Georg Prochaska

Georg Prochaska (sometimes also Juri, Jiří or Georgius Prochaska;

Prochaska was a pioneer in the field of neurophysiology, being remembered for developing a comprehensive theory of reflex action involving the concepts of "vis nervosa" and "sensorium commune". "Vis nervosa" was described as a latent nervous force possessed in the nerves, and the term sensorium commune was defined as the point of reflection between the sensory and motor nerves.

Prochaska used the term vis nervosa as a direct

Prochaska described the "sensorium commune" as the core mechanism of the reflex. It involved the spinal cord, medulla oblongata and the basal ganglia, and had the ability to reflect sensory impressions into the motor nervous system by definite laws unique to itself, and also independent of consciousness. Prochaska demonstrated that reflex worked without a brain, but could not work without a spinal cord, and summarized that voluntary behavior was a brain function, while reflex was spinal-based.

One of Prochaska's better-known writings is Dissertation on the Functions of the Nervous System, a work that was later combined with John Augustus Unzer's The Principles of Physiology as one publication, being translated and edited by English physiologist Thomas Laycock (1812–1876).

References

Further reading

• Waves, Pulses, and the Theory of Neural Masses
• Essay on "Dissertation on the Functions of the Nervous System"

External links

• Profile of Jiří Procháska on quido.cz (in Czech)