SETI public: Paul MacLean, 94, Neuroscientist Who Devised Triune Brain Theory, Dies

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Hello One and All,
                     Paul MacLean's work was profiled and popularized by
Carl Sagan's book "The Dragon's of Eden which won Pulitzer prize in 1977.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dragons_of_Eden

Alex

SEE BELOW:

----- Original Message -----
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Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 9:50 PM
Subject: [tt] NYT: Paul MacLean, 94, Neuroscientist Who Devised Triune Brain
Theory, Dies

> Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who
> developed the intriguing theory of the "triune brain" to explain
> its evolution and to try to reconcile rational human behavior
> with its more primal and violent side, died on Dec. 26 in
> Potomac, Md. He was 94.
>
> Paul MacLean, 94, Neuroscientist Who Devised Triune Brain Theory, Dies
> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/science/10maclean.html
>
> By JEREMY PEARCE
>
> Dr. Paul D. MacLean, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who
> developed the intriguing theory of the "triune brain" to explain
> its evolution and to try to reconcile rational human behavior
> with its more primal and violent side, died on Dec. 26 in
> Potomac, Md. He was 94.
>
> Dr. MacLean's death was confirmed by his family.
>
> In the late 1940s, while he was a young researcher at Yale, Dr.
> MacLean became interested in the brain's control of emotion and
> behavior. After initial studies of brain activity in epileptic
> patients, he turned to cats, monkeys and other models, using
> electrodes to stimulate different parts of the brain in conscious
> animals. He then recorded the animals' responses and, in the
> 1950s, began to trace individual behaviors like aggression and
> sexual arousal to their physiological sources.
>
> Dr. MacLean (pronounced mac-LANE) termed the brain's center of
> emotions the limbic system, and described an area that includes
> structures called the hippocampus and amygdala. Developing
> observations made by Dr. James W. Papez of Cornell, he proposed
> that the limbic system had evolved in early mammals to control
> fight-or-flight responses and react to both emotionally
> pleasurable and painful sensations. The concept is now broadly
> accepted in neuroscience.
>
> Dr. MacLean said that the idea of the limbic system leads to a
> recognition that its presence "represents the history of the
> evolution of mammals and their distinctive family way of life."
>
> In the 1960s, Dr. MacLean enlarged his theory to address the
> human brain's overall structure and divided its evolution into
> three parts, an idea that he termed the triune brain. In addition
> to identifying the limbic system, he pointed to a more primitive
> brain called the R-complex, related to reptiles, which controls
> basic functions like muscle movement and breathing. The third
> part, the neocortex, controls speech and reasoning and is the
> most recent evolutionary arrival.
>
> In Dr. MacLean's theory, all three systems remain in place and in
> frequent competition; indeed, their conflicts help explain
> extremes in human behavior.
>
> In the 1970s and '80s, aspects of Dr. MacLean's model were
> popularized by the astronomer Carl Sagan and the novelist Arthur
> Koestler.
>
> The triune brain theory remains controversial. Dr. Thomas R.
> Insel, a neuroscientist and director of the National Institute of
> Mental Health in Rockville, Md., said the theory was "outside the
> mainstream of scientific effort," but added that Dr. MacLean's
> research had opened the door for neuroscience to "ask big
> questions about consciousness and philosophy, instead of the more
> tractable questions about vision and movement."
>
> Paul Donald MacLean was born in Phelps, N.Y. He graduated from
> the Taft School and Yale, where he also earned his medical degree
> in 1940.
>
> Dr. MacLean was named an assistant professor of psychiatry at
> Yale in 1951. He later became an associate professor of
> physiology there before moving to the National Institute of
> Mental Health in 1957. At the institute, he was chief of the
> Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior in Poolesville, Md.,
> and retired in the early 1990s.
>
> In 1990, Dr. MacLean explained his theory in a book intended for
> specialists, "The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in
> Paleocerebral Functions."
>
> Dr. MacLean's wife of 64 years, the former Alison Stokes, died in
> 2006. The couple lived in Mitchellville, Md., and on Grindstone
> Island, near Clayton, N.Y.
>
> He is survived by a daughter, Alison Cassidy of Potomac; four
> sons, Alexander, of Lincoln, Mass.; David, an endocrinologist, of
> Middletown, R.I.; James, of Rockville, Md.; and Paul Jr., of
> York, N.Y.; a brother, the Rev. Burton MacLean of Pomfret, Conn.;
> and 13 grandchildren.
>
> Writing in The New York Times in 1971 and surveying the problem
> of intolerance and violence worldwide, Dr. MacLean found that
> "language barriers among nations present great obstacles."
>
> "But the greatest language barrier," he concluded, "lies between
> man and his animal brains; the neural machinery does not exist
> for intercommunication in verbal terms."
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