1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910831859703321

Autore

Borck Cornelius

Titolo

Brainwaves : a cultural history of electroencephalography / / Cornelius Borck ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel

Pubbl/distr/stampa

2018

Abingdon, Oxon ; ; New York, N.Y. : , : Routledge, , 2018

ISBN

9781317172802

1317172809

9781315569840

1315569841

9781472469441

1472469445

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 333 pages)

Collana

Science, technology and culture, 1700-1945

Classificazione

HIS000000HIS037030

Disciplina

616.8047547

Soggetti

Electroencephalography - History

Neurophysiology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"Originally published as Hirnstrè€ome : Eine Kulturgeschichte der Elektroenzephalographie (Wallstein Verlag 2005)."

Nota di contenuto

Introduction - brain waves then and now -- Electrifying brain images -- Hans Berger's long path to the EEG -- Electrotechniques of the live mind -- Terra nova : contexts of electroencephalographic explorations -- Set to and survey much! -- Designing, tinkering, thinking.

Sommario/riassunto

In the history of brain research, the prospect of visualizing brain processes has continually awakened great expectations. In this study, Cornelius Borck focuses on a recording technique developed by the German physiologist Hans Berger to register electric brain currents; a technique that was expected to allow the brain to write in its own language, and which would reveal the way the brain worked. Borck traces the numerous contradictory interpretations of electroencephalography, from Berger's experiments and his publication of the first human EEG in 1929, to its international proliferation and consolidation as a clinical diagnostic method in the mid-twentieth century. Borck's thesis is that the language of the brain takes on



specific contours depending on the local investigative cultures, from whose conflicting views emerged a new scientific object: the electric brain.