ACTION CURRENTS IN THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

Abstract

This paper is a report of work begun over a year ago as part of a study of action currents in the central nervous system. A great stimulus was derived from the striking experiment of Wever and Bray¹and its highly suggestive relationship to hallucinations. The central nervous system may be thought of as an organization of tracts and centers which transmit and integrate nerve impulses. Nervous and mental diseases may be considered as disorders of such transmission and interplay. A method for detecting and studying the nerve impulses in the functioning nerve tissue might therefore illumine the workings of the nervous system in health and in disease. We believe such a method to be available in the form of an adaptation of the modern neurophysiologic technic for the study of action currents in peripheral nerves.²It consists simply of a sensitive electrical device for detecting and recording