Penfield, Wilder Graves (1891-1976)

Canadian neurosurgeon who, while developing surgical options for the treatment of epilepsy, located several functional areas of the cerebral cortex by stimulating the patient's brain electrically while he or she was conscious. He demonstrated that sensations and memories, including memories that could not be recalled except by electrical stimulation, had specific locations in the brain that remained constant. He devised the homunculus, a schematic representation showing the site and relative proportions of the cortical areas specialized for motor and sensory functions.