Mind maps: Stories from psychology

Informative exhibition at the Science Museum looking at the history of the study of how nerves and the brain relate to thoughts’ behaviour and mental health.

It began with a grizzly preserved nervous system from the 1650s varnished onto a dissecting table but rapidly moved on to the work which John Wesley did on the use of electricity to treat nervous disorders. I loved a painting of a woman being treated in her home surrounded by her family with her chair on upturned glasses to control the flow of the current.

It also looked at how the complaint of nervous exhaustion grew more prevalent at the end of the 19th century which led to the study of the link between nerves and behaviour and how psychiatric drugs were discovered after the Second World War with the depression being seen as a chemical imbalance.

My favourite object though had to be the souvenir picture of Pavlov’s dogs! They all looked very happy!

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