Author’s Preface to the English-Language Edition

IN recent years it has become increasingly apparent that the development of our knowledge in neurophysiology is going through a critical period. The situation is critical because the rapid increase in the number of investigations of every kind, which produce specialized and for the most part scattered results, considerably overtakes the attempts to interpret and generalize the accumulated data. As a result, we do not have a satisfactory theory either for explaining the available data or for formulating problems for future investigations. In a recent interview, Eccles very aptly characterized this critical state of the science of the brain. He said : “You’ve got to be in the experimental battle when it is being fought in order to realize just how inappropriate most experimental observations are for providing a sound basis for theoretical developments” (MacKay and Eccles, 1967, p. 82).

Essentially, everything said about general cerebral physiology is also valid for its most important branch : the study of the conditioned reflex.

Everyone agrees that Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex is an event of enormous importance in the history of physiology. This is evidenced by the fact that at the present time almost all the neurophysiological laboratories in the world are taking part in one form or another in the elucidation and discussion of the basic functional laws of the conditioned reflex (Fessard, Eccles, Magoun, Corson, Razran, and others).

One cannot fail to see that the study of conditioned reflexes develops, in Pavlov’s words, “extensively,” that is, that it broadens. There is, essentially, a process of accumulation of diverse material on the basic forms of manifestation of conditioned reflexes (extinction, differentiation, experimental neurosis, etc.). An enormous number of data is gathered, which expand our knowledge about specific conditioned-reflex adaptations, and different variants are created for various already known manifestations of the conditioned reflex that had been first developed in Pavlov’s laboratory.

Investigations naturally also exist in which attention is focused on a deeper understanding of the actual phenomena of conditioned-reflex activity. However, the biological nature of the temporary connection, as well as the physiological nature of the “coupling” of conditioned reflexes, still remain unclear. Particularly inadequate has been the study of the central phenomenon of the entire theory of higher nervous activity—“internal inhibition”—although it certainly is receiving emphatic attention in both Soviet and world literature. It suffices to refer to the substantial critical review of this problem in the monograph of Solomon Diamond et al. (Diamond, Baldwin, and Diamond, 1963) and to our monograph on internal inhibition (Anokhin, 1958).

All this can be said in spite of the fact that there is a clear tendency to study detailed mechanisms. This general trend alone, however, is not enough : it is essential to develop overall fundamental views regarding the physiological architecture of the conditioned reflex and the integrative nature of its mechanisms.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the reflex theory in its original Cartesian form is no longer adequate as the fundamental basis for the explanation of complex forms of conditioned-reflex activity and behavior. Neurophysiologists are confronted by new problems, for which to a certain degree they had not been prepared.

It has thus become quite apparent that not a single complex behavioral act can appear under the influence of one stimulus alone, for example, of a conditioned stimulus. In the same manner, a number of other problems arose. It became clear, for example, that no behavioral act and, in particular, no so-called voluntary action can be performed without the critical mechanism to which modern science has given the name “decision making.”

It also hardly requires mention that any behavioral act is carried out in such a manner that the characteristics of the future result or, to put it simply, the goal of the behavioral act is patterned in the brain before the implementation of this act has begun. Consequently, the entire behavioral act develops by no means linearly, that is, the excitation in it does not spread progressively from point to point.

It is also conspicuous that the reflex theory as a theoretical concept was developed only on the basis of reflex action, and therefore the result of the action was completely eliminated from it. This fact, which had not attracted the attention of physiologists in the past, considerably reduced the creative effect of the reflex theory on the understanding and study of the behavior of the animal as a whole. Only Pavlov’s discovery of reflexes in man reduced this negative effect. The elimination of the result from the “reflex arc” first of all eliminated the possibility of using the theory of feedback in the system of the behavioral act. In fact, the presence of the result in the reflex would inevitably have raised the question of the adequacy of the result. This, in turn, could not be checked without special equipment for determining the degree of adequacy of the adaptive result.

All this clearly indicates that many long-held concepts in the field of higher nervous activity must be reexamined and brought into accord with the most recent data of neurophysiology, neurochemistry, neurocybernetics, and other borderline sciences, such as neuromorphology, especially electron microscopic neuromorphology.

The book we are now submitting to the English-speaking reader is an attempt to give a synthesis of the latest advances in the sciences of the brain and to develop on this basis certain new possibilities for the investigation of the conditioned reflex. In this respect I was greatly assisted by the many years of investigations by my collaborators, whose attention was specifically directed at the elucidation of the problems put forth above. Most of these investigations are of a complex nature and incorporate numerous advances from their borderline fields of science.

I do not think that our solution of certain aspects of this large problem is exhaustive and ideal. It is likely that many of my colleagues will endeavor to provide improved concepts and a more efficient application of the latest advances for both theoretical and practical problems of neuropathology and psychiatry.

For example, the neuroses are at that point in the science of the brain at which the lines of the most diverse investigations and scientific disciplines intersect. In fact, the most widely held assumption that neurosis is the result of a “struggle between excitation and inhibition” meets the demands of modern clinical neurology less and less. The concept of a “struggle between excitation and inhibition” is also in conflict with the pedagogic and therapeutic tactics of educators and physicians.

It is, of course, a task too great for one person to overcome all these accumulated deficiencies and to develop a satisfactory scheme for all aspects of higher nervous activity. Nevertheless, such attempts must from time to time be made, and the new approaches must become the subject of extensive and friendly discussion.

For some forty years the author of this book has been developing new approaches to the solution of the basic problems of the conditioned reflex. I think that even earlier, still at the laboratory of my teacher I. P. Pavlov, I attempted to develop a somewhat different approach to a number of problems of higher nervous activity.

We have, for example, long ago proposed a modification of the concept generally held in Pavlov’s laboratory regarding the onset and localization of internal inhibition. Our concept, which has been discussed quite extensively in the book by S. Diamond et al. (Diamond, Baldwin, and Diamond, 1963), is again analyzed in detail in a number of chapters of this book.

Perhaps the most important feature of the book we present to the English-speaking reader is that its central idea is the attempt to develop a unifying concept of the conditioned reflex and of higher nervous activity on the basis of the theory of the functional system, which we had proposed as early as 1935 (see Chapter 6).

This concept, which we formulated on the basis of our previous investigations about the compensation of disturbed functions, makes it possible to regard the conditioned reflex from the point of view of the systems approach to complex behavioral acts. As the reader can see, this approach, supported by concrete physiological mechanisms (afferent synthesis, the action acceptor, etc.), enables us to move to a new level in the investigation of complex behavioral acts.

Thus, the book combines the biological, neurophysiological, neurochemical, and neurocybernetic aspects, which all contribute to the development of a unified approach to the most pressing problems of higher nervous activity. It is my hope that the readers of this book will also find in it useful ideas regarding the further development of Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflexes.

I wish to acknowledge here the great help extended to me by my closest collaborators in the work on this book, both with their experimental data and with their participation in preparing the book for publication. I have in mind first of all my long-time...