Constantin von Economo

In Nancy, he was introduced to hypnosis (under Hippolyte Bernheim); in Strasbourg he became familiar with methods of microscopic research of the nervous system (under Albrecht von Bethe).

In Munich, von Economo worked with Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer and wrote his article "Contribution to the normal anatomy of the ganglion cell."

He also worked in the psychiatry of Berlin under Theodor Ziehen and in the neurologic ambulatory under Hermann Oppenheim and, finally, did experimental animal research in Trieste (under Carl Isidor Cori).

[3] In his early studies, he concentrated on the neuroanatomy and physiology of the midbrain, pons and trigeminal nerve pathway and wrote articles dealing for example with choreic hemiplegia, pontine tumors, mastication and deglutition.

[1][3][5] This encephalitis with acute inflammation of the grey matter[7][8] occurred in epidemic form worldwide from 1915 until about 1924,[8] mainly in Europe and North-America,[9] causing lesions in the substantia nigra.

The symptoms of the somnolent-ophthalmoplegic form were somnolence, often leading to coma and death, paralysis of cranial nerves, extremities and eye muscles and expressionless faces.

The hyperkinetic form manifested itself with restlessness, motor disturbances as twitching of muscle groups, involuntary movements, anxious mental state and insomnia or inversion of sleep patterns.

[3] After the first attempts to divide the human cortex into areas according to the cytoarchitecture by Theodor Meynert, Vladimir Betz, Alfred Walter Campbell, Grafton Elliot Smith and Korbinian Brodmann, von Economo started his own project in 1912 and was joined by Georg N. Koskinas in 1919.

In 1925, their monumental work "Die Cytoarchitektonik der Hirnrinde des erwachsenen Menschen" ("Cytoarchitectonics of the Adult Human Cerebral Cortex") was published.

[10][11] Two years later, a shorter version, "Zellaufbau der Großhirnrinde" ("The Cellular Architecture of the Cerebral Cortex") was published and translated into French, Italian and English.

[2][3] For von Economo, cerebration meant the evolution of the mind through generations, the increase of the brain mass, and the acquisition of new "organs of thought" due to differentiation of cortical areas.