Hugo Liepmann, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetHugo Liepmann
German neurologist and psychiatrist
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Berlin
About Hugo Liepmann
- Hugo Karl Liepmann (April 9, 1863 – May 6, 1925) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Berlin, into a Jewish family.He originally studied chemistry and philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg and Leipzig, obtaining his doctorate in 1885.
- His interests later turned to medicine, and after completion of studies, worked as an assistant to Carl Wernicke in the psychiatric clinic at Breslau.
- In 1906 he became head physician at Dalldorf (Berlin-Wittenau), followed by an assignment as director of the Städtische Irrenanstalt zu Lichtenberg (Herzberge) in 1914.Liepmann is remembered for his pioneer work involving cerebral localization of function.
- From anatomical studies, he postulated that planned or commanded actions were controlled in the parietal lobe of the brain's dominant hemisphere, and not in the frontal lobe.
- He conducted extensive research of a disorder he called apraxia, a term that he introduced in 1900.
- Apraxia is described as the inability to coordinate voluntary muscular movements that is symptomatic of some central nervous system disorders and injuries and not due to muscle weakness.
- Liepmann believed that damage in the parietal lobe prevented activation of learned sequences of actions that are necessary to produce desired results on command.
- As a result of his studies, he divided apraxia into three types: ideational: object blindness, where the patient is incapable of making appropriate use of familiar objects upon command. ideomotor: the inability to follow verbal commands or mimic an action, such as saluting or waving goodbye. kinetic: clumsiness in performing a precision act that is not due to paralysis, muscle weakness, or sensory loss.
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