Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Brain research is the ultimate problem confronting man.
The origin of each of us stems from codes of genetic inheritance.
I decided, as a medical student, to devote myself to a study of the brain.
The last thing that man will understand in nature is the performance of his brain.
To the brains of our predecessors we owe all of our inheritance of civilization and culture.
I came to realise that Darwinian evolution had no explanation of me as an experiencing self.
I am passionately devoted to the study of life, and particularly to the higher forms of life.
Those who think 'Science is Measurement' should search Darwin's works for numbers and equations.
We need above all to know about changes; no one wants or needs to be reminded 16 hours a day that his shoes are on.
Many people, including myself, had our scientific lives changed by the inspiring new vision of science that Popper gave us.
I can explain my body and my brain, but there's something more. I can't explain my own existence - what makes me a unique human being.
A board constituted as the board of Sydney Hospital is constituted is not a suitable body to have control of an institute of medical research.
Can the brain understand the brain? Can it understand the mind? Is it a giant computer, or some other kind of giant machine, or something more?
Changes in relative ionic concentration across the postsynaptic membrane are readily effected by altering the ionic composition of the external medium.
I, at the age of 17 or 18 as a medical student, suddenly came up against a problem: 'What am I? What is the meaning of my existence as I experience it?'
I can state with complete assurance that for each of us our brains form the material basis of our experiences and memories, our imaginations, our dreams.
By brain is meant, in the first instance, something more than the pink-grey jelly of the anatomist. It is, even to a scientist, the organ of imagination.
How we come to be, and how we are what we are, is beyond any understanding. I have been obsessed by this, trying to understand the very nature of my existence.
We and our fellow men of all countries must realize that we share this wonderful, beautiful, salubrious earth as brothers and that there never will be anywhere else to go.
In some units it may suppress the motor discharge altogether, in some it may merely slow the motor discharge thus lessening the wave frequency of the contraction and so the tension.
Further study of central nervous action, however, finds central inhibition too extensive and ubiquitous to make it likely that it is confined solely to the taxis of antagonistic muscles.
That a strong stimulus to such an afferent nerve, exciting most or all of its fibres, should in regard to a given muscle develop inhibition and excitation concurrently is not surprising.
A better understanding of the brain is certain to lead man to a richer comprehension both of himself, of his fellow man, and of society, and in fact of the whole world with its problems.
The body and dendrites of a nerve cell are specialized for the reception and integration of information which is conveyed as impulses that are fired from other nerve cells along their axons.
To the extent that we have a better understanding of the brain, we will have a richer appreciation of ourselves, of our fellow men and of society and, in fact, of the whole world and its problems.
England was a delightful and stimulating place for a young academic, although by present standards, the laboratory facilities were primitive. There were almost no research grants and no secretarial assistance, even for Sherrington.
Existence of an excited state is not a prerequisite for the production of inhibition; inhibition can exist apart from excitation no less than, when called forth against an excitation already in progress, it can suppress or moderate it.
In order that a "self" may exist there must be some continuity of mental experiences and, particularly, continuity bridging gaps of unconsciousness. For example, the continuity of our "self" is resumed after sleep, anaesthesia, and the temporary amnesias of concussion and convulsions.
I believe that there is a fundamental mystery in my existence, transcending any biological account of the development of my body (including my brain) with its genetic inheritance and its evolutionary origin. ... I cannot believe that this wonderful gift of a conscious existence has no further future, no possibility of another existence under some other unimaginable conditions.
I maintain that the human mystery is incredibly demeaned by scientific reductionism, with its claim in promissory materialism to account eventually for all of the spiritual world in terms of patterns of neuronal activity. This belief must be classed as a superstition. ... We have to recognize that we are spiritual beings with souls existing in a spiritual world as well as material beings with bodies and brains existing in a material world.
Science and religion are very much alike. Both are imaginative and creative aspects of the human mind. The appearance of a conflict is a result of ignorance. We come to exist through a divine act. That divine guidance is a theme throughout our life; at our death the brain goes, but that divine guidance and love continues. Each of us is a unique, conscious being, a divine creation. It is the religious view. It is the only view consistent with all the evidence.
The brain is a tissue. It is a complicated, intricately woven tissue, like nothing else we know of in the universe, but it is composed of cells, as any tissue is. They are, to be sure, highly specialized cells, but they function according to the laws that govern any other cells. Their electrical and chemical signals can be detected, recorded and interpreted and their chemicals can be identified; the connections that constitute the brain's woven feltwork can be mapped. In short, the brain can be studied, just as the kidney can.