EGO, not Freud but Meynert

If you ask professionals in the field of psychology and psychiatry, who was first to conceive the term ‘Ego’ you will most-certainly receive an answer ‘Freud.’ 

This is simply not true,  the term ‘Ego’ was first coined by Theodor Meynert. Theodor Meynert was head of neuropsychiatry department where Freud was a resident, thus Freud knew about the ‘Ego’ from Meynert.

According to Meynert (1) the Ego forming system of the brain is the cerebral cortex. The human cortex forms an ‘Association System,’ cognitive functions and consciousness depend of neuronal associations among functioning cortical nerve cells. Meynert conceived the cerebral hemispheres analogue to ‘colonies’ of living beings capable of dynamic activity resulting in common consciousness capacity. This is modern-day neuronal network dynamics with emergent property of consciousness.  

In relationship with the environment Meynert stated that information received from the outer world is stored and interpreted ‘cortical interpretation.’ This is known today as ‘Experience-Depended-Plasticity where incoming stimuli activate neurons and shape their interconnection patterns, those store information in terms of memories and ‘Internal Presentations’ of experiences (2). Thus, an internal configuration representing the real experienced world is coded into the ‘Ego’ association system. 

According to Meynert each individual has unique life-experiences thus has encoded personalized experiences which form personalized individual associations systems, which are individuum-related basic brain neural-network organizations, and he called them ‘Ego.’ This ‘Ego’ description by Meynert is very similar to the recently discovered Default-Mode Networks in the brain.

The utility of the ‘Ego’ theorization was immediately relevant for understanding psychiatric pathophysiology, Meynert described ‘Subcortical Weakness’ which creates weakness of associations causing psychosis with its loosening of associations and disintegrated conscious experience (hallucinations and delusions). In fact, modern-day neuronal network simulations (Computational Psychiatry) accurately show that disconnections in a neuronal network can simulate psychotic psychiatric phenomenology (3).

From Meynert conception of the ‘ego’ we understand how it is directly related to brain physiology and pathophysiology, however the ‘Ego’ described by Freud is definitely not brain-related, in fact Freud declared that he will ‘disconnect’ the Ego from the brain due to insufficient neuroscientific knowhow, and that he will describe the characteristics of the ‘Ego’ theoretically (4).

The formulations thereafter developed by Freud to describe illness were theoretical (unrelated to the brain) and they were formulated under the term known to become ‘Psychoanalysis.’ This stands in strict contrast to Meynert approach, especially as Meynert referred to the term ‘Psych’ as obsolete unscientific and need not to be used, he even called his book of psychiatry ‘The Disease of the Forbrain’ instead of Psychiatry, explaining his rational in the preface (5).

Even though Meynert was correct, still the term ‘psychiatry,’ ’psychology’ and also ‘psychoanalysis’ caught up and are still popular as distinct scientific disciplines.

It is obvious to the common sense that terminologies incorporating the term ‘Psych’ are flawed as it is clear that mental-disorders emanate from the brain. This was accepted also by Freud himself, thus ‘psychiatry,’ ’psychology’ and ‘psychoanalysis’ are actually temporary historical artefacts of science due to absence of knowledge about the brain-related origins of mental disorders.

To correct the erroneous terminology of ‘Psychoanalysis’ making it brain-related again, it is necessary that the term ‘Psych’ should be substituted with ‘Neuro’ and the appropriate term for a brain-related psychiatry should be ‘Neuroanalysis.’ As such Neuroanalysis is ready to reformulate mental disorders as brain disorders and redefine psychology as brain-related dynamics. This can be done by the recent advances of ‘computational Neuroscience’ lacking at the time of Freud and Meynert.

In the new formulations of ‘Neuroanalysis’ ‘weakness of ego’ for psychosis will become disconnection dynamics, and disturbed small-world-network clustering-coefficient, and other disturbances will also have their etiological brain related neuropathology (6). In effect ‘NeuroAnalysis’ stands as a comprehensive theoretical construct for mental disorders based on complex-system theory and computational neuroscientific formulations (6). NeuroAnalysis is ready for validation as it is formulated as sets of testable-predictions (See ‘Brain Profiler’ at https://www.brainprofiler.com/en/).       

With the advancement of computational neuroscientific knowledge, and technological developments (Digital Psychiatry) the Neuroanalyists of the future are ready for their big leap. The leap for a brain-related etiological-psychiatry of effective brain-pacing corrective therapeutic technology.

To become a Neuroanalyst register at the https://neuroanalysis-society.org/

For more information go to https://neuroanalysis.org.il/books/

Contact the Author and founder of ‘Neuroanalysis’ [email protected]  

References

1, Seitelberger F. Theodor Meynert (1833-1892), pioneer and visionary of brain research. J Hist Neurosci. 1997 Dec;6(3):264-74.

2, Peled A. Brain “globalopathies” cause mental disorders. Med Hypotheses 2013:81(6):1046-55

3, Geva AB, Peled A. Simulation of cognitive disturbances by a dynamic threshold neural network model. Journal of International Neuropsychology 2000; 6(5):608-619.

4, Freud the Biologist On the web

5, Meynert T, Psychiatry; A clinical treaties on diseases of the for-brain. Translated by B. Sachs Ney York and London G.P. Putnam's Sons 1884

6, Neuroanalysis text book https://neuroanalysis.org.il/books/