Justo Gonzalo
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Justo Gonzalo Rodríguez-Leal (
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
,
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, March 2, 1910 –
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
,
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, September 28, 1986), Spanish
neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...
, after obtaining his bachelor's degree in medicine, he specialized in
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and
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(1933–35) with a grant from the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas (Council for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research), and subsequently carried out extensive research on human
brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...
functions based largely on
brain injuries Neurotrauma, brain damage or brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating t ...
from the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
(1936–39). He characterized what he called the ''central syndrome of the
cortex Cortex or cortical may refer to: Biology * Cortex (anatomy), the outermost layer of an organ ** Cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the vertebrate cerebrum, part of which is the ''forebrain'' *** Motor cortex, the regions of the cerebral cortex i ...
'' (multisensory and bilateral disorder caused by a unilateral lesion in a parieto-occipital association area), which he interpreted based on physiological laws of nervous excitability and a model of ''brain dynamics'' where the
cortex Cortex or cortical may refer to: Biology * Cortex (anatomy), the outermost layer of an organ ** Cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the vertebrate cerebrum, part of which is the ''forebrain'' *** Motor cortex, the regions of the cerebral cortex i ...
is conceived as a dynamic functional unit with specificity in gradation, providing a solution to the question of brain localization. He described and interpreted phenomena such as inverted
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
and multisensory and
motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power g ...
facilitation, among others. By applying concepts of dynamic similarity, he formulated and proved potential
allometric Allometry is the study of the relationship of body size to shape, anatomy, physiology and finally behaviour, first outlined by Otto Snell in 1892, by D'Arcy Thompson in 1917 in ''On Growth and Form'' and by Julian Huxley in 1932. Overview Allome ...
laws in the loss of functions and in the sensory organization. He belonged to the
Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...
(CSIC) from 1942 until his retirement, and he was lecturer of 21 PhD courses (1945-1966) on brain
physiopathology Pathophysiology ( physiopathology) – a convergence of pathology with physiology – is the study of the disordered physiological processes that cause, result from, or are otherwise associated with a disease or injury. Pathology is th ...
at the Faculty of Medicine in the University of Madrid. He received awards from the CSIC (1941), the Royal Academy of Medicine (1950) and the Spanish Society of Psychology (1958).


His scientific contribution

His book ''Investigaciones sobre la nueva Dinámica Cerebral. La actividad cerebral en función de las condiciones dinámicas de la excitabilidad nerviosa'' Gonzalo, J. (1945, 1950, 1952, 2010). ''Dinámica Cerebral'', Open Access. Edición facsímil 2010 del Vol. 1 1945, Vol. 2 1950 (Madrid: Inst. S. Ramón y Cajal, CSIC), Suplemento I 1952 (Trab. Inst. Cajal Invest. Biol.) y 1ª ed. Suplemento II 2010. Red Temática en Tecnologías de Computación Artificial/Natural (RTNAC) y Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC).
English translation of Vol. 1 1945 (2021) Open Access

English translation of Vol. 2 1950 (2022) Open Access

English translation of the article of 1952 (2015) Open Access
contains part of his fundamental contributions and is the first time that the term ''Brain Dynamics'' is used in the scientific literature to describe the organization of sensory functions. It consists of two volumes, the first one published in 1945 focused on visual functions and the second one published in 1950 dedicated to
tactile Tactile may refer to: * Tactile, related to the sense of touch * Haptics (disambiguation) * Tactile (device), a text-to-braille translation device See also * Tangibility, in law * Somatosensory system, where sensations are processed * CD96 CD ...
functions and where concepts exposed in the first one are expanded. In this book the author exposes what he called ''central syndrome of the cortex'', as a multisensory affection with bilateral symmetry, originated by a unilateral parieto-occipital cortical lesion in an associative area equidistant from the
visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight (th ...
,
tactile Tactile may refer to: * Tactile, related to the sense of touch * Haptics (disambiguation) * Tactile (device), a text-to-braille translation device See also * Tangibility, in law * Somatosensory system, where sensations are processed * CD96 CD ...
, and auditory
projection areas Projection areas are areas in the four lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital) of the brain A brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is ...
. The syndrome presents dynamic effects such as the multisensoriality and symmetrical bilaterality of the disorder, which also involves all functions from simple excitability to more complex functions. Another dynamic effect is the progressive loss of functions and a decomposition of some of them into partial reactions as the intensity of the stimulus decreases. This gives rise, for example, to tilted or even inverted vision, in which the image is perceived as increasingly tilted at the same time as it loses shape, color and size until it is almost inverted in the most acute case. This was the first exhaustive study of inverted or tilted vision (Gonzalo, 1945). The author also observed inverted perception in touch (1950) and
hearing Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds through an organ, such as an ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium. The academic field concerned with hearing is audit ...
(1952), for none of which there were precedents, and generalized the inversion process in the central syndrome to
sensory systems The sensory nervous system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory neurons (including the sensory receptor cells), neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved i ...
of a spatial nature. Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I. (2007
«Inverted or tilted perception disorder».
''Revista de Neurología'' 44, 3, 157-165.
Gnosic or cognitive and complex functions are the first to be lost since they require greater brain excitation and, thus, greater brain integration. Thus, a continuity was established between elementary and higher sensory functions, based on the same physiological laws. A dynamic phenomenon related to the previous one is the disappearance in part of some disorders by intensification of the stimulus or by temporal summation (
iteration Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...
of the stimulus), or by the emerging capacity for facilitation, according to which the functions are recovered by the presence of another type of stimulus of the same or different modality ( multisensory facilitation), or by motor activity such as muscular effort, of all of which there was no precedent of detailed studies. For example, tactile and auditory stimuli, and in particular muscular effort, improve perception, partly compensating for the deficit of nervous excitation due to the loss of nonspecific (or multispecific) neuronal mass caused by the lesion. For example, the
visual field The visual field is the "spatial array of visual sensations available to observation in introspectionist psychological experiments". Or simply, visual field can be defined as the entire area that can be seen when an eye is fixed straight at a point ...
, which shows concentric reduction, increased up to 5 times in the most acute case, and the image recovered the correct orientation by means of an strong muscular contraction. This capacity is greater the larger the brain lesion and the lower the intensity of the original stimulus. The author observed and studied other remarkable phenomena such as color delocalization, reversal in motion perception, the disorder by which the patient was able to read a text equally well upright or rotated 180 degrees without noticing any difference, and the disorder of allocentric orientation, among others. His research filled the gap then existing between brain pathology and the physiology of the
nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes ...
, since the phenomena observed were governed by the laws of nervous excitability, which was a radical change with respect to the concepts in use at that time. Gonzalo found not only the cases described in his book but about 35 cases of central syndrome of varying intensity (Gonzalo, 1952). The author also analyzes in depth the famous Schneider case of Goldstein and Gelb (2018), which he interprets according to the aforementioned syndrome. He proposed a spiral development of the sensory field in the integrative brain process (Gonzalo, 1951, 1952) and introduced the idea of functional brain
gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gr ...
s across the cortex (Gonzalo, 1952). These gradients are functions in gradation that represent the density of specific sensory function at each point in the cortex, related to the density of specific neurons and their connections, taking a maximum value in the corresponding projection area and gradually decreasing throughout the cortex, with the end of the decline reaching other projection areas. The multiple types of cortical syndromes from first hand and other authors was interpreted according to the model of gradients, depending on the position and magnitude of the lesion, finding a continuous transition between the syndromes of the projection area and the central one. Gonzalo later developed the concepts of dynamic similarity and allometry applied to the central syndrome, this being understood as the result of a change of scale in the nervous excitability of the cerebral system with respect to the normal case. According to the principle of dynamic similarity, the change of scale in a system results in its different parts changing differently (allometrically). He then found allometric relationships, scaling power laws, between the different sensory functions. The gradual loss of these functions in the central syndrome was thus interpreted and formalized. These concepts, including that of gradients, were also applied to the language system. All this last research remained unpublished and is partially collected in Supplement II in the reprint of Gonzalo's work (Gonzalo, 2010) and in later works, Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2014)
«Nervous excitability dynamics in a multisensory syndrome and its similarity with normals. Scaling Laws» Open Access
In: Costa, A.; Villalba, E. (Eds.) ''Horizons in Neuroscience'' Vol. 13: Chap.10, pp. 161-189.
(see below the works of Gonzalo-Fonrodona and Porras in the section 'Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work').


Early years

Justo Gonzalo was born and lived in
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
; then spent several years in
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
, Spain; returned to Barcelona, and finally moved to
Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
, Spain, to study
medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, obtaining his bachelor's degree there in 1933. During 1933-34, he carried out studies at the Nervenklinik (
mental hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociative ...
) of Vienna University, on
clinical neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...
and
animal testing Animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and ''in vivo'' testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments that seek to control the variables that affect the behavior or biological system under study. This ...
with Hans Hoff, and also on
brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a ve ...
cytoarchitecture Cytoarchitecture ( Greek '' κύτος''= "cell" + '' ἀρχιτεκτονική''= "architecture"), also known as cytoarchitectonics, is the study of the cellular composition of the central nervous system's tissues under the microscope. Cytoarc ...
with Otto Pötzl, at
Constantin von Economo Constantin Freiherr von Economo ( gr, Κωνσταντίνος Οικονόμου; 21 August 1876 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist of Greek descent, born in modern-day Romania (then Ottoman Empire). He is mos ...
's laboratory. During 1934–35 he carried out research on brain
pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...
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). After returning to Madrid, he combined clinical neurology at the then called Hospital General de Madrid with brain anatomoclinical research at the
Cajal Institute The Cajal Institute (IC) is a research center in neurobiology which belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The IC originates from the ''Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas'', founded in 1900 by order of King Alfonso XII ...
. It was during this time that he wrote his first works (see section: Justo Gonzalo's published works).


Spanish Civil War and post-war period

After the outbreak of the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
(1936–39), he resumed the
neurological Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal c ...
activities at the Hospital General de Madrid and the brain anatomoclinical studies at the
Cajal Institute The Cajal Institute (IC) is a research center in neurobiology which belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The IC originates from the ''Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas'', founded in 1900 by order of King Alfonso XII ...
until he practiced war medicine in the Republican front (1937). He was called in 1938 by
Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora (25 July 1886 – 27 December 1971) was a Spanish neurologist. He was a disciple of Nicolás Achúcarro and Santiago Ramón y Cajal and one of the most brilliant examples of the Spanish Neurological School (or Cajal Scho ...
, head of the Center for Brain Injuries at Neurological Military Hospital of Godella (Hospital Militar Neurológico de
Godella Godella is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Horta Nord, province of Valencia, Spain. Godella was founded in 1238 by the cession of James I of Aragon of a region named ''Godayla'' to the Aragonese Pedro Maza. Although part of the municipal ...
) in
Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
, to work there as a neurologist, 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. In the summer of 1938, he discovered, among other singular disorders, near-inverted vision in the war wounded man he termed ''case M,'' and in 1939 characterized what he called ''central syndrome of the cortex,'' which exhibited peculiar dynamic phenomena. The observations could not be understood until he uncovered the permeability developed by this type of patient to temporal summation and multisensory and motor facilitation. The first results were presented in 1941 to the
Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...
in a 94-page report in Spanish entitled ''Investigaciones sobre Dinámica Cerebral. La dinámica en el sistema nervioso. Estructuras sensoriales por sincronización cerebral'' (''Research on Brain Dynamics. Dynamics in the nervous system. Sensory structures by brain synchronization''), which was awarded by this organism that same year. During the years 1942-44, established in Madrid and sponsored by the Cajal Institute, he obtained a more precise quantitative evaluation of the phenomena, in spite of the difficulties in obtaining the most indispensable experimental instruments. In 1945, the Cajal Institute, now part of the
Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...
, published the first volume of his book on Brain Dynamics, mainly devoted to visual functions. Apart from local references to the aforementioned volume at the time of its publication, other references stand out, some of them international Viembi (1946
''Acta Neurologica'' (Napoli)
Anno I, 5, p 368-371.
Bender, M.B.; Teuber, H.L. (1948). "Neuro-ophthalmology" ''Progress in Neurology and Psychiatry'' III: Chap. 8. pp. 163-182 (p. 171). De Ajuriaguerra, J., Hécaen, H. (1949) ''Le Cortex Cerébral.Etude Neuro-psycho-pathologique'', Masson, Paris, p. 13, 131, 138, 140, 279, 287, 288, 292, 311, 312, 323. despite the fact that the book was written in Spanish, being notorious, for example, the comment by Viembi in 1946 in the prestigious magazine edited by Buscaino: or the commentary by Bender and Teuber (1948): Also De Ajuriaguerra and Hécaen refer in several pages to this research and emphasize (p. 279): "...let us also cite in Spanish the very important volume by J. Gonzalo" (translated from French). He also received in 1945-46 letters of praises from authors such as H. Piéron, Robert Bing, D. Katz, W. Köhler (the last two in connection with
Gestalt theory Gestalt may refer to: Psychology * Gestalt psychology, a school of psychology * Gestalt therapy, a form of psychotherapy * Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, an assessment of development disorders * Gestalt Practice, a practice of self-exploration ...
), G. Rodríguez Lafora, C. Jiménez Díaz, J. Germain, etc.Family archive From 1942 until his retirement, Justo Gonzalo was a full-time member of the
Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...
. From 1945 he taught PhD-level courses in brain pathophysiology at the University of Madrid, where he had a laboratory of brain physiopathology. In his PhD courses, he presented the results of his research in detail. It can be said that he worked alone in the scientific aspect, occasionally helped in other aspects by some former students, administrative personnel and always supported by his family, and since 1945 by his wife Ana María Fonrodona Masuet.


Subsequent years

In 1950, the second volume of the aforementioned book on Brain Dynamics was published, it was focused on
tactile Tactile may refer to: * Tactile, related to the sense of touch * Haptics (disambiguation) * Tactile (device), a text-to-braille translation device See also * Tangibility, in law * Somatosensory system, where sensations are processed * CD96 CD ...
functions and to generalization of concepts introduced in the first volume. Justo Gonzalo describes in it his observation in 1946 of tactile inversion (of which there were no precedents) and its interpretation. Thus, the author generalized the inversion process in the aforementioned central syndrome to all sensory systems of spatial nature, corroborating it in the auditory system in 1946, as he refers to in his subsequent publication in 1952 (Gonzalo 1952). In 1950 he was awarded by the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine. In the works published in 1951 and 1952 (see section 'Justo Gonzalo's published works'), Gonzalo set forth the idea of spiral development of the sensory field, as well as the so-called functional cerebral
gradient In vector calculus, the gradient of a scalar-valued differentiable function of several variables is the vector field (or vector-valued function) \nabla f whose value at a point p is the "direction and rate of fastest increase". If the gr ...
s through the cortex (Gonzalo 1952), concepts that he had already described in detail in the PhD courses. In the publication of 1952 he includes about 20 cases of central syndromes of varying intensity. In 1952 he carried out a search in all the Spanish territory of subjects with brain lesions. He selected about 200 out of near 3000. Most of them are Civil War wounded and he explores them in Madrid. He finds a total of 35 cases with the same type of central syndrome of varying intensity, as shown for example on p. 78 of Supplement II of the reprint ''Dinámica Cerebral'' of 2010. In the PhD courses, which he taught with great vehemence and dedication, he also exposed the concepts of dynamic similarity and
allometry Allometry is the study of the relationship of body size to shape, anatomy, physiology and finally behaviour, first outlined by Otto Snell in 1892, by D'Arcy Thompson in 1917 in '' On Growth and Form'' and by Julian Huxley in 1932. Overview Allom ...
applied to the aforementioned syndrome, this latter being understood as the result of a change of scale in the nervous excitability of the system with respect to that of the normal case. He did not get to publish these concepts, which are partially collected in subsequent works. Among the many private comments he received from students about the Ph.D. courses, the one with a reference is indicated, as well as the comment that appears, in 1967, in a commemorative publication of the "
Neurology Neurology (from el, νεῦρον (neûron), "string, nerve" and the suffix -logia, "study of") is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the brain, the spinal ...
Service of Nicolás Achúcarro": In 1958 he was awarded by the Spanish Society of Psychology, and in this period there were many references to the book The book went out of print and was never reprinted. Reorganizations in the Faculty of Medicine in 1966 prevented him from continuing to teach the aforementioned PhD courses despite the great interest they aroused among students and the request by letter to the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine signed by several Professors such as Vice-Dean Botella Llusiá, Jiménez Díaz, Gilsanz, Ortz LLorca and Vara López. With this, the associated brain pathophysiology laboratory disappeared. During these years he had already made large and numerous graphs drawn by draughtsmen, for didactic purposes, and especially for the following publication announced as an extensive work. But this publication never came into being. The cause of this was the author's own way of being, extremely self-demanding and who could not conceive of partial communications except for PhD courses, also great administrative difficulties, and with the passage of time, health problems.


Last years

He further developed the concepts of similarity and allometry on the basis of the biological principles of development and growth, applying them to brain dynamics and extending this formalization to the auditory system and
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
, leading to what the author called a "neurophysics" of the cerebral cortex. Part of such research is collected in Supplement II of the 2010 reprint of his book and in works by Gonzalo-Fonrodona and Porras (2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014) (see section: `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research'). He also approached multiple and varied subjects of
Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
, Philosophy,
Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
and Cybernetics, establishing connections with his research of brain dynamics. At this time, reference is also made to J. Gonzalo's ''brain dynamics''. even from a philosophical point of view, awakening a special interest in the field of Cybernetics and
Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
. In 1976 he came into contact with physicists and engineers interested in cybernetic models of brain dynamics. In this context, in the doctoral thesis of the engineer A. Delgado directed by the physicist J. Mira, several of Gonzalo's ideas and data are considered to be basic, together with those of Lashley and Luria, in the functional organization of nervous tissue in relation to behavior. His research was interrupted only because of his decease in 1986.


Additional information

After the death of J. Gonzalo, work was carried out in the field of
Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
in relation to the research of this author. There are also historical references to his work His works are also referenced in an historical León-Carrión, J. (1998)
"Presente y futuro de la neuropsicología en España"
''Papeles del psicólogo'' Junio, nº 70.
and neurological sense 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 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'' 10:36
OpenAccess
/ref> García-Moilina, A.; Peña-Casanova, J. (2022). ''Fundamentos Históricos de la neuropsicología y la neurología de la conducta''. Barcelona: Test-Barcelona. p 312-313. (see also the section `Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work´`). For example, worth mentioning is the comment: "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". (Translated from Spanish). Studies carried out in the 2000s have reported phenomena on tilted or inverted perception and
multisensory integration Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous system. A coherent r ...
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, th
Red Temática en Tecnologías de Computación Artificial/Natural
(thematic network on artificial/natural computation technologies), together with the
University of Santiago de Compostela , established = , type = Public , budget = €228 million (2011) , rector = Prof. Dr. Antonio López Díaz , city = Santiago de Compostela , state = Galicia , country = Spain , undergrad = 23,835 , postgrad = 1,716 , doctoral = 2,697 ...
, published a facsimile edition of the two volumes published 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 entitle
''Dinámica Cerebral''
(Open Access). J. Gonzalo's library was donated to the
Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council ( es, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote res ...
(CSIC), the neurobiology part being at the
Cajal Institute The Cajal Institute (IC) is a research center in neurobiology which belongs to the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). The IC originates from the ''Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biológicas'', founded in 1900 by order of King Alfonso XII ...
where about 200 histological preparations made between 1930 and 1936 approximately were also donated.


Justo Gonzalo's published works

* Gonzalo, J. (1933). «Los factores endógenos en la corea de Sydenham». ''Archivos de Neurobiología'' XIII(4,5,6): pp. 1–15. . * Gonzalo, J. (1934). «Contribución al estudio del esquizoide». ''Archivos de Neurobiología'' XIV(6): pp. 1–17. . * Gonzalo, J. (1934). «Los tipos de motilidad. Contribución a la sistemática del movimiento.» ''Archivos de Neurobiología'' XIV(1): pp: 1-23. . * Gonzalo, J. (1935). «Contestación al Dr. Nieto». ''Archivos de Neurobiología'' XV(3): pp. 417–421. . * Gonzalo, J. (1935). «Sobre la localización y fisiopatología del tálamo y del subtálamo». ''Archivos de Neurobiología'' XV(4): pp. 625–668. * Gonzalo, J. (1936). «Nuevos estudios talámicos. Síndrome talámico puro por degeneración secundaria». ''Archivos de Neurobiología''. Marzo. pp. 111–129. * Kleist, V.K.; Gonzalo, J. (1938)
«Über Thalamus und Subthalamussyndrome und die Störungen einzelner Thalamuskerne»
''Monastsschrift für Psychiatrie und Neurologie'' 99: pp. 87–130. * Gonzalo, J. (1945). ''Investigaciones sobre la nueva Dinámica Cerebral. La actividad cerebral en función de las condiciones dinámicas de la excitabilidad nerviosa''. Volumen Primero: pp. 1–392. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Inst. S. Ramón y Cajal. Included as Vol. 1 in the facsimile edition of 201
Cerebral'', Open Access
English translation (2021), Open Access
* Gonzalo, J. (1950). ''Investigaciones sobre la nueva Dinámica Cerebral. La actividad cerebral en función de las condiciones dinámicas de la excitabilidad nerviosa''. Volumen Segundo: pp. 393–827. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Inst. S. Ramón y Cajal. Included as Vol. 2 in the facsimile edition of 201
Cerebral'', Open Access
English translation of Vol. 2 1950 (2022) Open Access
* Gonzalo, J. (1951). «La cerebración sensorial y el desarrollo espiral»
''Trabajos del Inst. Cajal de Investigaciones Biológicas''
XLIII: pp. 209–260. * Gonzalo, J. (1952) «Las funciones cerebrales humanas según nuevos datos y bases fisiológicas. Una introducción a los estudios de Dinámica Cerebral»
''Trabajos del Inst. Cajal de Investigaciones Biológicas''
XLIV: pp. 95–157. Included as 'Suplemento I' in the facsimile edition of 201
Cerebral'', Open Access
English translation (2015), Open Access
* Gonzalo, J. (1994). ''Brain Dynamics According to Human Data and Physiological Bases''. (Traducción resumida de la publicación de 1952). Edited by I. Gonzalo and A. Gonzalo, Madrid. * Gonzalo, J. (2010). ''Dinámica Cerebral''. Facsimile edition of Vol.1 (1945), Vol.2 (1950), Suplemento I (article of 1952) and first edition of Suplemento II , Open Access.


Works on Justo Gonzalo's research work

* Ballus, C. (1970)
«La maniobra de refuerzo de J. Gonzalo y su objetivización por el test oscilométrico»
''Anuario de Psicología''. Dep. Psicología, Univ. de Barcelona 2: pp. 19–28. * Gonzalo, I.; Gonzalo, A. (1996)
«Functional gradients in cerebral dynamics: The J. Gonzalo theories of the sensorial cortex»
In Moreno-Díaz, R.; Mira, J. (Eds.) ''Brain Processes, Theories and Models. An international conference in honor of W.S. McCulloch 25 years after his death''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. pp. 78–87. * Gonzalo, I. (1997).
«Allometry in the J. Gonzalo's model of the sensorial cortex»
. ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)'' 1240: pp. 169–177. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0032475 * Gonzalo, I. (1999)
«Spatial Inversion and Facilitation in the J. Gonzalo's Research of the Sensorial Cortex. Integrative Aspects»
''Lect. Not. Comp. Sci. (LNCS)'' 1606: pp. 94–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0098164 * Gonzalo, I.; Porras, M.A. (2001)
«Time-dispersive effects in the J. Gonzalo's research on cerebral dynamics»
''Lect. Not. Comp. Sci. (LNCS)'' 2084: pp. 150–157. https://doi:10.1007/3-540-45720-8_18 * Gonzalo, I.; Porras, M.A. (2003)
«Intersensorial summation as a nonlinear contribution to cerebral excitation»
''Lect. Not. Comp. Sci. (LNCS)'' 2686: pp. 94–101. https://doi:10.1007/3-540-44868-3_13 * Arias, M.; Gonzalo, I. (2004)
«La obra neurocientífica de Justo Gonzalo (1910-1986): el síndrome central y la metamorfopsia invertida»
''Neurología'' 19: pp. 429–433. * Barraquer Bordas, L. (2005)
«La dinámica cerebral de Justo Gonzalo en la historia [`Brain dynamics' of Justo Gonzalo in history]»
''Neurología'' 20: pp. 169–173. * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I. (2007)
«Inverted or tilted perception disorder»''Revista de Neurología''
44(3): pp. 157–165. * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2007)
«Physiological Laws of Sensory Visual System in Relation to Scaling Power Laws in Biological Neural Networks»
''Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)'' 4527: pp. 96–102. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73053-8_10 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I. (2009)
«Functional gradients through the cortex, multisensory integration and scaling laws in brain dynamics»
''Neurocomputing'' 72: pp. 831–838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2008.04.055 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2009)
«Scaling Power Laws in the Restoration of Perception with Increasing Stimulus in Deficitary Natural Neural Network»
. ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)'' 5601: pp. 174–183. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-02264-7_19 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2011)
«Scaling Effects in Crossmodal Improvement of Visual Perception»
. ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)'' 6687: pp. 267–274. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-21326-7_29 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I. (2011)
«Justo Gonzalo (1919-1986) y su investigación sobre dinámica cerebral»
''Rev. Historia de la Psicología'' 32: pp. 65–78. . * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2013)
«Scaling effects in crossmodal improvement of visual perception by motor system stimulus»
''Neurocomputing'' 114: pp. 76–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2012.06.047 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2013)
«Deficitary nervous excitability and subjective contraction of time: Time-dispersive model»
''Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)'' 7930: pp. 368–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38637-4_38 * Gonzalo-Fonrodona, I.; Porras, M.A. (2014)
«Nervous excitability dynamics in a multisensory síndrome and its similitude with normals. Scaling Laws», Open Access
In: Costa, A.; Villalba, E. (Eds.) ''Horizons in Neuroscience'' Vol. 13: Chap.10, pp. 161–189. * Gonzalo Fonrodona, I. (2015)
«The pioneering research of justo Gonzalo (1910-1986) on brain dynamics». Open Access
(Includes English translation of the article Gonzalo, J. (1952) «Las funciones cerebrales humanas según nuevos datos y bases fisiológicas. Una introducción a los estudios de Dinámica Cerebral» ''Traba. Inst. Cajal Investig. Biológ.'' XLIII: pp. 209–260). E-prints Complutense, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). * García-Molina, A. (2015)
«Justo Gonzalo’s groundbreaking contributions to the study of cerebral functional organisation»
''Neurosciences and History'' 3(2): pp. 61–67.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonzalo Rodriguez-Leal, Justo 1910 births 1986 deaths Spanish neurologists Neurophysiologists 20th-century Spanish physicians