Yvan Prkachin, Wired Together: The Montreal Neurological Institute and the Origins of Neuroscience (University of Chicago Press, 2026) 296 pp. $115 Hb. $35 Pb. ISBN: 022684546X
Wired Together: The Montreal Neurological Institute and the Origins of Neuroscience by Yvan Prkachin, as the title suggests, attempts to set the record straight on the origins of neuroscience, which, according to Prkachin, have been wrongly attributed to Francis O. Schmitt of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Consequently, the genealogy of neuroscience is presented as having concretised with the institutionalisation of Wilder Penfield’s interdisciplinary fervour to assemble surgery, neurology, and the clinical laboratory together through The Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI). The book highlights certain studies and findings as the backbone of establishing neuroscience as a discipline with networks worldwide that are either strongly or weakly tied to the MNI. The first part discusses the strong ties to MNI, namely Penfield, Molly Harrower, Herbert Jasper, and Brenda Milner. The second part includes the weak ties who spent some time at MNI and later continued at other institutions, mainly Donald Olding Hebb and David Hubel.
The storytelling is organised around chapters on different individuals who are interconnected and appear in each other’s research lives. The events are inherently exciting to read, given the discoveries’ impact and significance. Therefore, the presentation in support of the argument is crucial, and the challenge is to honour the individual contributions across disciplines and institutions, both in isolation and in collaboration, without overlooking the network of research that many hold and that informs one another. The origin of neuroscience is explained with the analogy of the development of a trading language between disparate communities. However, the analogy falls short because multiple disciplines are involved, and the author assumes the reader is already well-informed about the disciplinary boundaries. For instance, neurology, neuropsychiatry, and neurophysiology are not clearly explained, and hence what constitutes neuroscience and which branches fall at which levels remain ambiguous.
The author claims that Herbert Jasper of MNI brought together international brain researchers into an interdisciplinary scientific community that explored epilepsy through neurosurgical practice and the electroencephalogram. Eventually, Jasper and his colleague Alfred Fessard proposed establishing the interdisciplinary International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO), which, by the 1970’s, organised the Society for Neuroscience (SFN). In parallel, Francis O. Schmitt’s Neurosciences Research Program (NRP) at MIT established the term ‘neurosciences’ by bringing together brain researchers but, according to Prkachin, it contributed little to neuroscience. Schmitt failed in his attempt to prove the existence of a memory molecule that stores individual memory akin to the genetic macromolecules, such as DNA and RNA, that store genetic memory. Regardless, neuroscience reflects an amalgamation of Jasper’s interdisciplinary and Schmitt’s transdisciplinary visions originating at the intersections of MNI, NRP, and SFN’s legacies, even though NRP addresses neuroscience only in name.
David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel’s decade-long work helped develop neural network theory and earned them, according to Prkachin, the first Nobel Prize for neuroscience in 1981. This is debatable as it is not clarified what neuroscience entails scientifically, including its boundaries. The staining technique of Spanish microscopist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, which showed nerve cells were separate, won the Nobel Prize in 1906, and is still regarded by some as the first Nobel in neuroscience. The author might have convincing reasons for this choice, but they are not stated clearly. Further, due to an absence of an adequate delineation of neuroscience as a discipline, readers are denied a better understanding of the nuances the author is upholding in this choice.
The book is engaging and rich in content of great intellectual value, especially for readers in the relevant disciplines. The book has succeeded in establishing the greater role of MNI in the origin of neuroscience than that of NRP at MIT, but declaring it the single most significant site for the creation of modern neuroscience requires a justification that accounts for the broader history of institutes worldwide. MNI is undeniably pivotal in the development of neuroscience; however, framing the narrative solely around its origins and limiting it to Western paradigms can be misleading. This is not a negation of the argument, rather a call for a better substantiation. It might not be possible to fit such extensive research into a single book; however, this limitation must be acknowledged.
Arunima A. Vasudevan, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India.
