Justo Gonzalo

Justo Gonzalo Rodríguez-Leal (March 2, 1910 – September 28, 1986) was a Spanish neuroscientist, who described and interpreted what he called "central syndrome of the cortex" which is a multisensory disorder with bilateral symmetry, due to a unilateral parieto-occipital cortical lesion. In relation to this syndrome, the author described, among other disorders, the inverted perception disorder (visual, tactile and auditive) and the multisensory and motor facilitation. This phenomenon consists on the improvement of the perception of a given stimulus by the presence of another different stimulus of the same or another sensory system (crossmodal), and particularly by means of muscular activity or effort.[1] He interpreted this syndrome by developing a model of brain dynamics based on neurophysiological studies of brain injury cases and biological principles of growth. The model emphasizes the functional unity of the cortex and offers a dynamic solution for the functional specializations of the brain by means of functional gradients through the cortex, and scaling laws.[1] He received awards from the Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) (1941), the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine (Real Academia de Medicina) (1950), and the Spanish Society of Psychology (Sociedad Española de Psicología) (1958).

Justo Gonzalo Rodríguez-Leal (1910-1986)

Early years

Justo Gonzalo was born and lived in Barcelona, Spain; then spent several years in Valencia, Spain; returned to Barcelona, and finally moved to Madrid, Spain, to study medicine, obtaining his bachelor's degree there in 1933. During 1933-35, he carried out studies at the Nervenklinik (mental hospital) of Vienna University, on clinical neurology and animal testing with Hans Hoff, and also on brain cytoarchitecture with Otto Pötzl, at Constantin von Economo's laboratory. During 1934–35 he carried out research on brain pathology with Karl Kleist at the mental hospital of the Goethe University Frankfurt, granted a scholarship by the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (Council for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research).

It was during this time that he wrote his first works.

Spanish Civil War and post-war period

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), he resumed the neurological activities that he had already started at the then called Hospital General de Madrid, while conducting brain anatomoclinic studies at the Cajal Institute. He practiced war medicine in the Republican front (1937) until he was called in 1938 by Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora, head of the Center for Brain Injuries at Neurological Military Hospital of Godella (Hospital Militar Neurológico de Godella) in Valencia,[2] where he stayed until the end of the war. During this period, he conducted detailed observations on numerous brain-injured subjects and performed, despite the extreme conditions, a fundamental part of his research. Some selected cases were carefully study in the course of several years (see below publications from 1945, 1950, 1952).[1]

During the summer of 1938, he discovered, among other unusual disorders, the almost inverted vision of the war-injured patient that he called "case M", and in 1939 he characterized what he called "central syndrome of the cortex" which presented what he denominated "dynamical action phenomena". This syndrome, caused by a unilateral parietooccipital cortical lesion equidistant from the visual, tactile, and auditory projection areas, is a bilateral, symmetric and multisensory disorder, which presents dynamic phenomena like the disintegration of sensory qualities which are united in normal perception, but which are progressively lost when the intensity of the stimulus decreases, and partially recovered when the stimulus increases or by means of multisensory or motor facilitation. These phenomena were present in several disorders, in particular in the inverted perception disorder,[1] [3] which he studied in detail, specially the inverted vision and the tactile inversion disorders. He interpreted such a syndrome from a dynamic physiological point of view, where the disorder meets the conditions of the nervous excitability.

In 1941, he presented his first results to the Spanish National Research Council in a 94-page report titled Research on Brain Dynamics. The dynamic action in the nervous system. Sensory structures by brain synchronization (original title in Spanish: Investigaciones sobre Dinámica Cerebral. La acción dinámica en el sistema nervioso. Estructuras sensoriales por sincronización cerebral), which was awarded by this institution that same year. During 1942–44, he obtained, subsidized by the Cajal Institute, a more accurate quantitative assessment of the phenomena, in spite of difficulties in obtaining the most essential and necessary instruments for the experiments.

In 1945, the first volume of his book Research on the new Brain Dynamics. The brain activity as a function of the dynamic conditions of the nervous excitability (original title in Spanish: Investigaciones sobre la nueva Dinámica Cerebral. La actividad cerebral en función de las condiciones dinámicas de la excitabilidad nerviosa[1]) was published. The book was dedicated to the visual functions. As his author pointed out in the book, the human brain activity was thus established on a physiological base, filling the gap, existing at that moment, between the brain pathology and the physiology of the nervous system, and establishing a continuity between the elementary or simple sensory functions and the most complex or superior ones, by considering that both are based on the same physiological bases. Apart from local references to this volume when it was published, [4][5] [6][7] [8] [9] there are some other salient ones, [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]

[15] mainly, for example, that of Bender and Teuber (1948):[13]

Thus far, the American and English literature has failed to produce a monograph similar in scope to Gonzalo's Dinámica Cerebral which was based on experiments with brain injured casualties of the Spanish Civil War.

From 1942 until his retirement, Justo Gonzalo was a full-time member of the Spanish National Research Council. Beginning in 1945, he taught PhD-level courses in brain pathophysiology at the University of Madrid where he was head of the brain pathophysiology laboratory. In his PhD courses, he presented the results of his research in detail.

Subsequent years

In 1950 the second volume of Investigaciones sobre la nueva Dinámica Cerebral was published. The volume was dedicated to the tactile functions and the generalization of the concepts introduced in the first volume. Justo Gonzalo describes his 1946's observation of the tactile inversion and its interpretation. Thus, the author generalized the process of inversion in the "central syndrome" to all the sensory systems of spatial nature, corroborating it in the auditory system (1946) as he refers in his subsequent publication in 1952. Among the cases he studied, he described about 35 as "central syndromes" of different intensities, as is shown, for instance, in p. 78 of Annexe II ("Suplemento II") of the reprint of Dinámica Cerebral in 2010.[1]

In the works published in 1951 and 1952, Justo Gonzalo set forth the idea of spiral development of the sensory field, as well as the scheme of the brain functional gradients through the cortex.[1] He had previously described these concepts in the PhD courses. In these courses he also partially developed the concepts of dynamical similarity and allometry, applied to the aforementioned syndrome, understanding this as a result of a change of scale in the nervous excitability with respect to the normal case. He did not get to publish these concepts, which are partially collected in subsequent works [see "Suplemento II"[1] and works of Gonzalo-Fonrodona (and Porras) in 1997, 2007, 2009 and 2014 (see below the section `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work´)].

In 1952 he carried out a search in all the Spanish territory of patients with brain injuries. He selected more than 100 patients which were explored in Madrid. Most of them were from the Civil War.

Around this time, references to the contents of his book start to come out; [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] the book quickly sold out and was never reprinted. Of special note is the reference to his research and the PhD courses that was made by a former student in a Cuban newspaper, [23] as well as the comment that appears, in 1967, in a commemorative publication of the "Neurology Service of Nicolás Achúcarro": [24]

M. Peraita prematurely dead, the only one dealing with neurological matters in Madrid is Justo Gonzalo, a clinician and researcher out of the common... (his) presence in the University as Professor of one of the Ph D courses' disciplines, is -with his original, updated, sharp course- the only encouragement to neurological vocations that has been present for years and years in the Faculty of Medicine of Madrid (Translation from the original).

In 1950, he received the prize awarded by the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine, and in 1958 the Pilar Sangro award of the Spanish Society of Psychology.

After reorganizations in the Faculty of Medicine in 1966, he could no longer impart his PhD courses, mentioned above.

Last years

He continued to develop the concepts of similarity and allometry on the basis of the biological principles of development and growth, applying them to his research of brain dynamics and extending this formalization to the auditory system and the language. Part of that research is collected in Annexe II ("Suplemento II") of the 2010s reprint of Dinámica Cerebral[1] as well as in some other works like those of Gonzalo-Fonrodona (and Porras) in 2007, 2009, 2014 (see below: `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work´). He also approached multiple and varied subjects of Biology, Philosophy, Physics and Cybernetics, establishing connections with his research of brain dynamics (Dinámica Cerebral).

Around this time, the Dinámica Cerebral ("brain dynamics") of Justo Gonzalo is also referenced [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] even from a philosophical point of view, [33] [34] awakening a special interest in the field of Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence. [35]

His research was interrupted only because of his death, in 1986, in Madrid.

Additional information

After Justo Gonzalo died, studies related to the results from his research were carried out in the field of Artificial Intelligence. [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] His works are also referenced in an historical [42][43] [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] [49] and neurological sense [50] [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] [56] [57] (see also the section `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work´`).

For example, worth mentioning is the comment:[45]

Besides Santiago Ramon y Cajal, several authors can be considered founders of the Spanish Neuroscience and Neuropsychology such as Cubí, Simarro, Lafora, Gonzalo, Lorente de Nó. (Translation from the original)

Studies carried out in the 2000s have reported phenomena on tilted or inverted perception and multisensory integration that are similar to those described by Justo Gonzalo. Also, cortical modellings proposed are closely related to the model developed by Justo Gonzalo. Presentation and formalization of the work of J. Gonzalo in the current context is exposed in the works of Gonzalo-Fonrodona and Porras listed below in the section `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work´.

In 2010, coinciding with the centennial of his birth, the Red Temática en Tecnologías de Computación Artificial/Natural (telematic network on artificial/natural computation technologies), together with the University of Santiago de Compostela, published a facsimile edition of the two volumes edited in 1945 and 1950 respectively, plus several annexes; the contents of Annex II ("Suplemento II") had never been published before. The whole, of about 1000 pages, is entitled Dinámica Cerebral (Open Access).[1]

Justo Gonzalo's published works

Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work

References
  1. Gonzalo, J. (1945, 1950, 1952, 2010). Dinámica Cerebral. Facsimil edition of Volumen I 1945, Volumen II 1950 (Madrid: Inst. S. Ramón y Cajal, CSIC), Suplemento I 1952 (Trab. Inst. Cajal Invest. Biol.) and first ed. Suplemento II 2010. Santiago de Compostela, Spain: Red Temática en Tecnologías de Computación Artificial/Natural (RTNAC) and Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC). ISBN 978-84-9887-458-7. Open Access. For a recent review in English see this article (Open Access).English translation of: Suplemento I (Article of 1952) and Indexes of Vol. I (1945) and Vol. II (1950), Open Access.
  2. "Experiencia personal en un hospital quirúrgico de primera línea durante nuestra guerra civil", M. Picardo Castellón
  3. Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I. (2007). "Inverted or tilted perception disorder". Revista de Neurología. 44 (3): 157–65. PMID 17285521.
  4. "Revista Española de Medicina y Cirugía de Guerra". Año VII (6, 7). 1945: 338–341, 382–383. ISSN 0212-3592. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. "Diario ABC. Madrid 13 noviembre 1945": 20. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. d'Ors, E. (1945)"Estilo y Cifra". Diario La Vanguardia Barcelona 27 junio 1945: p. 3
  7. "Revista Arbor (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) 1945 IV(11)": 323–337. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. tipo_busqueda=VOLUMEN&revista_busqueda=1019&clave_busqueda=2 "Bibliografía crítica de libros" Check |url= value (help). Pensamiento (Revista de Investigación e Información Filosófica). 2 (7): 344–346. 1946. ISSN 0031-4749.
  9. Vallejo Nájera, A.; Escudero Valverde (1947). Trastornos psíquicos en traumatizados Craneales. Barcelona: Masso. Cap. II (pp. 37-47).
  10. "Acta Neurologica (Napoli)". Acta Neurologica. Anno I (5): 368–371. 1946. ISSN 0001-6276.
  11. Germain, José (1946). "Progresos actuales en neuropsicología" [Current developments in neuropsychology]. Revista de Psicología General y Aplicada (in Spanish). 1 (2): 425–56. ISSN 0373-2002.
  12. Barraquer Ferré, L. (1946). Fisiopatología y Semiología de los Lóbulos Frontales Barcelona: Publ. Médicas. p. 42
  13. Bender, M.B.; Teuber, H.L. (1948). "Neuro-ophthalmology" Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry III: Chap. 8. pp. 163-182 (p. 171).
  14. de Ajuriaguerra, J.; Hécaen, H. (1949). Le Cortex Cérébral. Etude Neuro-psycho-pathologique. Paris: Masson. pp. 13, 131, 138, 140, 279, 287, 288, 292, 311, 312, 323.
  15. Rodríguez Lafora, G. (1949). "Spanish psychiatry during the last decade". The American Journal of Psychiatry. 105 (12): 901–3. doi:10.1176/ajp.105.12.901. PMID 18150348.
  16. Guiraud, P. (1950). Psychiatrie Général. Paris: Le Francois. pp. 378-379.
  17. Pedro-Pons, A. (1952). Patología y Clínica Médicas. Tomo IV: Enfermedades del Sistema Nervioso. Barcelona: Salvat. pp. 153, 155.
  18. Critchley, M. (1953). The Parietal Lobes. London: Arnold. pp. 276, 300, 458.
  19. Cabaleiro Goas, M. Archived 2011-09-02 at the Wayback Machine (1959). Temas Psiquiátricos. Cuestiones generales y dirección de investigación. Madrid: Montalvo. pp. 30, 374, 380, 704, 621-623, 1000, 1007
  20. Rodríguez Arias, B. (1961). "Historia de la neurología española". Archivos de Neurobiología. 24(4): p. 404. ISSN 0004-0576
  21. Pascual, Carlos Ballús (1964). "Aportaciones de la Psicofisiología a la Psicología clínica" [Contributions of Psychophysiology to clinical psychology]. Revista de Psicología General y Aplicada (in Spanish). 19 (73): 555–8. ISSN 0373-2002.
  22. Cabaleiro Goas, M. Archived 2011-09-02 at the Wayback Machine (1966). Temas psiquiátricos. Algunas cuestiones patológicas generales. Madrid: Montalvo. p 281.
  23. Covas Coro, R. (1958). "La incógnita del cerebro". Diario de la Marina 28 de septiembre de 1958. La Habana. Cuba.
  24. Hospital de la Beneficiencia del Estado (1967). Servicio de Neurología Nicolás Achúcarro, Madrid. Madrid: Artes gráficas Ibarra.
  25. Ballús, C. (1969). "El factor tiempo en los tests psicofisiológicos".Anuario de Psicología, Univ. de Barcelona 1: pp. 5-13. (pp. 11, 13).
  26. Llopis, B. (1970). Introducción dialéctica a la psicopatología Archived 2012-02-14 at the Wayback Machine. Madrid: Morata. OCLC 432559467 . Cap. 3: pp. 188-195.
  27. Ballús, C. (1970). "Enfoques biológicos y neurofisiológicos de la personalidad. Antecedentes, situación y perspectivas". Anuario de Psicología, Univ. de Barcelona 3: pp. 59-100. (pp. 64, 72, 97).
  28. Rojo, M. (1972). Asociación española de neuropsiquiatría Málaga. Diciembre. pp.139-145. (p. 141).
  29. Barraquer Bordas, L. (1974). Afasias, Apraxias, Agnosias. Barcelona: Toray. ISBN 84-310-0866-0. p. 141.
  30. Siguan, M. (1976). "Spain". In: Sexton and Misiak (Eds.) Psychology around the World Cole Cy. Monterrey, Ca. (USA). Translation (1977): "La psicología en España". Anuario de psicología 16: pp. 3-22.
  31. Pérez y Pérez, D. (1983). "Presencia psicofisiológica en la obra de J. Germain". Rev. de Psicol. Gral. y Apl. 38(2): pp. 297-312. (pp. 298-299). Archived 2013-01-28 at the Wayback Machine ISSN 0373-2002
  32. Moya, G. (1986). Medicina y cultura en una España en crisis Archived 2016-02-04 at the Wayback Machine. Madrid: Ediciones de la Univ. Autónoma. p. 136. ISBN 84-7477-067-X.
  33. Roldán, A. (1975). Las incógnitas del pensamiento humano. Madrid: Fax. ISBN 978-84-7071-375-0. pp. 43-47, 455, 456.
  34. Ferrater Mora, J. (1979). Diccionario de Filosofía. Madrid: Alianza Univ. p. 1993
  35. Delgado, A.E. (1978). Modelos Neurocibernéticos de Dinámica Cerebral Archived 2012-01-19 at the Wayback Machine. PhD Thesis. E.T.S. de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación. Madrid. pp. III, IV, 2, 4, 5, 29, 62-67, 69, 83-85, 88, 90, 91, 95, 108, 168, 376, 583.
  36. Mira, J.; Delgado, A.E.; Moreno-Díaz, R. (1987). "The fuzzy paradigm for knowledge representation in cerebral dynamics". Fuzzy Sets and Systems. 23 (3): 315–30. doi:10.1016/0165-0114(87)90045-5.
  37. Mira, J.; Manjarrés, A.; Ros, S.; Delgado, A. E.; Alvarez, J. R. (1995). "Cooperative organization of connectivity patterns and receptive fields in the visual pathway: application to adaptive shareholding". In Mira, Jose; Sandoval, Francisco (eds.). From Natural to Artificial Neural Computation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 930. pp. 15–23. doi:10.1007/3-540-59497-3_151. ISBN 978-3-540-59497-0.
  38. Mira, J.; Delgado, A.; Manjarrés, A.; Ros, S.; Álvarez, J.R. (1996). "Cooperative Processes at the Symbolic Level in Cerebral Dynamics: Reliability and Fault Tolerance" In Moreno-Díaz and Mira (Eds.) Brain Processes, Theories and Models. An International Conference in Honor of W.S. McCulloch 25 years after His Death. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. pp. 244-255 (pp. 244, 245, 247). ISBN 0-262-63170-9.
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  41. Herrero, Juan Carlos (2005). "A Scientific Point of View on Perceptions". Mechanisms, Symbols, and Models Underlying Cognition. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 3561. pp. 416–26. doi:10.1007/11499220_43. ISBN 978-3-540-26298-5.
  42. González Duro, E. (1987). "Presencia de Lafora en el franquismo". In: (Huertas, R., Romero, A.I., Álvarez, R. coordinadores). Perspectivas Psiquiátricas. Madrid: CSIC. (pp. 259, 260). ISBN 8400067312, 9788400067311
  43. Carpintero, H. (1991)."La neuropsicología. Una perspectiva española reciente". Anuario de Psicología 57: pp. 157-168 (pp. 160-162).
  44. Gimeno Alava, A (1997). "Justo Gonzalo y Rodríguez-Leal". Sistema Nervioso. 2 (2): 106–108.
  45. León-Carrión, J. (1998). "Presente y futuro de la neuropsicología en España". Papeles del psicólogo Junio, nº 70. ISSN 0214-7823
  46. López-Muñoz, Francisco; Molina, Juan D; De Pablo, Silvia; Alamo, Cecilio (May 2007). "Lafora y el origen de la neuropsiquiatría biológica española" [Lafora and the origin of Spanish biological neuropsychiatry]. Psiquiatría Biológica (in Spanish). 14 (3): 108–20. doi:10.1016/S1134-5934(07)73269-4.
  47. López-Muñoz, F.; Rubio, G.; Molina, J.D.; García-García, P.; Álamo, C.; Santo-Domingo, J. (2008). "Cajal y la Psiquiatría Biológica. El legado psiquiátrico de Ramón y Cajal". Archivos de Psiquiatría 71(1): pp. 50-79 (p. 67).
  48. Arraez Sanchez, M.A. (2015)."History of Neurosciences and Neurosurgery in Spain"International Neuroscience Journal March 28 online, Open Access.
  49. Gonzalo Fonrodona, I; Porras, M.A. (2015). "El neurocientífico Justo Gonzalo (1910-1986) antes, durante y después de la Guerra Civil española". In:Ciencia y Técnica entre la Paz y la Guerra, 1747, 1814, 1914, Vol. I, González Redondo, F.A. (Coordinador), Sociedad Española de Historia de las Ciencias y de las Técnicas (SEHCYT), Madrid. pp. 431-438.
  50. Arias, M; Gonzalo, I (2004). "La obra neurocientífica de Justo Gonzalo (1910-1986): el síndrome central y la metamorfopsia invertida" [The neurscientific work of Justo Gonzalo (1910-1986): the center syndrome and reversal metamorphopsia]. Neurología (in Spanish). 19 (8): 429–33. ISSN 0213-4853. INIST:16282035.
  51. Barraquer L. (2005). "Brain dynamics of Justo Gonzalo in history", Neurología, 20 (4), 169-73.
  52. Ortega-Márquez, L.L.; Arteche-Prior, M.; Farach-Fnumero, M.; et al. (2009). "Cartas al director" (PDF). Revista de Neurología. 48 (4): 223–224. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-05. Retrieved 2013-01-09.
  53. Sierra-Hidalgo, F.; De Pablo-Fernández, E.; Herrero-San Martín, A.; Correas-Callero, E.; Herreros-Rodríguez, J.; Romero-Muñoz, J. P.; Martín-Gil, L. (2012). "Clinical and imaging features of the room tilt illusion". Journal of Neurology. 259 (12): 2555–64. doi:10.1007/s00415-012-6536-0. PMID 22588254.
  54. Gonzalo Fonrodona, I. (2013). «Cerebro Multisensorial» Investigación y Ciencia. Cartas de los lectores. Junio 2013.
  55. Carrasco García de León, S.; Hernández González A.; Domínguez Bértalo J. et al. (2013) "Ilusión de inversión de la imagen visual. Descripción de una serie clínica de 5 casos", Neurología Argentina, 5 (3), 171-175. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuarg.2012.11.004
  56. García-Molina, A (2015). "Justo Gonzalo's groundbreaking contributions to the study of cerebral functional organisation". Neurosciences and History. 3 (2): 61–67. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2015-08-06.
  57. Yonemitsu F., Sung Y., Naka K., Yamada Y. and Marmolejo-Ramos F. (2017). «Does weight lifting improve visual acuity? A replication of Gonzalo-Fonrodona and Porras (2013)?» BMC Research Notes 10:362 OpenAccess
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