Korbinian Brodmann

Korbinian Brodmann ( born November 17 1868 in Liggersdorf; † August 22, 1918 in Munich) was a German neuroanatomist and psychiatrist.

Life

Brodmann was born the son of a farmer and a maid and attended from 1874 to 1880 the primary school in Liggersdorf, following the civil schoolboys in Überlingen and the high schools in Sigmaringen and consistency. Brodmann studied medicine from 1889 to 1895 in Munich, Würzburg, Berlin and finally in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he earned his degree in 1895. 1895 was the license to practice medicine. Then Brodmann worked for a few weeks as a general practitioner in the Black Forest. The summer semester of 1895 he spent at the University of Lausanne ( Switzerland ), where, although he attended lectures, however, was not enrolled as a student. In the winter semester 1895/96 Brodmann started to work at the children's clinic of the University Hospital of Munich Reisingerianums as a volunteer. During this time he contracted diphtheria and took as Oskar Vogt wrote in his obituary of Brodmann, " to his recovery," an assistant position at the he directed mental hospital in Bad Alexandersbad in the Fichtelgebirge on. After his stay in Bad Alexandersbad Brodmann spent the winter semester 1896/97 in Berlin, before he moved to Leipzig, where he worked at the Institute of Pathology of the University of Leipzig. In 1898, he earned the MD at the University of Leipzig with a thesis on the chronic Ependymsklerose. From 1898 to 1900 Brodmann worked as an assistant doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Jena Otto Binswanger. In June 1900 Brodmann began his work at the City Mental Hospital in Frankfurt am Main. There he met 1901 Alois Alzheimer, who encouraged him to deal with neuroscientific basic research.

As a result of this suggestion Brodmann went from August 1901 to October 1910 to Oskar Vogt to the private Institute of Neurology central station in Berlin, from 1902, the Neurobiological Laboratory of the University of Berlin and in 1915 the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research emerged. In 1909 he created at this institute also his main work "Comparative localization doctrine of the cerebral cortex ". His habilitation thesis " The cytoarchitectonic cortical outline of the prosimians ," the basis for the later named after him classification of the cerebral cortex in fields, was rejected by the Berlin faculty.

Over time, the relationship between Brodmann and Vogt increasingly deteriorated. This development eventually resulted in a letter to Brodmann Vogts, in the Vogt dismissal Brodmanns to August 1, 1910 announced. Brodmann asked Vogt about to withdraw the notice at first and offered him for it to terminate on October 1, 1910 after which both finally agreed. The reasons for the rift between Brodmann and Vogt are not released. After his departure from Berlin Brodmann took a job at the Hospital for the mind and nervous diseases at the University of Tübingen, where he could habilitate and highly worked by assistant doctor about lecturer, consultant, and was finally appointed in 1913 professor. In 1916 he moved to Halle to work at the hospital ( State Hospital ) Nietleben. There he learned the medical technician Margarete Franke, whom he married in April 1917. In January 1918, her daughter Ilse was born.

Brodmann finally got an appointment at the Ludwig- Maximilians- University of Munich, where he was from 1 April 1918 as head of the topographic- histological department of the German Institute for Psychiatric Research, later to become Max - Planck - Institute of Psychiatry, worked. In August, however, Brodmann died at the age of 49 after a short illness at the consequences of sepsis. These were presumably to the resurgence of infection, he had a year earlier suffered during an autopsy.

Brodmann areas

After several Vorpublikationen, including in 1903 and 1908, Brodmann published in 1909, its final results for the cell architecture of the cerebral cortex ( Comparative localization doctrine of the cerebral cortex in its principles presented on the basis of their Zellenbaues ). He divided the cerebral cortex after a histologic criteria in 52 fields, which are now named after him as Brodmann areas. Although Brodmann already recognized the functional significance of parceling in approaches ( eg the Area 4 as motor cortex by the Vorbeschreibungen of Exner, 1894, and Campbell, 1903), it became clear to most areas until later what they of the function brain mean. The areas include, for example,

• The area 4 of the primary motor cortex in the precentral gyrus of the frontal lobe
• 41 and 42 on the gyrus temporalis transversus Heschl, which form areas of the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe, primary and secondary
• The areas 44 and 45 in the inferior frontal gyrus, Partes opercularis et triangularis: Broca's area
• The areas 1, 2 and 3 of the primary somatosensory cortex on the postcentral gyrus of the parietal lobe
• And the area 17 of the primary visual cortex in the calcarine sulcus and the areas 18 and 19 of the secondary visual cortex in the occipital lobe.

Bark surface

The work of neuroanatomists as Brodmann has made ​​it clear that the cortical surface, in addition to the simple measurable volume is an important parameter in the description of the brain. First attempts, there was from the mid-19th century. For the first systematic and detailed measurements Brodmann developed and his friend and neuroanatomist Henneberg - Neubabelsberg together a process for which the cortical surface was covered with tissue paper. A term used to date database on a wide range of mammals Brodmann published in 1913.

Works

Brodmann, K.

• Contributions to the histological localization of the cerebral cortex. First report: The Regio Rolandica. J. Psychol Neurol. Vol.2, page 79-107.
• Contributions to the histological localization of the cerebral cortex. Sixth Communication: The Cortex outline of man. J. Psychol Neurol. Vol.10, page 231-246.
• Comparative localization doctrine of the cerebral cortex: presented in their principles on the basis of Zellenbaues. Leipzig:. Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag, 1909, 2nd edition 1925 (Reprint d orig outputs Leipzig 1909 / ue with e Nachw Literaturverz by Ernst Winkelmann & Carl Seidel Leipzig:. .. YES Barth, 1985).

Importance

His work, the topological mapping of the cerebral cortex in numbered fields and areas that are still valid today.

" Brodmann's work has through the introduction of modern imaging techniques acquired a meaning that goes far beyond what Brodmann himself had expected. There are few scientific works that remain important as long in our fast-paced and in scientific medicine as the work of Korbinian Brodmann "