Sten Grillner | |
---|---|
Born | |
Alma mater | University of Gothenburg MD; PhD |
Known for | Former chair of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (20 Years) |
Awards | Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, Bristol-Myers Squibb award, Ralph Gerard prize. |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Neuroscience, Neurophysiology |
Institutions | Karolinska Institutet |
Sten Grillner (born 14 June 1941, Stockholm [1] ) is a Swedish neurophysiologist and distinguished professor at the Karolinska Institute's Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology in Stockholm where he is the director of that institute. He is considered one of the world's foremost experts in the cellular bases of motor behaviour. His research is focused on understanding the cellular bases of motor behaviour; in particular, he has shown how neuronal circuits in the spine help control rhythmic movements, such as those needed for locomotion. He is the current secretary general of the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) and president of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS). For his work, in 2008 he was awarded the $1 million Kavli Prize for deciphering the basic mechanisms which govern the development and functioning of the networks of cells in the brain and spinal cord. This prize distinguish the recipient from the Nobel prizes in basic medical sciences. [2]
Notable neuroscientists like Eric Kandel, 2000 Nobel laureates in physiology or medicine named Grillner's work on the workings of complex neurocircuitry extremely important and this progress in understanding motor systems, the cognitive role in motor systems, is a brilliant advance and has revolutionized our understanding of how the nervous system is wired. [3]
Prof. Grillner studied at the medical faculty in Gothenburg, Sweden, and received his Doctor of Medicine (MD); PhD in neurophysiology in 1969. He has been a Professor and Director of the Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology at the Karolinska Institute since 1987. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, Royal Swedish Academy of Science, National Academy of Sciences (US), Institute of Medicine (US) and former member, deputy chair and chairperson between 1988 and 2008 of the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet which awards Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and has received a number of awards including the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award in 1993 and the Reeve–Irvine award in 2002. He was the co-recipient of the 2005 SfN Ralph Gerard Prize, highest recognition conferred by Society for Neuroscience and he was a co-recipient, with Thomas Jessell and Pasko Rakic, of the inaugural Kavli Prize for Neuroscience in 2008.
His research has focused on the extraordinary capability of the brain to control movement. Early on he demonstrated that networks within the mammalian spinal cord can produce the detailed motor pattern of locomotion involving the coordination of hundreds of different muscles. In a paper published in 1987, he and James Buchanan provided a putative network scheme of interacting interneurons in the lamprey spinal cord, a model vertebrate system. [4] The level of detail gained in this work is unique in that it has allowed changes in behaviour to be related to changes occurring at the cellular and network level. His later work is directed towards understanding the forebrain mechanisms underlying selection of behavior, and has shown that the organization of the basal ganglia, dopamine system, habenulae and pallium is evolutionary conserved in considerable detail over more than 500 million years.
He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. [5]
Sir John Carew Eccles was an Australian neurophysiologist and philosopher who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse. He shared the prize with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloyd Hodgkin.
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, its functions and 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.
Muscle spindles are stretch receptors within the body of a skeletal muscle that primarily detect changes in the length of the muscle. They convey length information to the central nervous system via afferent nerve fibers. This information can be processed by the brain as proprioception. The responses of muscle spindles to changes in length also play an important role in regulating the contraction of muscles, for example, by activating motor neurons via the stretch reflex to resist muscle stretch.
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 who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial cells and especially their behavioral, biological, and psychological aspect 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:
People throughout the period 5000 years of recorded history have remained divided between the heart and the brain as the workstation of intelligence. Initially it was the heart that dominated the scene. According to Herodotus, in ancient Egypt, they used to remove the brain from the body as a stuffing of some sort in preparation for mummification and the next intellectual life, evidently considering the heart sufficient for this purpose. The view has reversed in the recent times when the brain is identified to be the seat of intelligence, though the heart for its presumed involvement in intelligence still occupy the debate, more definitely, the languages describing intelligent work, for example, "memorizing 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.
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 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.
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.
Claire Julie Liliane Wyart is a French neuroscientist and biophysicist, studying the circuits underlying the control of locomotion. She is a chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite.
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.