-
500 BCE
Alcmaeon
The first person to identify the brain as the source of mental processes. His research was one of the earliest documented records of the brain vs heart debate. -
450 BCE
Empedocles
Proposed that every living and non-living thing is made from either earth, fire, air, and water. He took the heart side of the brain vs heart debate. -
350 BCE
Aristotle
A Greek philosopher who dissected animals to learn about anatomy. He believed that the brain had no role in behaviour and was a cooling mechanism instead. -
1 CE
Galen
A Greek physician who observed that nerves from sense organs went to the brain and not to the heart, so he argued for the brain hypothesis -
Rene Descartes
A French Philosopher who thought that the mind and body are two different things. However, he reasoned that they interact through the pineal gland and affect each other. -
Franz Gall
A German physician who proposed that different parts of the brain had different functions (localization of brain function). Gall and Johann Spurzheim studied different skulls, which led them to link various mental abilities and behaviours to different brain locations.