Karl H. Pribram (; ; February 25, 1919 – January 19, 2015) was a professor at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, an emeritus professor of

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

and

psychiatry Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial p ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

and distinguished professor at

Radford University Radford University is a public university in Radford, Virginia. It is one of the state's eight doctorate-granting public universities. Founded in 1910, Radford offers curricula for undergraduates in more than 100 fields, graduate programs incl ...

Board-certified Board certification is the process by which a physician or other professional demonstrates a mastery of advanced knowledge and skills through written, practical, or simulator-based testing. Certification bodies There are more than 25 boards that ...

as a

neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

, Pribram did pioneering work on the definition of the

limbic system The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain.Schacter, Daniel L. 2012. ''P ...

, the relationship of the

frontal cortex The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a groove be ...

to the limbic system, the sensory-specific "association" cortex of the parietal and

temporal lobe The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved i ...

s, and the classical

motor cortex The motor cortex is the region of the cerebral cortex believed to be involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements. The motor cortex is an area of the frontal lobe located in the posterior precentral gyrus immediately ...

of the human

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 located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as Visual perception, vision. I ...

. He worked with

Karl Lashley Karl Spencer Lashley (June 7, 1890 – August 7, 1958) was a psychologist and behaviorist remembered for his contributions to the study of learning and memory. A ''Review of General Psychology'' survey, published in 2002, ranked Lashley as the 61 ...

at the Yerkes Primate Center of which he was to become director later. He was professor at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...

for ten years and at

for thirty years. To the general public, Pribram is best known for his development of the

holonomic brain model Holonomic brain theory, also known as The Holographic Brain, is a branch of neuroscience investigating the idea that human consciousness is formed by quantum effects in or between brain cells. Holonomic refers to representations in a Hilbert phas ...

cognitive function Cognitive skills, also called cognitive functions, cognitive abilities or cognitive capacities, are brain-based skills which are needed in acquisition of knowledge, manipulation of information and reasoning. They have more to do with the mechanisms ...

and his contribution to ongoing neurological research into memory, emotion, motivation and

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...

. He was married to American author Katherine Neville.

Holonomic model

Pribram's holonomic model of brain processing is described in his 1991 ''Brain and Perception'', which contains the extension of his work with

David Bohm David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed ...

. It states that, in addition to the circuitry accomplished by the large fiber tracts in the brain, processing also occurs in webs of fine fiber branches (for instance,

dendrite Dendrites (from Greek δένδρον ''déndron'', "tree"), also dendrons, are branched protoplasmic extensions of a nerve cell that propagate the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the ...

s) that form webs, as well as in the dynamic electrical fields that surround these dendritic "trees". In addition, the processing occurring around these dendritic trees can influence that occurring in those trees of nearby neurons whose dendrites are entangled but not in direct contact (known as ephaptic signaling). In this way, processing in the brain can occur in a non-localized manner. This type of processing is properly described by

Dennis Gabor Dennis Gabor ( ; hu, Gábor Dénes, ; 5 June 1900 – 9 February 1979) was a Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, most notable for inventing holography, for which he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. He obtained ...

, the inventor of hologram, as quanta of information he called a "holon", an energy-based concept of information. These wavelets are used in quantum

holography Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...

, the basis of MRI, PET scans and other image processing procedures . Gabor wavelets are windowed

Fourier transforms A Fourier transform (FT) is a mathematical transform that decomposes functions into frequency components, which are represented by the output of the transform as a function of frequency. Most commonly functions of time or space are transformed ...

that convert complex spatial (and temporal) patterns into component waves whose amplitudes at their intersections become reinforced or diminished . Fourier processes are the basis of holography. Holograms can correlate and store a huge amount of information – and have the advantage that the inverse transform returns the results of correlation into the spatial and temporal patterns that guide us in navigating our universe.

had suggested that were we to view the cosmos without the lenses that outfit our telescopes, the universe would appear to us as a hologram. Pribram extended this insight by noting that were we deprived of the lenses of our eyes and the lens-like processes of our other sensory receptors, we would be immersed in holographic experiences.

Other contributions

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pribram's neurobehavioral experiments established the composition of the limbic system and the executive functions of the

prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, BA13, BA14, BA24, BA25, BA32, BA44, BA45, BA ...

. Pribram also discovered the sensory specific systems of the

association cortex The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consisting of ...

, and showed that these systems operate to organize the choices we make among sensory stimuli, not the sensing of the stimuli themselves. His account of how his discoveries were made is in his book ''The Form Within'' which was published in 2013. It includes stories of his encounters with leading scientists and scholars of the day, and amusing stories like how he lost part of a finger when his hand was slammed down by the chimpanzee Washoe at the University of Oklahoma. In 1999, he was the inaugural winner of the Dagmar and Václav Havel Award for uniting the sciences and the humanities. He died in 2015 in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...

, aged 95.

Stanford assault case

In 1975, Stanford University put Pribram on two years probation and lowered his salary following a university investigation into an alleged assault and other mistreatment of Barbara Honegger.

Bibliography

* * DeVore, Steven; Pribram, Karl (1985)
The Neuropsychology of Achievement.
' Pleasanton, CA, SyberVision Systems. ASIN: B000M6COW4

*

https://web.archive.org/web/20151222133420/http://www.sybervision.com/Achievement/index.html] *Joye, S.R. (2017). ''The Little Book of Consciousness: Pribram's Holonomic Brain Theory and Bohm's Implicate Order,'' The Viola Institute, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

"Comparison between Holographic Brain Theory and conventional models of neuronal computation"
– academic paper on Pribram's work
"Pribram Receives Havel Prize For His Work in Neuroscience"
– news article
"Winner 1998 Noetic Medal for Consciousness & Brain Research – For Lifetime Achievement"

(Video)
The implicate brain
by Karl H. Pribram, karlhpribram.com
Karl's Website
karlhpribram.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Pribram, Karl H. American cognitive neuroscientists Austrian neuroscientists Austrian emigrants to the United States American consciousness researchers and theorists Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Georgetown University faculty George Mason University faculty Radford University faculty Yale University faculty American neurosurgeons Quantum mind Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty Scientists from Vienna 1919 births 2015 deaths Stanford University School of Medicine faculty