This CBS News 1958 educational film demonstrates emerging brain research and psychological studies. It is narrated by the famed journalist Eric Sevareid. It features footage of brain surgery on an epileptic patient who remains awake during the operation to assist the surgeon in mapping his brain. Sevareid also speaks with scientists about the different parts of human and animal brains. Footage of research conducted on rats and cats illustrates how these new advancements are achieved. The film was an excerpt from the TV show CONQUEST, which was presented over the CBS Television Network by the Monsanto Chemical Company. It was distributed by McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Note: this film contains footage of animal testing.

(00:51) Renowned CBS news journalist Eric Sevareid introduces the questions posed by new and developing brain research.

(01:37) Robert Livingston, director of living research on the brain at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

(02:03) Livingston points to the different parts of the brain such as the cortex and the stem.

(02:47) Footage of brain surgery being conducted on a patient suffering from epilepsy.

(04:03) The doctor applies an electric current using a pencil-like instrument to evaluate which parts of the brain are responsible for which activities.

(04:20) The nurse provides information about the patient’s responses.

(05:12) He stimulates a different part of the brain. The patient’s left hand and wrist twitch, indicating that the stimulation elicited a response.

(05:50) Once again he applies an electrode and the patient’s hand twitches.

(08:55) Diagrams show the brain of animals. Livingston shows how the cortex developed alongside evolution.

(09:34) A drawing shows that in humans, the cortex mushrooms and covers most of the brain.

(10:14) He uses a brain to show the “old brain” where underneath the cortex, some of the human brain resembles that of an animal in terms of its structure.

(10:52) Livingston points to two electrodes which can be implanted in the animal.

(11:04) Here a cat is seen with implanted electrodes.

(11:54) Doctor Magoon and French implanted electrodes in a cat and kept the cat awake all night. They apply electricity to the cat’s verticular formation, causing the cat to wake up.

(12:35) When the scientist activates a different brain region, the cat continues to sleep.

(14:12) Dr. Neil Miller and Ted Koons at Yale conduct research on motivation.

(15:11) Electrical stimulation causes a cat to drink water.

(16:01) However when appetite is truly stimulated, the rat will go through a door to get food.

(16:54) A rat drinks from a water tube. When stimulated, he leaves the water to go to food.

(17:40) At Yale, Jose Delgado, Warren Roberts, and Miller sought to determine what area of the brain causes fear.

(17:59) A cat eats and when stimulated, goes away from the food. But this motor cortex stimulation is not true fear.

(18:37) Stimulation to a different brain area causes a cat to be highly fearful and reluctant to go back to his food. He tries to exit his crate.

(19:36) Jim Olds at University of Michigan’s laboratory watches a rat on a table. He stimulates the rat every time the rat heads in a particular direction.

(21:41) When the rat presses the pedal, he receives a stimulating reward.

(22:08) Scientists measure the rat’s rate of pedal pressing to determine how rewarding the stimulus is.

(23:13) Now, the rat works through a complex maze in search of positive stimulation from the pedal.

(24:00) The rat learns to solve the maze faster and faster in order to rapidly find the pedal and get stimulation.

(24:38) Another rat, who last did the maze a week prior, still remembers how to quickly find the stimulus.

(26:03) The scientist applies a high electric shock to the rat as he goes to the pedal yet the rat is still willing to endure the shock to get to the pedal.

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