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April 24, 2026SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología0 citationsOpen Access

The origins of “neuroscience” and neuroscientist”

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ALAndrew J Larner

Key Points

  • The aim is to examine the historical origins of the terms neuroscience and neuroscientist and their relevance to earlier practices.
  • Explored the historical timelines of the terms neurology and neuroscience.
  • Analyzed the legitimacy of applying modern terms to past practitioners of nervous system studies.
  • Identified that neuroscience and neuroscientist emerged in the late twentieth century.
  • Proposed that early practitioners can be retrospectively attributed these modern terms.

Abstract

Whilst the origins of the words “neurology” and “neurologist” may be traced to the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries respectively, “neuroscience” and “neuroscientist” prove to have been of much more recent coinage, probably in the third quarter of the twentieth century. This article briefly explores those origins and then asks whether it is legitimate to fit the terms retrospectively to practice and practitioners investigating the nervous system in earlier times.

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Cite This Study

Andrew J Larner (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69eb0803553a5433e34b33d7https://doi.org/10.47795/cdbk5577
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