Agostino Gemelli e il problema della localizzazione cerebrale delle funzioni cognitive

[Autom. eng. transl.] In 1918, Agostino Gemelli published an article on the doctrine of cerebral localization of cognitive functions in the Journal of Neo-Scholastic Philosophy he directed. Gemelli examines some salient facts of this doctrine and the relative critical positions, which refer to a more integrated conception of the functioning of the nervous system, inspired by the theories of his master Camillo Golgi. Here we briefly review the history of cerebral locations from phrenology to Paul Broca and the other pioneers of neuropsychology in the second half of the nineteenth century. The considerations of Gemelli are summarized in the 1918 article and their relevance in the tension of contemporary research between processes of segregation and functional integration in the central nervous system is noted.