Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

But there is more neuro- logical data to come. A large part of the brain at the base of the skull is called the cerebellum. For a long time it was thought that this organ was concerned with the sense of balance and associated muscular matters. But, quite recently it has been discovered that the cerebellum has other functions. Nerve fibres were found running from the cerebellum right round to the cortex of the brain. Professor Adrian at Cambridge found that these fibres tended to inhibit the sensory functions of the cortex. Let us explain this more fully. If you put a couple of electrodes in a certain part of the cortex and then stick a pin in the sub- ject’s foot, say, you get a spurt of electricity coming out of your electrodes. Adrian found that if you electrically stimulate certain parts of the cerebellum at the same time, you did not get any electricity out of your electrodes in the cortex. What this means is, we must emphasise, still a matter for _speculation rather than for positive statements. But con- - AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION 10 sider the following. Normally, when something sharp sticks into someone’s foot, the foot is withdrawn pretty quickly. This is because nerve impulses from sense organs in the foot enter the nervous system and set up nerve impulses to the leg muscles, making them contract. Some of the in- going nerve impulses get no further than the spinal cord, where they do their job of starting outgoing impulses to the muscles. But other in- going impulses travel right up to the cerebral cortex and do the same job there. It now looks as though the cerebellum may be able to stop the cortex from sending impulses to the muscles in response to the sensation of pain in the foot. Time and again you hear of people who do not react in an automatic manner to painful, damaging stimuli—the person who continues to hold onto burning clothing as he drags a fire victim free; the miner who refuses to climb out from under a fallen beam that has crushed his_ shoulder, because that would bury his comrades; and, of a different order of bravery, the volun- Ccomiclooks.con *