THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM

A fine brain, or a good mind. These terms are often used interchangeably, as if they stood for the same thing. Yet the brain is material substance-so many cells and fibers, a pulpy protoplasmic mass weighing some three pounds and shut away from the outside world in a casket of bone. The mind is a spiritual thing-the sum of the processes by which we think and feel and will, mastering our world and accomplishing our destiny.

1. THE RELATIONS OF MIND AND BRAIN

INTERACTION OF MIND AND BRAIN.-How, then, come these two widely different facts, mind and brain, to be so related in our speech? Why are the terms so commonly interchanged?-It is because mind and brain are so vitally related in their processes and so inseparably connected in their work. No movement of our thought, no bit of sensation, no memory, no feeling, no act of decision but is accompanied by its own particular activity in the cells of the brain. It is this that the psychologist has in mind when he says, no psychosis without its corresponding neurosis.

So far as our present existence is concerned, then, no mind ever works except through some brain, and a brain without a mind becomes but a mass of dead matter, so much clay. Mind and brain are perfectly adapted to each other. Nor is this mere accident. For through the ages of man’s past history each has grown up and developed into its present state of efficiency by working in conjunction with the other. Each has helped form the other and determine its qualities. Not only is this true for the race in its evolution, but for every individual as he passes from infancy to maturity.

THE BRAIN AS THE MIND’S MACHINE.-In the first chapter we saw that the brain does not create the mind, but that the mind works through the brain. No one can believe that the brain secretes mind as the liver secretes bile, or that it grinds it out as a mill does flour. Indeed, just what their exact relation is has not yet been settled. Yet it is easy to see that if the mind must use the brain as a machine and work through it, then the mind must be subject to the limitations of its machine, or, in other words, the mind cannot be better than the brain through which it operates. A brain and nervous system that are poorly developed or insufficiently nourished mean low grade of efficiency in our mental processes, just as a poorly constructed or wrongly adjusted motor means loss of power in applying the electric current to its work. We will, then, look upon the mind and the brain as counterparts of each other, each performing activities which correspond to activities in the other, both inextricably bound together at least so far as this life is concerned, and each getting its significance by its union with the other. This view will lend interest to a brief study of the brain and nervous system.

2. THE MIND’S DEPENDENCE ON THE EXTERNAL WORLD

But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning and consider the babe when it first opens its eyes on the scenes of its new existence. What is in its mind? What does it think about? Nothing. Imagine, if you can, a person born blind and deaf, and without the sense of touch, taste, or smell. Let such a person live on for a year, for five years, for a lifetime. What would he know? What ray of intelligence would enter his mind? What would he think about? All would be dark to his eyes, all silent to his ears, all tasteless to his mouth, all odorless to his nostrils, all touchless to his skin. His mind would be a blank. He would have no mind. He could not get started to think. He could not get started to act. He would belong to a lower scale of life than the tiny animal that floats with the waves and the tide in the ocean without power to direct its own course. He would be but an inert mass of flesh without sense or intelligence.

THE MIND AT BIRTH.-Yet this is the condition of the babe at birth. It is born practically blind and deaf, without definite sense of taste or smell. Born without anything to think about, and no way to get anything to think about until the senses wake up and furnish some material from the outside world. Born with all the mechanism of muscle and nerve ready to perform the countless complex movements of arms and legs and body which characterize every child, he could not successfully start these activities without a message from the senses to set them going. At birth the child probably has only the senses of contact and temperature present with any degree of clearness; taste soon follows; vision of an imperfect sort in a few days; hearing about the same time, and smell a little later. The senses are waking up and beginning their acquaintance with the outside world.

THE WORK OF THE SENSES.-And what a problem the senses have to solve! On the one hand the great universe of sights and sounds, of tastes and smells, of contacts and temperatures, and whatever else may belong to the material world in which we live; and on the other hand the little shapeless mass of gray and white pulpy matter called the brain, incapable of sustaining its own shape, shut away in the darkness of a bony case with no possibility of contact with the outside world, and possessing no means of communicating with it except through the senses. And yet this universe of external things must be brought into communication with the seemingly insignificant but really wonderful brain, else the mind could never be. Here we discover, then, the two great factors which first require our study if we would understand the growth of the mind-the material world without, and the brain within. For it is the action and interaction of these which lie at the bottom of the mind’s development. Let us first look a little more closely at the brain and the accompanying nervous system.

3. STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

It will help in understanding both the structure and the working of the nervous system to keep in mind that it contains but one fundamental unit of structure. This is the neurone. Just as the house is built up by adding brick upon brick, so brain, cord, nerves and organs of sense are formed by the union of numberless neurones.

THE NEURONE.-What, then, is a neurone? What is its structure, its function, how does it act? A neurone is a protoplasmic cell, with its outgrowing fibers. The cell part of the neurone is of a variety of shapes, triangular, pyramidal, cylindrical, and irregular. The cells vary in size from 1/250 to 1/3500 of an inch in diameter. In general the function of the cell is thought to be to generate the nervous energy responsible for our consciousness-sensation, memory, reasoning, feeling and all the rest, and for our movements. The cell also provides for the nutrition of the fibers.

NEURONE FIBERS.-The neurone fibers are of two kinds, dendrites and axons. The dendrites are comparatively large in diameter, branch freely, like the branches of a tree, and extend but a relatively short distance from the parent cell. Axons are slender, and branch but little, and then approximately at right angles. They reach a much greater distance from the cell body than the dendrites. Neurones vary greatly in length. Some of those found in the spinal cord and brain are not more than 1/12 of an inch long, while others which reach from the extremities to the cord, measure several feet. Both dendrites and axons are of diameter so small as to be invisible except under the microscope.

NEUROGLIA.-Out of this simple structural element, the neurone, the entire nervous system is built. True, the neurones are held in place, and perhaps insulated, by a kind of soft cement called neuroglia. But this seems to possess no strictly nervous function. The number of the microscopic neurones required to make up the mass of the brain, cord and peripheral nervous system is far beyond our mental grasp. It is computed that the brain and cord contain some 3,000 millions of them.

COMPLEXITY OF THE BRAIN.-Something of the complexity of the brain structure can best be understood by an illustration. Professor Stratton estimates that if we were to make a model of the human brain, using for the neurone fibers wires so small as to be barely visible to the eye, in order to find room for all the wires the model would need to be the size of a city block on the base and correspondingly high. Imagine a telephone system of this complexity operating from one switch-board!

“GRAY” AND “WHITE” MATTER.-The “gray matter” of the brain and cord is made up of nerve cells and their dendrites, and the terminations of axons, which enter from the adjoining white matter. A part of the mass of gray matter also consists of the neuroglia which surrounds the nerve cells and fibers, and a network of blood vessels. The “white matter” of the central system consists chiefly of axons with their enveloping or medullary, sheath and neuroglia. The white matter contains no nerve cells or dendrites. The difference in color of the gray and the white matter is caused chiefly by the fact that in the gray masses the medullary sheath, which is white, is lacking, thus revealing the ashen gray of the nerve threads. In the white masses the medullary sheath is present.

4. GROSS STRUCTURE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

DIVISIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.-The nervous system may be considered in two divisions: (1) The central system, which consists of the brain and spinal cord, and (2) the peripheral system, which comprises the sensory and motor neurones connecting the periphery and the internal organs with the central system and the specialized end-organs of the senses. The sympathetic system, which is found as a double chain of nerve connections joining the roots of sensory and motor nerves just outside the spinal column, does not seem to be directly related to consciousness and so will not be discussed here. A brief description of the nervous system will help us better to understand how its parts all work together in so wonderful a way to accomplish their great result.

THE CENTRAL SYSTEM.-In the brain we easily distinguish three major divisions-the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata. The medulla is but the enlarged upper part of the cord where it connects with the brain. It is about an inch and a quarter long, and is composed of both medullated and unmedullated fibers-that is of both “white” and “gray” matter. In the medulla, the unmedullated neurones which comprise the center of the cord are passing to the outside, and the medullated to the inside, thus taking the positions they occupy in the cerebrum. Here also the neurones are crossing, or changing sides, so that those which pass up the right side of the cord finally connect with the left side of the brain, and vice versa.

THE CEREBELLUM.-Lying just back of the medulla and at the rear part of the base of the cerebrum is the cerebellum, or “little brain,” approximately as large as the fist, and composed of a complex arrangement of white and gray matter. Fibers from the spinal cord enter this mass, and others emerge and pass on into the cerebrum, while its two halves also are connected with each other by means of cross fibers.

THE CEREBRUM.-The cerebrum occupies all the upper part of the skull from the front to the rear. It is divided symmetrically into two hemispheres, the right and the left. These hemispheres are connected with each other by a small bridge of fibers called the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere is furrowed and ridged with convolutions, an arrangement which allows greater surface for the distribution of the gray cellular matter over it. Besides these irregularities of surface, each hemisphere is marked also by two deep clefts or fissures-the fissure of Rolando, extending from the middle upper part of the hemisphere downward and forward, passing a little in front of the ear and stopping on a level with the upper part of it; and the fissure of Sylvius, beginning at the base of the brain somewhat in front of the ear and extending upward and backward at an acute angle with the base of the hemisphere.

The surface of each hemisphere may be thought of as mapped out into four lobes: The frontal lobe, which includes the front part of the hemisphere and extends back to the fissure of Rolando and down to the fissure of Sylvius; the parietal lobe, which lies back of the fissure of Rolando and above that of Sylvius and extends back to the occipital lobe; the occipital lobe, which includes the extreme rear portion of the hemisphere; and the temporal lobe, which lies below the fissure of Sylvius and extends back to the occipital lobe.

THE CORTEX.-The gray matter of the hemispheres, unlike that of the cord, lies on the surface. This gray exterior portion of the cerebrum is called the cortex, and varies from one-twelfth to one-eighth of an inch in thickness. The cortex is the seat of all consciousness and of the control of voluntary movement.

THE SPINAL CORD.-The spinal cord proceeds from the base of the brain downward about eighteen inches through a canal provided for it in the vertebrae of the spinal column. It is composed of white matter on the outside, and gray matter within. A deep fissure on the anterior side and another on the posterior cleave the cord nearly in twain, resembling the brain in this particular. The gray matter on the interior is in the form of two crescents connected by a narrow bar.

The peripheral nervous system consists of thirty-one pairs of nerves, with their end-organs, branching off from the cord, and twelve pairs that have their roots in the brain. Branches of these forty-three pairs of nerves reach to every part of the periphery of the body and to all the internal organs.

It will help in understanding the peripheral system to remember that a nerve consists of a bundle of neurone fibers each wrapped in its medullary sheath and sheath of Schwann. Around this bundle of neurones, that is around the nerve, is still another wrapping, silvery-white, called the neurilemma. The number of fibers going to make up a nerve varies from about 5,000 to 100,000. Nerves can easily be identified in a piece of lean beef, or even at the edge of a serious gash in one’s own flesh!

Bundles of sensory fibers constituting a sensory nerve root enter the spinal cord on the posterior side through holes in the vertebrae. Similar bundles of motor fibers in the form of a motor nerve root emerge from the cord at the same level. Soon after their emergence from the cord, these two nerves are wrapped together in the same sheath and proceed in this way to the periphery of the body, where the sensory nerve usually ends in a specialized end-organ fitted to respond to some certain stimulus from the outside world. The motor nerve ends in minute filaments in the muscular organ which it governs. Both sensory and motor nerves connect with fibers of like kind in the cord and these in turn with the cortex, thus giving every part of the periphery direct connection with the cortex.

The end-organs of the sensory nerves are nerve masses, some of them, as the taste buds of the tongue, relatively simple; and others, as the eye or ear, very complex. They are all alike in one particular; namely, that each is fitted for its own particular work and can do no other. Thus the eye is the end-organ of sight, and is a wonderfully complex arrangement of nerve structure combined with refracting media, and arranged to respond to the rapid ether waves of light. The ear has for its essential part the specialized endings of the auditory nerve, and is fitted to respond to the waves carried to it in the air, giving the sensation of sound. The end-organs of touch, found in greatest perfection in the finger tips, are of several kinds, all very complicated in structure. And so on with each of the senses. Each particular sense has some form of end-organ specially adapted to respond to the kind of stimulus upon which its sensation depends, and each is insensible to the stimuli of the others, much as the receiver of a telephone will respond to the tones of our voice, but not to the touch of our fingers as will the telegraph instrument, and vice versa. Thus the eye is not affected by sounds, nor touch by light. Yet by means of all the senses together we are able to come in contact with the material world in a variety of ways.

5. LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTION IN THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

DIVISION OF LABOR.-Division of labor is the law in the organic world as in the industrial. Animals of the lowest type, such as the amoeba, do not have separate organs for respiration, digestion, assimilation, elimination, etc., the one tissue performing all of these functions. But in the higher forms each organ not only has its own specific work, but even within the same organ each part has its own particular function assigned. Thus we have seen that the two parts of the neurone probably perform different functions, the cells generating energy and the fibers transmitting it.

It will not seem strange, then, that there is also a division of labor in the cellular matter itself in the nervous system. For example, the little masses of ganglia which are distributed at intervals along the nerves are probably for the purpose of reenforcing the nerve current, much as the battery cells in the local telegraph office reenforce the current from the central office. The cellular matter in the spinal cord and lower parts of the brain has a very important work to perform in receiving messages from the senses and responding to them in directing the simpler reflex acts and movements which we learn to execute without our consciousness being called upon, thus leaving the mind free from these petty things to busy itself in higher ways. The cellular matter of the cortex performs the highest functions of all, for through its activity we have consciousness.

The gray matter of the cerebellum, the medulla, and the cord may receive impressions from the senses and respond to them with movements, but their response is in all cases wholly automatic and unconscious. A person whose hemispheres had been injured in such a way as to interfere with the activity of the cortex might still continue to perform most if not all of the habitual movements of his life, but they would be mechanical and not intelligent. He would lack all higher consciousness. It is through the activity of this thin covering of cellular matter of the cerebrum, the cortex, that our minds operate; here are received stimuli from the different senses, and here sensations are experienced. Here all our movements which are consciously directed have their origin. And here all our thinking, feeling, and willing are done.

DDIVISION OF LABOR IN THE CORTEX.-Nor does the division of labor in the nervous system end with this assignment of work. The cortex itself probably works essentially as a unit, yet it is through a shifting of tensions from one area to another that it acts, now giving us a sensation, now directing a movement, and now thinking a thought or feeling an emotion. Localization of function is the rule here also. Certain areas of the cortex are devoted chiefly to sensations, others to motor impulses, and others to higher thought activities, yet in such a way that all work together in perfect harmony, each reenforcing the other and making its work significant. Thus the front portion of the cortex seems to be devoted to the higher thought activities; the region on both sides of the fissure of Rolando, to motor activities; and the rear and lower parts to sensory activities; and all are bound together and made to work together by the association fibers of the brain.

In the case of the higher thought activities, it is not probable that one section of the frontal lobes of the cortex is set apart for thinking, one for feeling, and one for willing, i>etc., but rather that the whole frontal part of the cortex is concerned in each. In the motor and sensory areas, however, the case is different; for here a still further division of labor occurs. For example, in the motor region one small area seems connected with movements of the head, one with the arm, one with the leg, one with the face, and another with the organs of speech; likewise in the sensory region, one area is devoted to vision, one to hearing, one to taste and smell, and one to touch, etc.. We must bear in mind, however, that these regions are not mapped out as accurately as are the boundaries of our states-that no part of the brain is restricted wholly to either sensory or motor nerves, and that no part works by itself independently of the rest of the brain. We name a tract from the predominance of nerves which end there, or from the chief functions which the area performs. The motor localization seems to be the most perfect. Indeed, experimentation on the brains of monkeys has been successful in mapping out motor areas so accurately that such small centers as those connected with the bending of one particular leg or the flexing of a thumb have been located. Yet each area of the cortex is so connected with every other area by the millions of association fibers that the whole brain is capable of working together as a unit, thus unifying and harmonizing our thoughts, emotions, and acts.

6. FORMS OF SENSORY STIMULI

Let us next inquire how this mechanism of the nervous system is acted upon in such a way as to give us sensations. In order to understand this, we must first know that all forms of matter are composed of minute atoms which are in constant motion, and by imparting this motion to the air or the ether which surrounds them, are constantly radiating energy in the form of minute waves throughout space. These waves, or radiations, are incredibly rapid in some instances and rather slow in others. In sending out its energy in the form of these waves, the physical world is doing its part to permit us to form its acquaintance. The end-organs of the sensory nerves must meet this advance half-way, and be so constructed as to be affected by the different forms of energy which are constantly beating upon them.

THE END-ORGANS AND THEIR RESPONSE TO STIMULI.-Thus the radiations of ether from the sun, our chief source of light, are so rapid that billions of them enter the eye in a second of time, and the retina is of such a nature that its nerve cells are thrown into activity by these waves; the impulse is carried over the optic nerve to the occipital lobe of the cortex, and the sensation of sight is the result. The different colors also, from the red of the spectrum to the violet, are the result of different vibration rates in the waves of ether which strike the retina; and in order to perceive color, the retina must be able to respond to the particular vibration rate which represents each color. Likewise in the sense of touch the end-organs are fitted to respond to very rapid vibrations, and it is possible that the different qualities of touch are produced by different vibration rates in the atoms of the object we are touching. When we reach the ear, we have the organ which responds to the lowest vibration rate of all, for we can detect a sound made by an object which is vibrating from twenty to thirty times a second. The highest vibration rate which will affect the ear is some forty thousand per second.

Thus it is seen that there are great gaps in the different rates to which our senses are fitted to respond-a sudden drop from billions in the case of the eye to millions in touch, and to thousands or even tens in hearing. This makes one wonder whether there are not many things in nature which man has never discovered simply because he has not the sense mechanism enabling him to become conscious of their existence. There are undoubtedly “more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”/p>

DEPENDENCE OF THE MIND ON THE SENSES.-Only as the senses bring in the material, has the mind anything with which to build. Thus have the senses to act as messengers between the great outside world and the brain; to be the servants who shall stand at the doorways of the body-the eyes, the ears, the finger tips-each ready to receive its particular kind of impulse from nature and send it along the right path to the part of the cortex where it belongs, so that the mind can say, “A sight,” “A sound,” or “A touch.” Thus does the mind come to know the universe of the senses. Thus does it get the material out of which memory, imagination, and thought begin. Thus and only thus does the mind secure the crude material from which the finished superstructure is finally built.