

We have approached a number of organizations, all of which have recognized the value of our work. But we have not managed to find the funding we need. We must therefore ask our readers for donations so that we can continue updating and adding new content to The Brain from Top to Bottom web site and blog.

Please, rest assured that we are doing our utmost to continue our mission of providing the general public with the best possible information about the brain and neuroscience in the original spirit of the Internet: the desire to share information free of charge and with no adverstising.

Whether your support is moral, financial, or both, thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Bruno Dubuc, Patrick Robert, Denis Paquet, and Al Daigen





Wednesday, 28 August 2019
Shifting Paradigms in the History of Neuroscience

   The development of a scientific discipline over time is often far from a linear sequence of events that build on each other logically. That can happen, of course. But philosophers of science, such as Thomas Kuhn, have clearly shown that “normal science” often operates under a dominant paradigm for an extended period, until enough “abnormal data” (i.e., data that contradict that paradigm) accumulate to lead to a scientific revolution, accompanied by a radical shift in that paradigm.

One of these revolutions, famous in history and entertainingly presented in the Neurohistory Cartoons Project, broke out when the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine was awarded jointly to Italian scientist Camillo Golgi and Spanish scientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal. (more…)

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