ORGANIC MENTAL SYNDROME WITH PHENOMENA OF EXTINCTION AND ALLESTHESIA

Abstract

CLINICAL neurologists are rarely inclined to study their patients from a psychologic point of view with the same intensity as they study them from the neurophysiologic standpoint. The clinician readily accepts the observations made by the physiologist on synaptic or neuronal function. He seems to understand these findings because his neurologic orientation has been in this direction. Current teaching stresses that nerve impulses are transmitted in sensory and motor nerves over definite, restricted paths, and in the central nervous system from one point to another through intercellular connections. There is little emphasis on theories which postulate collective action within the nervous system. Such theories have been proposed by Jackson,¹ Goldstein,² Lashley,³ Klüver⁴ and others.⁵ After reviewing his experimental work, Lashley stated that "behavior seems to be determined by masses of excitation, by the form or relations or proportions of excitation within general fields of activity