HUMAN MEDICAL BIOLOGY, ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY - Y.I. Fedoniuk 2010

ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY, PATHOLOGY

CHAPTER 10. ANATOMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HIGHER NERVOUS (MENTAL) ACTIVITY

TYPES OF HIGHER NERVOUS ACTIVITY

The Doctrine of the types of Higher Nervous Activity was developed by I.P. Pavlov.

He based the Classification of higher nervous activity types on three Properties of the two physiological processes in the cortex: Excitation and Inhibition. These properties include strength, balance, and mobility. The strength of excitation and inhibition depends on the functional capacity of cortical Neurons.

The balance of nervous processes refers to the ratio between excitation and inhibition. The mobility of excitation and inhibition is determined by the speed at which one process replaces another.

I.P. Pavlov identified four main Types of Higher nervous activity:

- strong, unbalanced, and mobile (the unrestrained type);

- strong, balanced, and mobile (the lively type);

- strong, balanced, and inert (the calm type);

- weak (characterized by weakness in all parameters: strength, balance, and mobility).

These types were derived experimentally in dogs. However, they are equally applicable to humans, although humans rarely exhibit a hundred-percent dominance of any single type.

I.P. Pavlov established a correlation between his classification of higher nervous activity types and Hippocrates' four temperaments.

The unrestrained type corresponds to the choleric temperament, the lively type to the sanguine, the calm type to the phlegmatic, and the weak type to the melancholic.