History of neuroscience that the functional unit of the brain is the neuron. Golgi and Ramón y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for their extensive observations, descriptions and categorizations of neurons throughout the brain. The hypotheses of the neuron doctrine were supported by experiments following Galvani's pioneering work in the electrical excitability of muscles and neurons. In the late 19th century, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Johannes Peter Müller, and Hermann von Helmholtz showed neurons were electrically excitable and that their activity predictably affected the electrical state of adjacent neurons. In parallel with this research, work with brain-damaged patients
Chemical plant or economic conditions change and re-optimization is desirable. In more modern times, computer simulations or other computer calculations have been used to help in chemical plant design or optimization. In process control, information gathered automatically from various sensors or other devices in the plant is used to control various equipment for running the plant, thereby controlling operation of the plant. Instruments receiving such information signals and sending out control signals to perform this function automatically are process "controllers". Previously, pneumatic controls were sometimes used. Electrical controls are now common. A plant often has a control room with displays of parameters