Karl H. Pribram

Not to be confused with Karl Přibram, economist.

Karl H. Pribram
Karl Pribram in Kepler Museum, Prague, 2010.
Born	(1919-02-25)February 25, 1919 Vienna, Austria
Died	January 19, 2015(2015-01-19) (aged 95) Virginia, United States
Alma mater	University of Chicago (B.S., 1938; M.D., 1941) Culver Military Academy (Man of the Year)
Known for	Interdisciplinary mind-brain research Identifying the Structure and Function of the Limbic System, Frontal Lobes, and Inferotemporal cortex Holonomic Theory of Memory Storage and Retrieval in Humans and Primates Holonomic brain theory Holographic consciousness Quantum mind
Spouse	Helen Bermingham Pribram Amy Isle Pribram
Partner	Katherine Neville
Children	John Pribram Joan Pribram-Jones (dec.) Bruce Pribram (dec.) Cynthia Pribram-Byrne Karl S. Pribram
Awards	1989 NIH Lifetime Research Career Award in Neuroscience 1999 Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 Prize
Scientific career
Fields	Neuroscience, Cognitive science, Neuropsychology
Institutions	Yale University, Stanford University, Radford University, George Mason University, Georgetown University
Doctoral students	Mortimer Mishkin
Other notable students	Lawrence Weiskrantz
Website	karlpribram.com

Karl H. Pribram (/ˈpraɪbræm/; German: [ˈpʁiːbram]; February 25, 1919 – January 19, 2015) was a neurosurgeon, neuroscientist and theoretical philosopher described by his peers as the “Einstein of Brain Science” and the “Magellan of the Mind” for his groundbreaking research into the “functions of the brain’s limbic system, frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and their roles in decision making and emotion.”

Pribram is internationally known for his pioneering research on the structure and function of the brain, his development of the Holonomic Brain Model of cognitive function (with quantum physicist David Bohm) and his multiple contributions to neurological research focused "the relationship between brain function and mental processes" including memory, perception, emotion, motivation, consciousness and the related structures of the brain.

Holonomic model

Main articles: Holonomic brain theory and Holographic consciousness

Karl Pribram's holonomic brain theory suggests that brain processes are distributed, rather than localized, much like an optical hologram.

In his 1971 publication Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neuropsychology, Karl Pribram first explored the metaphor of information storage in the brain as a hologram. In a review of Languages, in Behavioral Science Journal, R.P McDermott and Laurence Mucciolo stated "The book's contribution to neuropsychology will be hailed, developed and disputed for years to come."

Pribram's holonomic model of brain processing is further described in his 1991 Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing, which contains the extension of his work with David Bohm. It states that, in addition to the circuitry accomplished by the large fiber tracts in the brain, processing also occurs in webs of fine fiber branches (for instance, dendrites) that form webs, as well as in the dynamic electrical fields that surround these dendritic "trees". In addition, the processing occurring around these dendritic trees can influence that occurring in those trees of nearby neurons whose dendrites are entangled but not in direct contact (known as ephaptic signaling). In this way, processing in the brain can occur in a non-localized manner. This type of processing is properly described by Dennis Gabor, the inventor of holography, as quanta of information he called a "holon", an energy-based concept of information. These wavelets are used in quantum holography, the basis of MRI, PET scans and other image-processing procedures .

Gabor wavelets are windowed Fourier transforms that convert complex spatial and temporal patterns into component waves whose amplitudes at their intersections become reinforced or diminished . Fourier processes are the basis of holography. Holograms can correlate and store a huge amount of information and have the advantage that the inverse transform returns the results of correlation into the spatial and temporal patterns that guide us in navigating our universe.

David Bohm suggested that were we to view the cosmos without the lenses that outfit our telescopes, the universe would appear to us as a hologram. Pribram extended this insight by noting that were we deprived of the lenses of our eyes and the lens-like processes of our other sensory receptors, we would be immersed in holographic experiences.

Teaching Career and Research

In the 1940s, Pribram became one of the first 300 board-certified neurosurgeons in the world after receiving his MD from University of Chicago. Throughout his life, Pribram would engage in pioneering work on the definition of the limbic system, the relationship of the frontal cortex to the limbic system, the sensory-specific association cortex of the parietal and temporal lobes, and the classical motor cortex of the human brain.

Pribram's interest in research led him to work with Karl Lashley at the Yerkes Primate Center, known as the “most important institute for neuropsychological research on animals in the 1940s.” Shortly after the end of WWII, Pribram succeeded Lashley as director of Yerkes and “added neurosurgical sophistication” that allowed the field of animal neuropsychology to expand and flourish during his time as director. These early years would prove to be influential in his development of theories about the structure of the brain and related mental processes. Two of the earliest discoveries Pribram made while at Yerkes were of the relationship between the frontal cortex and the limbic forebrain, and the relationship between the posterior cortex and sensory specific sectors.

In 1948, Pribram was invited to join the Department of Physiology at Yale University, where he would continue his research and teach neurophysiology and physiological psychology for the next decade. While at Yale, Pribram established and directed the Psychophysiology Laboratory at the Institute for Living in Hartford, which “became a mecca for students intensely interested in the relationship between brain and behavior.” As Director of the Psychophysiology Laboratory, Pribram would conduct some of the earliest research on brain circuitry with Mortimer Mishkin. During this time, Pribram established relationships with psychologists at Harvard University and “learned a great deal from S.S. Stevens, Gary Boring, and Georg von Bekesy.” Additionally, Pribram noted that his interactions with B.F. Skinner at Harvard would influence his research into cognitive neuropsychology.

After his tenure at Yale, Pribram moved to the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, where he continued to teach neurophysiology and physiological psychology for the next 30 years. During this time, Pribram pioneered the field of neuropsychology (a term that he coined), leading groundbreaking research into the interrelations of the brain, behavior, and the mind. In 1975, a Stanford secretary, Barbara Honegger, filed a complaint alleging that Pribram had "denied [her] a job rank she was entitled to" while further alleging that Pribram had "struck her in the head." Pribram was placed on temporary probation by Stanford, while Honegger received a parting out-of-court settlement from the school. Pribram would later receive a Lifetime Research Career Award from the National Institutes of Health as Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Stanford.

Upon becoming emeritus at Stanford University, Pribram accepted the position of the James P. and Anna King Distinguished Professor at Radford University and, in 1989, was appointed Eminent Scholar of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Radford built the Center for Brain Research and Informational Sciences (B.R.A.I.N.S.) for Pribram to direct with the support of Alastair Harris, chair of the psychology department. After 60 years of leading research and development in the field of brain research, Pribram was appointed Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at Georgetown University in 1998. Simultaneously, he was appointed Distinguished Professor in the Engineering and Computer Science Department at George Mason University.

Influence on Other Researchers

Over fifty doctoral and fifty postdoctoral fellows were trained in the neuropsychological laboratories at Yale and Stanford under Pribram’s direction. At Stanford, Leslie Ungerleider (noted experimental psychologist and neuroscientist) was among those who made major contributions. During Pribram's tenure at Yale, while directing the Psychophysiology Laboratory at the Institute for Living, many young researchers where able to explore the importance of utilizing psychology combined with neurophysiology, including Lawrence Weiskrantz (Harvard) and Mortimer Mishkin (McGill).

Accolades

Karl Pribram was the recipient of more than seventy major international awards and honors.

Pribram was presented the inaugural Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Award (The VIZE 97 Prize) in 1999 for uniting the sciences and the humanities. The award was created to honor significant individuals whose work transcends the conventional framework of scientific understanding. Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic and award namesake, declared, “[Pribram] is an example to people of different fields and orientations, such as neurologists, psychologists, mathematicians, scientists and philosophers. It is a wonder to see people from all over the world united by one purpose when so often the world is divided by distrust and small disparities.”

Pribram was granted honorary doctorates in psychology and neuroscience from the University of Montreal and University of Bremen; as well as an Outstanding Contributions Award from the American Board of Medical Psychotherapists.

Selected Honors and Awards

• NIH Lifetime Research Career Award (1962)

• International Neuropsychological Society (President, 1967)
• American Psychological Association
  • Division of Physiological and Comparative Psychology (President, 1967-1968)
  • Division of Theological and Philosophical Psychology (President, 1979-1980)

• Menfred Sakel Award, Society for Biological Psychiatry (1976)
• Realia Honor, Institute for Advanced Philosophic Research (1986)
• Outstanding Contributions Award, American Board of Medical Psychotherapists (1990)
• Honorary Ph.D. in Psychology, University of Montreal, Canada (1992)
• Neural Network Leadership Award, International Neural Network Society (1994)
• Honorary Ph.D. in Neuroscience, University of Bremen, Germany (1996)
• The Noetic Medal of Consciousness & Brain Research (1998)
• Dagmar and Vaclav Havel Award: The VIZE 97 Prize (1999)

In Popular Culture

The Aquarian Conspiracy

Marilyn Ferguson summarized and interpreted Karl Pribram's holonomic model of brain processing in her popular book, The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980). In the book she also describes how Pribram's son, John Pribram, Ph.D, introduced him to the work of David Bohm, leading to their shared holonomic brain theory. Additionally, Ferguson produced the Brain/Mind Bulletin, a science newsletter dedicated to sharing cutting-edge research from prominent scientists and theorists including Pribram, Bohm, and Prigogine.

SyberVision

Steve DeVore, the founder of SyberVision, worked as a research assistant to Pribram at Stanford, where he would investigate the function of mirror neurons. Together they published The Neuropsychology of Achievement which proposed the concept of creating an "image of achievement" to attain one's goals.

Feldenkrais Foundation

While at Stanford, Pribram was introduced to Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais Method. Pribram would later visit Feldenkrais' training program in California where they engaged in a series of conversations focused on the holographic and dynamic qualities of brain functioning.

Additional contributions

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pribram's neurobehavioral experiments established the composition of the limbic system and the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. Pribram also discovered the sensory specific systems of the association cortex, and showed that these systems operate to organize the choices we make among sensory stimuli, not the sensing of the stimuli themselves.

His account of how his discoveries were made is in his book The Form Within which was published in 2013. It includes stories of his encounters with leading scientists and scholars of the day, and amusing stories like how he lost part of a finger when his hand was slammed down by the chimpanzee Washoe at the University of Oklahoma.

Bibliography

Karl Pribram published over 700 scientific publications including books and monographs, as well as data and theory papers. A complete bibliography of Pribram's publications can be found on his website.

Books and Monographs

HAMBURG, D. A., PRIBRAM, K. H. & STUNKARD, A. J. (Eds.) (1970) Perception and Its Disorders. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.

HYDÉN, H., LORENZ, K., MAGOUN, H.W., PENFIELD, W., PRIBRAM, K.H. (Eds) (1969) On the Biology of Learning. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.

KING, JOSEPH S. & PRIBRAM, K.H., (Eds.) (1995) Scale in Conscious Experience: Is the Brain Too Important to be Left to Specialists to Study?, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

MILLER, G. A., GALANTER, E. & PRIBRAM, K. H. (1960) Plans and the Structure of Behavior. New York: Henry Holt, 1960. (Russian trans; also in Japanese, German, Spanish, Italian.) ISBN 0-03-010075-5

ISAACSON, R. L. & PRIBRAM, K. H. (Eds.) (1975) The Hippocampus, Volumes I and II. New York: Plenum. ISBN 0306375354 (Vol I) and

ISAACSON, R. L. & PRIBRAM, K. H. (Eds.) (1986) The Hippocampus, Volumes III and IV. New York: Plenum.

PRIBRAM, K. H., & BROADBENT, D. (Eds.) (1970) Biology of Memory. New York: Academic Press.

PRIBRAM, K. H. & GILL, M. M. (1976) Freud’s `Project’ Re-Assessed: Preface to Contemporary Cognitive Theory and Neuropsychology. New York: Basic Books.

PRIBRAM, K.H. & KING, J.S. (Eds.) (1996) Learning as Self-Organization. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

PRIBRAM, K. H. & LURIA, A. R. (Eds.) (1973) Psychophysiology of the Frontal Lobes. New York: Academic Press.

PRIBRAM, K.H. & RAMÍREZ, J.M. (1980) Cerebro, Mente y Holograma. Madrid: Alhambra.

PRIBRAM, K. H. (Ed.) (1969) Brain and Behavior, Volumes I-IV. London: Penguin, Ltd. ISBN 0140805214

PRIBRAM, K. H. (1971) What Makes Man Human. (39th James Arthur Lecture on the Evolution of the Human Brain, 1970). New York: American Museum of Natural History.

PRIBRAM, K. H. (1971) Languages of the Brain: Experimental Paradoxes and Principles in Neuropsychology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall; Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1977; New York: Brandon House, 1982. (Translations in Russian, Japanese, Italian, Spanish)

PRIBRAM, K. H. (Ed.) (1974) Central Processing of Sensory Input. The Neurosciences: Third Study Program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

PRIBRAM, K. H. (1991) Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. ISBN 9780898599954

PRIBRAM, K.H. (Ed.) (1993) Rethinking Neural Networks: Quantum Fields and Biological Data. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

PRIBRAM, K.H. (Ed.) (1994) Origins: Brain & Self Organization. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. ISBN 9781138876521

PRIBRAM, K.H. (1995) Cerebro Y Conciencia. Madrid, Spain: Diaz de Santos.

PRIBRAM, K.H. (Ed.) (1998) Brain and Values: Is a Biological Science of Values Possible. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

External links

• Karl Pribram's Website karlpribram.com
• The implicate brain by Karl H. Pribram, karlpribram.com
• "Winner 1998 Noetic Medal for Consciousness & Brain Research – For Lifetime Achievement"
• "Pribram Receives Havel Prize For His Work in Neuroscience" – news article
• Karl Pribram: The Holographic Brain (excerpt) - A Thinking Allowed DVD with Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove
• Karl Pribram, MD interviewed by Howard Kaufman, MD (American Association of Neurological Surgeons)
• Meeting of the Minds: Interview with Karl Pribram
• Consciousness, Connectivity, & Integral Models of Reality: Global Lens Interview
• A Geometry of Consciousness -- The Pribram Bohm Hypothesis by Shelli Joye, Ph.D.
• Karl Pribram's Revolutionary Idea: The Brain as a Hologram