Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, psychology, physics, computer science, chemistry, medicine, statistics, and mathematical modeling to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons, glia and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "epic challenge" of the biological sciences.
Eric Richard Kandel is an Austrian-born American medical doctor who specialized in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard.
Fred Kavli was a Norwegian-American businessman and philanthropist. He was born on a small farm in Eresfjord, Norway. He founded the Kavlico Corporation, located in Moorpark, California. Under his leadership, the company became one of the world's largest suppliers of sensors for aeronautic, automotive, and industrial applications supplying General Electric and the Ford Motor Company.
Ragnar Arthur Granit was a Finnish-Swedish scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1967 along with Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald "for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye".
A neuroscientist is a scientist specializing in neuroscience that deals with the anatomy and function of neurons, neural circuits, and glial cells, and their behavioral, biological, and psychological roles in health and disease.
Central pattern generators (CPGs) are self-organizing biological neural circuits that produce rhythmic outputs in the absence of rhythmic input. They are the source of the tightly-coupled patterns of neural activity that drive rhythmic and stereotyped motor behaviors like walking, swimming, breathing, or chewing. The ability to function without input from higher brain areas still requires modulatory inputs, and their outputs are not fixed. Flexibility in response to sensory input is a fundamental quality of CPG-driven behavior. To be classified as a rhythmic generator, a CPG requires:
- "two or more processes that interact such that each process sequentially increases and decreases, and
- that, as a result of this interaction, the system repeatedly returns to its starting condition."
From the ancient Egyptian mummifications to 18th-century scientific research on "globules" and neurons, there is evidence of neuroscience practice throughout the early periods of history. The early civilizations lacked adequate means to obtain knowledge about the human brain. Their assumptions about the inner workings of the mind, therefore, were not accurate. Early views on the function of the brain regarded it to be a form of "cranial stuffing" of sorts. In ancient Egypt, from the late Middle Kingdom onwards, in preparation for mummification, the brain was regularly removed, for it was the heart that was assumed to be the seat of intelligence. According to Herodotus, during the first step of mummification: "The most perfect practice is to extract as much of the brain as possible with an iron hook, and what the hook cannot reach is mixed with drugs." Over the next five thousand years, this view came to be reversed; the brain is now known to be the seat of intelligence, although colloquial variations of the former remain as in "memorizing something by heart".
The Kavli Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, is a foundation that supports the advancement of science and the increase of public understanding and support for scientists and their work.
The Moser research environment is the informal name of a research environment established and led by the Nobel laureates Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway. The Mosers joined the university as professors of psychology in 1996, and formed their own neuroscience research group. The research group eventually evolved into several projects and research centers. The Mosers were awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain."
Thomas Michael Jessell was the Claire Tow Professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Columbia University in New York and a prominent developmental neuroscientist. In 2018, Columbia University announced his termination from his administrative positions after an internal investigation uncovered violations of university policies. He died shortly after from a rapidly neurodegenerative condition diagnosed as progressive supranuclear palsy.
Edvard Ingjald Moser is a Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist, who as of May 2024 is a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim.
Spinal locomotion results from intricate dynamic interactions between a central program in lower thoracolumbar spine and proprioceptive feedback from body in the absence of central control by brain as in complete spinal cord injury (SCI). Following SCI, the spinal circuitry below the lesion site does not become silent; rather, it continues to maintain active and functional neuronal properties, although in a modified manner.
Douglas G. Stuart was an American-Australian neuroscientist. He was a Regents' professor emeritus of Physiology at the University of Arizona.
Uwe Windhorst is a German neuroscientist, systems scientist and cyberneticist, who was born in Bremen, Germany in 1946. Windhorst became known for his pioneer research in the use of diverse methods of correlation, spectral analysis as well as nonlinear systems analysis to describe the dynamic properties of signal transmission through small neuronal networks assessed in experimental animals.
Richard H. Scheller is the former chief science officer and head of therapeutics at 23andMe and the former executive vice president of research and early development at Genentech. He was a professor at Stanford University from 1982 to 2001 before joining Genentech. He has been awarded the Alan T. Waterman Award in 1989, the W. Alden Spencer Award in 1993 and the NAS Award in Molecular Biology in 1997, won the 2010 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience with Thomas C. Südhof and James E. Rothman, and won the 2013 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Thomas Südhof. He was also given the Life Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award from University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.
A spinal interneuron, found in the spinal cord, relays signals between (afferent) sensory neurons, and (efferent) motor neurons. Different classes of spinal interneurons are involved in the process of sensory-motor integration. Most interneurons are found in the grey column, a region of grey matter in the spinal cord.
John O'Keefe is an American-British neuroscientist, psychologist and a professor at University College London.
Ole Kiehn is a Danish-Swedish neuroscientist. He is Professor of Integrative Neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and professor of neurophysiology at Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Eberhard Erich Fetz is an American neuroscientist, academic and researcher. He is a Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and DXARTS at the University of Washington.
Abdel El Manira is a Moroccan-Swedish neuroscientist and distinguished professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He is widely recognized for his research on the neural circuits that control movement, focusing on how motor circuits in the spinal cord contribute to locomotion and motor behavior. El Manira currently leads the Neurobiology of Motor Actions Laboratory at the Karolinska Institute, where he investigates the fundamental principles of motor circuit organization and function.
