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1935
Prior to the limbic system theory, medical treatments of mental illness had been very crude. These largely comprised the destruction of frontal lobe tissue deemed responsible for negative emotion states. Such destruction was first attempted by Egas Moniz based on experiments by John Fulton and Carlyle Jacobsen -
1937
James Papez an American neurologist at Cornell University incorporated Cannon’s ideas as well as those of James Bard, a PhD student of Cannon’s who had isolated parts of the thalamus and the posterior hypothalamus as the diencephalic structures responsible for the sham-rage of decorticated animals and the potential seat for emotional expression. The Papez circuit integrated experimental and neuroanatomical discoveries of the early 20th century. -
1949
MacLean set to writing a paper that explained how the Papez circuit bore significance both for his epileptic patients and patients with psychosomatic complaints