Fulton, John Farquhar

An American neurobiologist and one of the pioneers of modern neurophysiology, he was
Professor at Magdalen College School of Medicine (Oxford), then Professor of Physiology at Yale
University. He is quoted in Dr. Steve Laureys’ book Un si brillant cerveau [Such a brilliant brain] (Odile Jacob, 2015).
He edited the Journal of Neurophysiology (a publication in existence since 1938). He supported,
for example, the importance of teaching the humanities and, in particular, the history of science in
scientific curricula.
Previous publication by this researcher, also on the cerebellum: “The Cerebellum: A Summary of Functional Localization”, Yale J Biol Med. 1937 Oct; 10(1): 89-119.
Eminent figure in neurophysiology and medical history between the early 1930s and 1960s. He
was a pupil of Charles Sherrington and Harvey Cushing. Himself inspired others, like neurosurgeon Karl Pribram (1919-2015), who was closed to Feldenkrais.
Fulton, professor of Warren McCulloch^[1] (1898-1969), studied the relationships between the
sensory cortex and the motor cortex, thalamus, and other areas of the brain which drove
McCulloch to research on the functional relationships between different cortical areas.
The book mentioned by Feldenkrais published in 1949 is based on a lecture given the year
before, and which represented the culmination of two decades of research. Two main problems
are treated in the lectures: the precise significance of the respective roles of the motor and
premotor cortex in voluntary movements; and the interpretation of the clinical results observed
after the operation of Leucotomy.