After the first attempts to divide the human cortex into areas according to the cytoarchitecture by Theodor Meynert, Vladimir Betz, Alfred Walter Campbell, Grafton Elliot Smith and Korbinian Brodmann, von Economo started his own project in 1912 and was joined by Georg N. Koskinas in 1919.
Awarded a scholarship by the Council for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research he studied in the nervenklinik (mental hospital) of the University of Vienna (1933–34) on clinic neurology and animal testing with H. Hoff, on brain cytoarchitecture with Otto Pötzl in the laboratory of Constantin von Economo, and on brain pathology in the mental hospital of the Goethe University Frankfurt (1934–35) with Karl Kleist.