ROBERT GALAMBOS 235 



answer to this question would undoubtedly provide highly useful clues 

 applicable to 'ordinary' learning as well. 



8. Wholly unlearned complex behaviour like that of newly hatched 

 birds which arc said to scatter for cover at the first presentation of specific 

 sounds or moving shapes may represent simply the ultimate with respect 

 to the neural processes we would like to understand. Reflexes and instincts 

 emerge because some neuronal organization is handed down, like body 

 shape, as part of an organism's phylogenetic heritage. Conceivably this 

 neuronal organization has much in common with or is actually identical 

 to the one achieved through experience. If this were so, the same physio- 

 logical principles would suffice equally well for explaining the behaviour 

 built in at birth and that acquired during life. Darwin's choice of the term 

 'inherited habit' for the unlearned response would in that event turn out 

 to have been peculiarly apt. For a full discussion of this problem by the 

 author the reader is referred to the 2nd Macy Conference on The Central 

 Neri'ous Systei}! and Behavior, where the neural mechanism of vomiting 

 was considered. 



DATA ABOUT THE BRAIN CHANGE IN LEARNING 



For reasons of convenience or of convention the mammalian brain 

 seems to have become the principal object of study and the facts make it 

 increasingly clear that within it the neural change oi learning is not a 

 single event occurring at a single point in time but rather a sequence of 

 events occurring over a more or less prolonged interval in widespread 

 brain locations. Acquisition of the learned response takes time (Duncan), 

 and not only is the appropriate classical analyser system activated but so 

 also are the reticular core of the brain stem and the limbic system as well 

 (e.g. Anokhin, Buser and Roger, Galambos et al., Hernandez-Peon er ai, 

 1958; Trotimov et al.). Within the anatomical limits of a classical analyser 

 system, furthermore, variation in response to the conditioning stimulus 

 is commonly encountered during the learning process not only at the 

 cortical termination but also at the first synapse (Galambos et al., Gersuni 

 et al., Hernandcz-Pcon et ai, 1956), a fact presumably related to action of 

 the efferent sensory systems. With large and microelectrodes new electrical 

 events uniquely related to learning have been described (Jasper et al., 

 Kogan, Livanov, Morrell and Jasper, and Yoshii et al), and experimental 

 evidence is even being marshalled to support Coghill's insight (Herrick) 

 that it is 'neuropile' modification that produces learning (e.g. Gastaut). 

 Finally, recent observers (e.g. John and Killam) have begun to cast some 



