Neuronal Mechanisms Recording the Stream of Consciousness–A Reappraisal of Wilder Penfield’s (1891–1976) Concept of Experiential Phenomena Elicited by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cortex

Abstract

Research on memory has been a major focus in the neurosciences over the past decades. An important advance was achieved by Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute, who reported from the 1930s to the 1950s about experiential phenomena induced by electrical brain stimulation in humans, implying neuronal causation of memory. Since then, neuroscientists have addressed the topic of memory from a range of subdisciplines; however, these reports by Penfield and his group as well as those on patient H. M. by Brenda Milner at the same institution continue to be referenced as groundbreaking. Further experimental work by Nobel laureates Eric Kandel and John O'Keefe, as well as by Edvard and May-Britt Moser related Penfield's patient documentation to experiential phenomena. However, our reassessment of Penfield's original patient documentation questions the stance that he had uncovered the "storehouse of memories." Human memory must be regarded more as context sensitive and as representative of an active reconstructive process, than as a simple recording of events. Hence, strategies aiming at naturalizing all phenomena of mind (including memory) to cellular and molecular mechanisms cannot convincingly refer to Penfield's electrophysiological studies alone as evidence that memories are solely caused by neuronal firing patterns.

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