Flourens, Marie-Jean-Pierre

Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794-1867), an early proponent of animal experimentation, provided experimental evidence that cognition occurred in the cerebral cortex, coordination arose in the cerebellum, and respiration and cardiac activity were centered in the medulla oblongata. He stridently opposed the theory of phrenology. Flourens believed in equipotentiality of the cerebral cortex because he concluded from his faulty experiments that visual function could be located anywhere in the cerebral cortex. Flourens correctly established that the cerebellum controlled coordination and was not the center of movement.