Main description:

This book is a journey to discover and rediscover famous and lesser known aspects of the birth of modern neuroscience in Turin, from pre-Enlightenment to the 1980s. The pioneering contributions of neuroscientists from Turin and working in Turin and how they shaped the national and international community are critically explored.

A brief selection of topics covered by The Birth of Modern Neuroscience in Turin:
* Luigi Rolando's neuroanatomical drawings
* Cesare Lombroso's controversial stances on criminal anthropology
* Angelo Mosso's pioneering 'neuroimaging' experiments
* Ernesto Lugaro's contributions to neuroplasticity and psychiatry
* Federico Kiesow and the development of experimental psychology in Europe
* Camillo Negro's first clinical neurological movies
* Giuseppe Levi's histological works and his mentorship
* Rita Levi Montalcini and her Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Nerve Growth Factor

Contents:

1. The Savoy-Piedmont 'Renaissance': from pre-Enlightenment to the end of the 18th century

2. The Savoy-Piedmont 'Renaissance': between materialism and spiritualism

3. Carlo Francesco Giuseppe Bellingeri, a forgotten pioneer of the Italian neurology

4. Exploring the Museum of Human Anatomy

5. Cesare Lombroso: an unconventional biography

6. Seeing the history of neuroscience in Turin through the lenses of its instruments/part 1

7. Enrico Morselli in Turin: expectations, challenges and disappointment

8. Neuroimaging before neuroimaging: Angelo Mosso's pioneering experiments

9. The role of Federico Kiesow in the development of experimental psychology in Europe

10. Camillo Negro: neurologist, neuroscientist, science communicator and mentor

11. Brief happy military-neurophysiological stint of Mario Camis in wartime Turin

12. Seeing the history of neuroscience in Turin through the lenses of its instruments/part 2

13. Giulio Bizzozero and Aldo Perroncito: reform and regeneration

14. Ernesto Lugaro: the founder of the Turin neurological school

15. Ernesto Lugaro: contributions to modern psychiatry

16. Agostino Gemelli's years in Turin

17. Mario Ponzo and the age of visual illusions

18. Science and literature at Giuseppe Levi's home in Turin

19. Myth, religion, politics and literature

20. A real imperfection? Rita and the long story of the Nerve Growth Factor

Acknowledgments