Of the numerous important contributions to the subject special mention might be made of the new information gathered on the central representation of a number of visceral functions and the new approaches to the understand ing of the interrelations between psychic activity on a wider basis and the visceral functions. Also the mechanisms by which mental disorders and vari ous kinds of stress situations influence the automically regulated processes constitute an important lead in a comparatively new line of research.
CEREBRAL CORTEXIn a thought-provoking article Hess (106) discusses the relations between experimental physiology and psychology and points at the fact that certain affective responses produce effects comparable with specific emotional pat terns. He concludes that such phenomena can only be explained by assum ing a cortical action in conjunction with lower levels of the central nervous system since such reactions can be elicited from circumscribed areas in the thalamus and hypothalamus. Thus subcortical processes must be linked up with consciousness. From the standpoint of psychiatry these concepts are obviously of high significance and should form a profitable basis for further psychiatric research, the urgent need of which has been stressed (129).The interrelation between the cortex and the brain stem in behaviour has also been the subject of an interesting article by Ingram (116). He re ported that relatively small lesions in the ventromedial hypothalamic nuclei caused an extreme, chronic, and incurable savageness in cats, suggesting that these areas serve as an inhibitory center for the rage impulses originating in other areas. Since the activity is well directed and discriminating the malevolent attitude of savage cats apparently involves some cortical mecha nisms which probably are operating also after destruction of the ventromedial hypothalamic area.