Brodmann's

Korbinian Brodmann's 1909 study, first published in Leipzig by Barth-Verlag under the German title "Vergleichende Lokalisationslehre der Grosshirnrinde", is now available in English in this third edition, translated by Laurence Garey. Few neuroscience works have shaped the field as deeply, since the book's ideas about where functions sit in the cerebral cortex still underpin modern research.

Brodmann's numbered regions remain standard labels in neurology and neurosurgery. Area 4 denotes the motor cortex that governs voluntary movement, and area 17 the visual cortex responsible for sight. The same naming system is applied to experimental work on many animals. His cortical maps of humans, monkeys and other mammals are among the most frequently reproduced diagrams in neurobiology, and the human map in particular is widely recognised.

Despite this influence, the original monograph was rarely read, and for decades it was scarce and expensive to obtain. Garey's translation, first issued in 1994, was the first complete English version. Garey had used Brodmann's findings in his own work, and his reading of the full text revealed far more than a record of laboratory results. It documents the comparative neuroanatomy, neurophysiology and neuropathology of its era, and offers a view of the relationships among European neurologists at a time when the neuron theory was still new.