TY - JOUR
T1 - Neuroscience without borders
T2 - Preserving the history of neuroscience
AU - Lorusso, Lorenzo
AU - Piccolino, Marco
AU - Motta, Saba
AU - Gasparello, Anna
AU - Barbara, Jean Gaël
AU - Bossi-Régnier, Laura
AU - Shepherd, Gordon M.
AU - Swanson, Larry
AU - Magistretti, Pierre
AU - Everitt, Barry
AU - Molnár, Zoltán
AU - Brown, Richard E.
N1 - Funding Information:
FIGURE 1 The first meeting on European Brain Museum held in Paris on 23 May 2017. From left to right (standing in the front row) Zeljka Krsnik (Curator, Brain collection, Croatian Institute for Brain Research, University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Croatia), Richard Brown (Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Dalhousie, University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), Didier Leys (Secretary General, EAN), Lorenzo Lorusso (A.S.S.T-Lecco, Merate and Chair of the FENS History Committee), Cecilia Msekela (St Petersburg Pavlov State Medical University, Russia), Manon Parry (Department of History, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Laura Bossi-Régnier (SPHERE, UMR 7219, Paris Diderot University, Paris, France), Juan Lerma Gomez (Director of the Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante - FENS Secretary General), Fiorenzo Conti (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy), Enikö Kövari (Curator, Geneva Brain Collection Switzerland, Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry, University of Geneva, Switzerland), Jocelyne Caboche (Société des Neurosciences, France), Frédérique Andry-Cazin (Pierre and Marie Curie University, Sorbonne, Paris France), (standing in the second row) Richard Roche (Maynooth University, Ireland), Jean-Gael Barbara (Sorbonne University, Paris - Member of the FENS History Committee), Fernando De Castro (CSIC Staff Scientist, Hospital Nacional de Parapléjicos, Spain), (kneeling) Tasia Asakawa (Director, Development and Communications, IBRO) and Guillaume Delaunay (Charcot’s Library)
Funding Information:
Our thanks to Mathilde Maughan (FENS Office, Bruxelles) and local organizers that carried out and helped for the success of the seminars and for collecting the questionnaires: in Milan, Saba Motta and Anna Gasparello of the Istituto Fondazione Carlo Besta (Italy); in Oxford, Zolt?n Moln?r and Sebastian Vasquez Lopez for the organization, and to the Cortex Club and the Research Centre of St John's College, University of Oxford for supporting the conference (https://history.medsci.ox.ac.uk/seminars/special-symposium-history-of-understanding-of-the-cerebral-cortex/); in Venice, Giuseppe dal Ben and Mario Po? of the USSL 3 and the Scuola Grande di San Marco; in Paris, Yves Agid, Jean-Ga?l Barbara, Laura Bossi-R?gnier of the Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle ?pini?re (ICM) the Laboratoire SPHERE and the Club d'histoire des neurosciences, Soci?t? des Neurosciences; In London John Aggleton and Alan Palmer of the British Neuroscience Association (BNA). Our final thanks to Stefano Sandrone and Paul Bolam for their revision of this manuscript.
Funding Information:
If some of the documents are digitally scanned, or instruments 3D scanned, they are preserved for future generations, and if displayed on accessible and searchable website, this heritage is open for all to use (e.g., https:// history.medsci.ox.ac.uk). Digital archiving can open up the history of neuroscience research on a global stage if there is sufficient interest and financial support. The University of Oxford owns a number of historically important slides, including collections from Sir Charles Sherrington and Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark. The Sherrington collection contains examples of a lifetime of work in understanding the central nervous system, including slides related to original breakthroughs such as cortical localization in the brain (Molnár & Brown, 2010). The Le Gros Clark collection holds brain sections which may be linked to his topological mapping of the main sensory areas of the cerebral cortex and the nuclei of the thalamus. There is also a superb collection of clinical neurological cases with detailed case histories that are currently used for neuroanatomy teaching on computer-assisted learning programmes at the University of Oxford (Chang & Molnár, 2015). These collections are being digitized and made available online as part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust and FENS and developed at the Oxford History of Medicine website, which focuses on the history of neuroscience [https://history.medsci.ox.ac.uk/]. The slides are being made available through “slide”, a system for displaying high-resolution, zoomable, digital microscope slides which includes information relating to the slides and their authors. It is important that key aspects of this history are integrated in our current teaching, and students have access to the slides, letters, original manuscripts (Grainger, 1956). The Internet must be used as a powerful tool for saving these materials. Many classic books are now available online, and many journals have now been digitized and are available online, as are some archives. Unfortunately, although many other institutions throughout Europe possess similarly valuable items, no comparable effort has been made to preserve them and make them accessible to scholars and the public.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2018/9
Y1 - 2018/9
N2 - Over the last 50 years, neuroscience has enjoyed a spectacular development, with many discoveries greatly expanding our knowledge of brain function. Despite this progress, there has been a disregard for preserving the history of these discoveries. In many European countries, historic objects, instruments, and archives are neglected, while libraries and museums specifically focusing on neuroscience have been closed or drastically cut back. To reverse this trend, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) has organized a number of projects, including (a) the History of Neuroscience online projects, (b) the European Brain Museum Project (EBM), (c) the History online library, (d) the FENS meeting History Corner, (e) history lectures in historic venues, and (f) a series of history seminars in various European venues. These projects aim to stimulate research in, and increase awareness of, the history of European neuroscience. Our seminars have attracted large audiences of students, researchers, and the general public, who have supported our initiatives for the preservation of the history of neuroscience for future generations and for the promotion of interest in the history of neuroscience. It is therefore urgent to develop new methods for preserving our history, not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world, and to increase greatly teaching and research in this important aspect of our scientific and cultural legacy.
AB - Over the last 50 years, neuroscience has enjoyed a spectacular development, with many discoveries greatly expanding our knowledge of brain function. Despite this progress, there has been a disregard for preserving the history of these discoveries. In many European countries, historic objects, instruments, and archives are neglected, while libraries and museums specifically focusing on neuroscience have been closed or drastically cut back. To reverse this trend, the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) has organized a number of projects, including (a) the History of Neuroscience online projects, (b) the European Brain Museum Project (EBM), (c) the History online library, (d) the FENS meeting History Corner, (e) history lectures in historic venues, and (f) a series of history seminars in various European venues. These projects aim to stimulate research in, and increase awareness of, the history of European neuroscience. Our seminars have attracted large audiences of students, researchers, and the general public, who have supported our initiatives for the preservation of the history of neuroscience for future generations and for the promotion of interest in the history of neuroscience. It is therefore urgent to develop new methods for preserving our history, not only in Europe but also in the rest of the world, and to increase greatly teaching and research in this important aspect of our scientific and cultural legacy.
KW - archives
KW - history of neuroscience
KW - libraries
KW - museum
KW - preservation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052949792&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/ejn.14101
DO - 10.1111/ejn.14101
M3 - Editorial
C2 - 30099790
AN - SCOPUS:85052949792
SN - 0953-816X
VL - 48
SP - 2099
EP - 2109
JO - European Journal of Neuroscience
JF - European Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 5
ER -