Garth J. Thomas, Physiological Psychologist: An Appraisal of His Contributions to Memory Research.

This note is a tribute to Garth J. Thomas (1916-2008), late Professor of Brain Research at the University of Rochester, New York. Thomas was an influential psychologist, albeit for his research in learning and memory, as much as for his work as editor of the Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology. In his studies, he combined experimental lesions with behavioral analyses. He introduced the terms "dispositional" and "representational" to describe the 2 different types of memory function, and emphasized that memory must be studied not only through behavioristic psychology, but also in a molecular and physiological context. Through his experimentation in rodents, Thomas concluded that distinct neural mechanisms underpin dispositional and representational memory. Prompted by Thomas' remarks on the future evolution of research techniques, we touch upon some ideas on the engram and the glial theory in a modern perspective.

The Cerebellar System and What it Signifies from a Biological Perspective, by Professor Christofredo Jakob (English Translation).

The paper is an English translation of Christofredo Jakob's 1938 lecture on cerebellar neurobiology, rendered from the original Spanish text. Communicated at the special sessions of the Society of Neurology and Psychiatry of Buenos Aires, December 1938.

Commentary on "The Cerebellar System and What it Signifies from a Biological Perspective: A Communication by Christofredo Jakob (1866-1956) Before the Society of Neurology and Psychiatry of Buenos Aires, December 1938".

This commentary highlights a "cerebellar classic" by a pioneer of neurobiology, Christfried Jakob. Jakob discussed the connectivity between the cerebellum and mesencephalic, diencephalic, and telencephalic structures in an evolutionary, developmental, and histophysiological perspective. He proposed three evolutionary morphofunctional stages, the archicerebellar, paleocerebellar, and neocerebellar; he attributed the reduced cerebellospinal connections in humans, compared to other primates, to the perfection of the rubrolenticular and thalamocortical systems and the intense ascending pathways to the red nucleus in exchange for the more elementary descending efferent pathways. Jakob hypothesized the convergence of cerebellar pathways in associative cortical regions, insisting on the intimate collaboration of the cerebellum with the frontal lobe. The extensive lines of communication between regions throughout the association cortex substantiate Jakob's intuition and begin to outline the mechanisms for substantial cerebellar involvement in functions beyond the purely motor domain. Atop a foundation of anatomical and phylogenetic mastery, Jakob conceived ideas that were noteworthy, timely, and have much relevance to our current thinking on cerebellar structure and function.