Thread by @CajalButterfly

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🤔I kept thinking about Klüver-Busy after @RyanBPetersonMD fantastic case (Post-herpes encephalitis NMDA, check it out!)
🧐How in the world did they get to describe this syndrome!? Well, it's fascinating.

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🤓A Cactus (mescaline), a monkey named "Aurora", Heinrich Klüver and a neurosurgeon (Bucy)
✅Klüver: experimental psychologist, helped shape the field (neuroscience). He had an interest in Peyote and mescaline induced hallucinations (eidetic visual phenomena)

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🌵Mescaline (Trimethoxyphenethylamine)
✅Occurs naturally in two cacti: San Pedro and Peyote
🌵Alkaloid, hallucinogen, chemically related to amphetamine
🌵Stimulates serotonin and dopamine receptors (locus coeruleus and prefrontal cortex
Peyote is a cute cactus.😍😍

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Back to Aurora 🐒
✅She was an angry monkey
🙈Klüver gave mescaline to Aurora. He noted chewing and licking movements on her.
🙉He thought these were "uncinate" fits (Hughlings Jackson term for oral automatisms, taste/smell hallucinations in temporal lobe epilepsy)

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🥸Klüver thought the temporal lobe was the area where the hallucinogenic effect of mescaline resided.
🤠He needed a Neurosurgeon friend to remove the temporal lobe and confirm mescaline's site of action (Paul Bucy)

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🤠Bucy removed a large portion of the left temporal lobe of our aggressive friend Aurora.
🐒Aurora became tame! A lovely well behaved monkey.
😳Klüver and Bucy decided to remove the right temporal lobe as well.
🥺The mescaline-induced oral automatisms continued.

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This discovery turned Klüver research from Peyote visions to the study of the temporal lobe and its diseases

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"it may come as a surprise that the discovery of the syndrome of bilateral destruction of the temporal lobes came by chance and without prior planning. This discovery was the result of the action of a well-prepared, active, alert mind" Klüver

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Pretty wild right!
@EmoryNeuroCrit @caseyalbin @mallyaa @Capt_Ammonia @EricLawson90 @sigman_md @JimmySuhMD
nap.edu/read/9650/chap…
🦋🦋🦋