Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior: The Foundations of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research at the National Institutes of Health: v. 62 (Biomedical and Health Research) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1586034715 ISBN 13: 9781586034719

Publisher: IOS Press,US, 2004

Synopsis

"This volume, in my view, should prove to be a landmark publication. Farreras and her colleagues have thrown available light onto what will prove to be a rich field of historical research and historically informed science policy." - Wade E. Pickren, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences This volume breaks new ground in assessing the intramural research conducted at the United States National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness (today the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke) in the 1950s. The research conducted in these institutes was pioneering and laid the foundation for current neuroscience and behavioural research. Dr. Ingrid Farreras uses the records of the time and also oral histories conducted with retired institute scientists to present the institutional context in which the research was conducted. Topics in her discussion include the history of the United States Public Health Service, the creation of the two institutes at the National Institutes of Health, the organization of their extramural and intramural research programs, and brief summaries of the research that the fifteen laboratories and branches of both institutes conducted during the 1950s. Twelve noted scientists involved in neurological and mental health research then provide their unique, first-hand accounts of their experiences at the NIH. The volume also contains four appendices providing information about the organizational structure of the two institutes, the scientists who worked there, citations of illustrative landmark papers that were published based on their research, and selected primary and secondary resources related to the history of these institutes. The aim of the volume is to foster continuing additional descriptive and analytical research on the history of biomedical sciences in the areas of neurology and mental health in the mid twentieth century.

About this title

Synopsis

To understand the groundbreaking discoveries in the field of neuroscience, it is important to understand the context of what came before, in the last half century. This book is a detailed description of the history of The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Blindness (NINDB, today the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke). Two different perspectives (one historical and one scientific) will offer different kinds of analysis, each approach asking different questions, employing different methods, and relying on different sources of evidence. The first scientists laid the vital groundwork needed to make progress against neurological and mental disorders. Scientists today have powerful tools and methods at their disposal thanks to the efforts of the early neuroscientists, who fuelled the engine of discovery and changed the nature of the scientific questions that can be asked today.

This publication can serve not only as an important stimulus for further research, but also provides a perspective that illuminates contemporary policy debates about the nature and direction of biomedical and social science research as well as the relationships between government and science.

Edition details

• Publisher: IOS Press,US
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1586034715
• ISBN 13: 9781586034719
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 396
• Editor: Farreras I.G., Hannaway C., Harden V.A.