Who is credited with the view that sensation and cognition arise from the brain?

• A. Alcmaeon (ca. 450 B.C.)
• B. Galen
• C. Hippocrates
• D. Aristotle

Answer: (A)

The idea tested here centers on where sensation and mental processes originate. Alcmaeon of Croton, a physician from around the 5th century BCE, is credited with proposing that the brain is the organ responsible for sensation and thought, marking an early shift away from the heart as the locus of intellect. This view laid groundwork for later work that reinforced the brain as the seat of cognition, even though other thinkers offered different details or alternatives (for example, Aristotle arguing that the heart is the center of intellect). The key point is that Alcmaeon is recognized as the earliest to attribute sensation and cognition to the brain itself.