Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (top rated ebook readers .TXT) 📕

and central neurones, lying anywhere in the cord or brain stem, and capable of directly arousing a certain coördinated muscular movement. One such unit gives flexion of the leg, another gives extension of the leg, a third gives the rapid alternation of flexion and extension that we see in the scratching movement of the dog. Such a motor center can be aroused to activity by a sensory stimulus, and the resulting movement is then called a reflex.

The lower center can be aroused in quite another way, and that is by nerve currents coming from the brain, by way of the motor area and the pyramidal tract. Thus flexion of the leg can occur voluntarily as well as reflexly. The same {54} muscles, and the same motor neurones, do the job in either case. In the reflex, the lower center is aroused by a sensory nerve, and in the voluntary movement by the pyramidal tract.

The story is told of a stranger who was once dangling his legs over the edge of the station platform at a small backwoods town, when a native called out to him "Hist!" (hoist), pointing to the ground under the stranger's feet. He "histed" obediently, which is to say that he voluntarily threw into play the spinal center for leg flexion; and then, looking down, saw a rattler coiled just beneath where his feet had been hanging. Now even if he had spied the rattler first, the resulting flexion, though impulsive and involuntary, would still have been aroused by way of the motor area and the pyramidal tract, since the movement would have been a response to knowledge of what that object was and signified, and knowledge means action by the cerebral cortex, which we have seen to affect movement through the medium of the motor area. But if the snake had made the first move, the same leg movement on the man's part, made now in response to the painful sensory stimulus, would have been the flexion reflex.

Facilitation and Inhibition

Not only can the motor area call out essentially the same movements that are also produced reflexly, but it can prevent or inhibit the execution of a reflex in spite of the sensory stimulus for the reflex being present, and it can reinforce or facilitate the action of the sensory stimulus so as to assist in the production of the reflex. We see excellent examples of cerebral facilitation and inhibition in the case of the knee jerk. This sharp forward kick of the foot and lower leg is aroused by a tap on the tendon running in front {55} of the knee. Cross the knee to be stimulated over the other leg, and tap the tendon just below the knee cap, and the knee jerk appears. So purely reflex is this movement that it cannot be duplicated voluntarily; for, though the foot can of course be voluntarily kicked forward, this voluntary movement does not have the suddenness and quickness of the true reflex. For all that, the cerebrum can exert an influence on the knee jerk. Anxious attention to the knee jerk inhibits it; gritting the teeth or clenching the fist reinforces it. These are cerebral influences acting by way of the pyramidal tract upon the spinal center for the reflex.

Thus the cortex controls the reflexes. Other examples of such control are seen when you prevent for a time the natural regular winking of the eyes by voluntarily holding them wide open, or when, carrying a hot dish which you know you must not drop, you check the flexion reflex which would naturally pull the hand away from the painful stimulus. The young child learns to control the reflexes of evacuation, and gradually comes to have control over the breathing movements, so as to hold his breath or breathe rapidly or deeply at will, and to expire vigorously in order to blow out a match.

The coughing, sneezing and swallowing reflexes likewise come under voluntary control. In all such cases, the motor area facilitates or inhibits the action of the lower centers.

Super-motor Centers in the Cortex

Another important effect of the motor area upon the lower centers consists in combining their action so as to produce what we know as skilled movements. It will be remembered that the lower centers themselves give coördinated movements, such as flexion or extension of the whole limb; but still higher coördinations result from cerebral control. {56} When the two hands, though executing different movements, work together to produce a definite result, we have coördination controlled by the cortex. Examples of this are seen in handling an ax or bat, or in playing the piano or violin. A movement of a single hand, as in writing or buttoning a coat, may also represent a higher or cortical coördination.

Fig. 15.--(From Starr.) Axons connecting one part of the cortex with another. The brain is seen from the side, as if in section. At "A" are shown bundles of comparatively short axons, connecting near-by portions of the cortex; while "B," "C," and "D" show bundles of longer axons, connecting distant parts of the cortex with one another. The "Corpus Callosum" is a great mass of axons extending across from each cerebral hemisphere to the other, and enabling both hemispheres to work together. "O. T." and "C. N." are interior masses of gray matter, which can be seen also in Fig. 18. "O. T." is the thalamus, about which more later.

Now it appears that the essential work in producing these higher coördinations of skilled movement is performed not by the motor area, but by neighboring parts of the cortex, which act on the motor area in much the same way as the motor area acts on the lower centers. Some of these {57} skilled-movement centers, or super-motor centers, are located in the cortex just forward of the motor area, in the adjacent parts of the frontal lobe. Destruction of the cortex there, through injury or disease, deprives the individual of some of his skilled movements, though not really paralyzing him. He can still make simple movements, but not the complex movements of writing or handling an instrument.

It is a curious fact that the left hemisphere, which exerts control over the movements of the right hand and right side of the body generally, also plays the leading part in skilled movements of either hand. This is true, at least, of right-handed persons; probably in the left-handed the right hemisphere dominates.

Motor power may be lost through injury at various points in the nervous system. Injury to the spinal cord, destroying the lower motor center for the legs, brings complete paralysis. Injury to the motor area or to the pyramidal tract does not destroy reflex movement, but cuts off all voluntary movement and cerebral control. Injury to the "super-motor centers" causes loss of skilled movement, and produces the condition of "apraxia", in which the subject, though knowing what he wants to do, and though still able to move his limbs, simply cannot get the combination for the skilled act that he has in mind.

Speech Centers

Similar to apraxia is "aphasia" or loss of ability to speak. It bears the same relation to true paralysis of the speech organs that hand apraxia bears to paralysis of the hand. Through brain injury it sometimes happens that a person loses his ability to speak words, though he can still make vocal sounds. The cases differ in severity, some retaining the ability to speak only one or two words which {58} from frequent use have become almost reflex (swear words, sometimes, or "yes" and "no"), while others are able to pronounce single words, but can no longer put them together fluently into the customary form of phrases and sentences, and still others can utter simple sentences, but not any connected speech.

Fig. 16.--Side view of the left hemisphere, showing the location of the "speech centers." The region marked "Motor" is the motor speech center, that marked "Auditory" the auditory speech center, and that marked "Visual" the visual speech center. (Figure text: central fissure, motor area, auditory area, visual area, fissure of Sylvius, brain stem, cerebellum)

In pure cases of motor aphasia, the subject knows the words he wishes to say, but cannot get them out. The brain injury here lies in the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere, in right-handed people, just forward of the motor area for the mouth, tongue and larynx. This "motor speech center" is the best-known instance of a super-motor center. It coördinates the elementary speech movements into the combinations called words; and perhaps there is no other motor performance so highly skilled as this of speaking. It is acquired so early in life, and practised so constantly, that {59} we take it quite as a matter of course, and think of a word as a simple and single movement, while in fact even a short word, as spoken, is a complex movement requiring great motor skill.

There is some evidence that the motor speech center extends well forward into the frontal lobe, and that the front part of it is related to the part further back as this is to the motor area back of it. That is to say, the back of the speech center combines the motor units of the motor area into the skilled movements of speaking a word, while the more forward part of the speech center combines the word movements into the still more complex movement of speaking a sentence. It is even possible that the very front part of the speech center has to do with those still higher combinations of speech movements that give fluency and real excellence of speaking.

The Auditory Centers

Besides the motor aphasia, just mentioned, there is another type, called sensory aphasia, or, more precisely, auditory aphasia. In pure auditory aphasia there is no inability to pronounce words or even to speak fluently, but there is, first, an inability to "hear words", sometimes called word deafness, and there is often also an inability to find the right words to speak, so that the individual so afflicted, while speaking fluently enough and having sense in mind, misuses his words and utters a perfect jargon. One old gentleman mystified his friends one morning by declaring that he must go and "have his umbrella washed", till it was finally discovered that what he wanted was to have his hair cut.

The cortical area affected in this form of aphasia is located a little further back on the surface of the brain than {60} the motor speech center, being close to the auditory area proper. The latter is a small cortical region in the temporal lobe, connected (through lower centers) with the ear, and is the only part of the cortex to receive nerve currents from the organ of hearing. The auditory area is, indeed, the organ of hearing, or an organ of hearing, for without it the individual is deaf. He may make a few reflex responses to loud noises, but, consciously, he does not hear at all; he has no auditory sensations.

In the immediate neighborhood of the auditory area proper (or of the "auditory-sensory area", as it may well be called), are portions of the cortex intimately connected by axons with it, and concerned in what may be called auditory perceptions, i.e., with recognizing and understanding sounds. Probably different portions of the cortex near the auditory-sensory center have to do with different sorts of auditory perception. At least, we sometimes find individuals who, as a result of injury or disease affecting this general region, are unable any longer to follow and appreciate music. They cannot "catch the tune" any longer, though they may have been fine musicians before this portion of their cortex was destroyed. In other cases, we find, instead of this music deafness, the word deafness mentioned just above.

The jargon talk that so often accompanies word deafness reminds us of the fact that speech is first of all