By EDYTA ZIELINSKA - THESCIENTIST
Updated: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:24:53 UTC

Considered a renegade by his peers, Nobel Prize-winner Eric Kandel used a simple model to probe the neural circuitry of memory.

Sixty-four years ago, inspired by cell and molecular biologists who studied complex questions in the simplest available model systems, neuroscientist Eric Kandel bucked then-current trends in brain research by choosing to explore memory using an evolutionarily ancient organism, rather than human subjects.

Kandel began his career in neuroscience studying cells in the human hippocampus, which had been identified as the seat of memory formation by Brenda Milner from McGill University, but he soon realized that it would take a long time to tease apart memory in such a complex system. He shifted his focus to the sea slug Aplysia, a model in which the neural pathway of a simple reflex could be delineated. Aplysia only has 20,000 neurons, and many of them are so large and distinctive that they had been named and their functions identified. Kandel worked out the neural circuitry that was established during learning and memory, and examined what molecular changes occurred in the cells of that circuit. By taking this reductionist approach, considered radical at the time, Kandel set an example for scientists who would use Aplysia and other model organisms to trace the circuits responsible for many different behaviors. His approach netted him a share of a 2000 Nobel Prize for insights into signal transduction in the nervous system. Here Kandel reminisces about his early days in the field, discusses the evolution of cognitive neuroscience, and shares his thoughts on love.

What was neuroscience like when you started working in the field?

When I started in the field, it was a minority science that very few biologists were interested in because it was technically quite arcane. The two major tools for brain science were anatomy, which most people found boring, and electricity, which most people found incomprehensible. So that combination was enough to put off most biologists. But now everybody and his uncle want to work on the brain. The number of people applying to graduate schools, MD/PhD programs, is really extraordinary. It’s a big change.

How has the field changed from then until now?

When I entered the field in 1957, it was a very small and very primitive discipline. One of the characteristic features was that its three main subdisciplines—the anatomy of the brain, the biochemistry of the brain, and the physiology of the brain—were all separate fields. One of the early strides forward occurred when Harvard’s Stephen Kuffler launched the field of neurobiology, a discipline that combined all three of them into a coherent [whole.

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Update 28-Oct - link to a video the interview

Link to one of his books recommended above by dansam
Purchasing via the links below helps support RDFRS
Amazon.com - In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
Amazon.co.uk - In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

TAGGED: MEDICINE