Josephine Semmes

Josephine Semmes (1916–1998) was an American neuropsychologist. Semmes researched how touch and spatial orientation are processed in the brain and developed a pioneering hypothesis about differences between the right and left hemispheres. She also did early research demonstrating neuroplasticity in adult primates. In the course of her neuropsychological research, she co-developed a tactile sensitivity test, the Semmes-Weinstein monofilament test, which was later used by clinicians for tracking the course of diseases including leprosy and diabetic neuropathy.

Early life and education Semmes was born on November 2, 1916 in Hazlehurst, Mississippi. She received her Ph.D from Yale University in 1949.

Career Research at Yerkes

Semmes worked in the lab of Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts in Chicago. Semmes also worked at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London.

Research in Teuber lab

Semmes received a fellowship in psychology at New York University, where she joined the research group of Hans-Lukas Teuber. The study found that the veterans lost their ability to learn a pattern through touch using the hand controlled by the injured, opposite, side of the brain.

Invention of the Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments

While Semmes was working at Bellevue Hospital, Sidney Weinstein, who was also working there on his doctoral research in neuroscience under Teuber, persuaded her that a two-point device for detecting touch sensitivity, which she had brought to the lab, could be improved. Weinstein completed his dissertation in 1952. These Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments came into wide use for various applications, including testing for the sensitivity of hands and feet. In May 1992, Weinstein traveled to Carville, Louisiana, to the Laboratory Research Branch of the Gillis W. Long Hansen's Disease Center, to reminisce about the history of this invention. He received a plaque from the leprosy researchers there commemorating the "gift to the world" of the Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments.

Research on somatosensory processing Semmes was the first author of a monograph, Somatosensory Changes After Penetrating Brain Wounds in Man, published by Teuber's group in 1960. It had previously been known that some lesions to the right hemisphere of the brain could cause changes in tactile sensitivity of the left hand, and vice versa. The authors had mapped the correspondence between exactly where in the brain the lesion occurred, and exactly where on the contralateral hand the change in sensitivity occurred. This mapping would indicate how an area of the hand was represented by a corresponding area of the brain responsible for processing touch sensation. The researchers had found that the touch processing region of the brain differed in each hemisphere, and the pattern of loss also differed on the two sides of the body. They concluded that the representation of the right hand in the left hemisphere was more "concentrated" than the representation of the left hand in the right hemisphere.

Research on spatial orientation Semmes was also the first author on papers from the Teuber lab investigating spatial orientation. They found differences in the regions of the brain involved in orienting personal space (i.e., one's own body) versus extra-personal space.

When the Teuber group was still at NYU, visiting scientists would come and give talks during their Thursday lunch meetings. On one such occasion, Don Hebb came and continued a theoretical discussion on brain injury and intelligence from lunch all the way through to dinner with Weinstein, Semmes, and Ed Evarts. Other such visiting scientists included Harry Harlow, Joe Zubin, Dave Wechsler, and many more. Semmes, Weinstein, Lila Ghent, and Teuber worked together for several years as a close knit group, meticulously scrutinizing one another's research and writing. to study cortical functioning in monkeys. She also supervised a couple of post-docs, including Ruth Nadel, and had a research assistant, John Sulu.

Hemispheric lateralization theory

Semmes was the first to clearly propose that the two hemispheres of the brain process information in distinctly different ways. Neuroscientist Don M. Tucker wrote:Semmes's theory influenced many later theoretical efforts (including my own) to understand brain lateralization. It has proven to be a pioneering model for reasoning from mental capacity to brain tissue. — Don M. Tucker, work that was later relevant enough to appear in textbooks on neuropsychology. (In one possible scheme, these areas would mostly be connected to other nearby regions in the left hemisphere.) On the other hand, areas in the right hemisphere were specialized for integrating unlike elements. (In the same scheme, there would be more longer-range connections among different regions in the right hemisphere.)

Works

Book Semmes, Josephine; Weinstein, Sidney; Ghent, Lila; and Teuber, Hans-Lukas, Somatosensory Changes After Penetrating Brain Wounds in Man, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960.

Book chapters Semmes, Josephine, "Manual Stereognosis After Brain Injury", in Bosma, James F., ed., Symposium on Oral Sensation and Perception, Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1967. Semmes, Josephine, "Protopathic and epicritic sensation: A reappraisal", in Benton, Arthur L., ed., Brain & Behavior: Research in Clinical Neuropsychology, New York: Routledge, 1969. Semmes, Josephine, "Somesthetic Effects of Damage to the Central Nervous System", in Iggo, Ainsley, ed., Handbook of Sensory Physiology: Somatosensory System, Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1973, pp. 719–742.

Selected articles Lashley, K. S., Chow, K. L, and Semmes, Josephine, "An examination of the electrical field theory of cerebral integration", Psychological Review, 58(2), 1951, pp. 123–136. Semmes, Josephine, "Agnosia in animal and man", Psychological Review, 60(2), 1953, pp. 140–147, Semmes, Josephine; Weinstein, Sidney; Ghent, Lila; and Teuber, Hans-Lukas, "Correlates of Impaired Orientation in Personal and Extrapersonal Space", Brain, Volume 86, 1963, pp. 747–772. Semmes, Josephine, "A non-tactual factor in astereognosis", Neuropsychologia, Volume 3, Issue 4, November 1968, pp. 295–315. Semmes, Josephine, "Hemispheric specialization: A possible clue to mechanism", Neuropsychologia, Volume 6, Issue 1, March 1968, pp. 11–26. Deuel, Ruthmary K., Mishkin, Mortimer, and Semmes, Josephine, "Interaction between the hemispheres in unimanual somesthetic learning", Experimental Neurology, Volume 30, Issue 1, January 1971, pp. 123–138.

Personal life While Walter Pitts was a student at the University of Chicago from 1938 to 1943, Semmes (who had been divorced) was one of his closest personal friends.

Semmes's friends called her "Jojie". Some of her journal articles during this period referred to her as Josephine Semmes Blum or J. S. Blum. Subsequently, some time before December 30, 1952, Semmes married the neuroscientist Edward Evarts.