Human Freedom, Reasoned Will, and the Brain: The Bereitschaftspotential Story

The Bereitschaftspotential story began when on a sunny Saturday in the spring of 1964 Hans Helmut Kornhuber (then Dozent and chief physician at the Department of Neurology, head, Professor Richard Jung, University Hospital, Freiburg/Breisgau) and Luder Deecke (his doctoral student) went for lunch to the ‘Gasthaus zum Schwanen’ at the foot of the Schlosberg hill. Sitting alone in the beautiful garden they discussed their frustration with research on the brain as a passive system prevailing worldwide and their desire to investigate self-initiated action (Kornhuber & Deecke, 1990).

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