Sensory maps and brain development the midbrain auditory nucleus had receptive fields independent of nature and intensity of the sound. Roger Sperry proposed a chemical gradient model for eye rotation and for neuronal wiring diagram. Retinal neurons and target cells had identification tags in the form of chemical gradients so that the projection of neurons would be orderly. For a topographic map of the visual world, the map first forms during neural development via molecular signals, such as chemospecific matching between molecular gradients. The molecular basis of sensory maps and brain development is a field that is being actively explored. The most recent work has
Electrical brain stimulation physician Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) that nerves and muscles were electrically excitable. The stimulation of the surface of the cerebral cortex by using brain stimulation was used to investigate the motor cortex in animals by researchers such as Eduard Hitzig (1838–1907), Gustav Fritsch (1838–1927), David Ferrier (1842–1928) and Friedrich Goltz (1834–1902). The human cortex was also stimulated electrically by neurosurgeons and neurologists such as Robert Bartholow (1831–1904) and Fedor Krause (1857–1937). In the following century, the technique was improved by the invention of the stereotactic method by British neurosurgeon pioneer Victor Horsley (1857–1916), and by the development of chronic electrode implants