A BRIEF HISTORY OF NEUROSCIENCE: From Ancient Egypt to Brain Mapping
- Marcela Emilia Silva do Valle Pereira Ma Emilia
- Jun 24
- 3 min read
🧠 The History of Neuroscience
Neuroscience: do you know what it is? And where it comes from?
Neuroscience is not medicine.
It’s not coaching.
It’s not psychology.
It’s science.
While neuroscience does share knowledge and foundations with medicine, practices similar to coaching, and bases in psychology, it is the Science of the Neuro — the study of the brain and the nervous system.
To truly understand what neuroscience does, we need to take a look at its history.
🧬 From the origins to the birth of the science
The first known clinical record of the brain dates back to Ancient Egypt (1600 BC). The Edwin Smith Papyrus described cases of head trauma, showing that Egyptian physicians already knew that skull injuries could lead to motor and cognitive impairments. It was the first step in humanity’s long journey into the brain.
In Ancient Greece, around 400 BC, Hippocrates proposed that the brain was the center of intelligence — challenging Aristotle and popular belief, which claimed the heart was the center of human consciousness and emotion. However, this theory faced so much opposition that Hippocrates later withdrew his argument.
🧪 From the Renaissance to modern neuroscience
With the rise of the Church, scientific progress stalled for centuries. It was left to Islamic doctors and a few European scholars to preserve and discuss ancient texts.
Only in the 16th century did we see a major advance, when Andreas Vesalius, a physician and anatomist, created precise anatomical descriptions of the brain — all without modern technology.
But the true birth of modern neuroscience happened in the 19th century, with scientists like:
Franz Gall, who developed phrenology (now considered pseudoscience);
Paul Broca, who discovered a brain area related to speech (now called Broca’s area);
Santiago Ramón y Cajal, known as the father of modern neuroscience, who used staining techniques to prove that the nervous system is made of individual cells (neurons);
Charles Sherrington, who introduced the concept of the synapse.
🔬 The 20th century: brain imaging and new fields
In the 20th century, progress in electrophysiology and neuroimaging (like EEG and later fMRI) made it possible to see the brain in action and in real time.
Key discoveries included:
Specific brain regions responsible for certain functions
Neuroplasticity
Neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and acetylcholine
This era gave rise to major subfields, including:
Neuropsychology
Cognitive Neuroscience
Psychopharmacology
🌐 The 21st century: at the frontier of technology
With the Human Genome Project and initiatives like the Human Brain Project and the BRAIN Initiative, neuroscience has leapt into the future.
It’s estimated that we understand only 20% to 30% of the brain’s functioning in detail — mostly in areas like basic motor, sensory, and cognitive functions.
The other 70% to 80% remain a mystery: higher-order functions like emotion, consciousness, feeling, and subjectivity — the very things that make us human.
In recent decades, we've seen the rise of new branches like:
Neuroeducation
Neuroethics
Neuroeconomics
We’ve also witnessed groundbreaking technologies like AI mimicking human thinking, people walking again thanks to motor cortex stimulation, and tools that transport us to other environments in seconds.
Today, neuroscience sits at the crossroads of science and technology — still pursuing its grand mission:“To understand how the brain creates the human mind.”And we might add: how to use that knowledge ethically and meaningfully.
💬 Conclusion
Despite all the progress, the main mission of neuroscience remains:to understand how the brain gives rise to the human mind —and how to apply that understanding in an ethical, transformative way.
Want to know more about neuroscience?Follow me here on Mind the Brain!I share reliable, purpose-driven, and accessible content rooted in science.
Comments