From Molecules to Metaphor
Date: Tuesday Morning, October 14, 13:00 - 14:15
Location: San Diego Convention Center, Upper Level, Room 6D/E
Presented by
V.S. Ramachandran, University of California, San Diego
Abstract
The talk will focus on two topics. First, the manner in which the brain integrates information from different senses and second, the use of neurological syndromes to explore the neural basis of human nature and devise new therapies.
Speaker Biography
V.S. Ramachandran is Director of the Center for brain and cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor of biology at the Salk Institute. Ramachandran initially trained as a doctor but then switched to research very early in his career, obtaining a PhD from Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. Over the years Ramachandran has pursued two parallel careers—one in human vision and the other in behavioral neurology. In 2005 He was awarded the Henry Dale medal and elected to an honorary life fellowship by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. He was also elected to a fellowship from All Souls College Oxford. In 2003 he gave the annual Reith lectures on the BBC. (He is the first physician/psychologist to give the lectures since they were begun by Bertrand Russel in 1949) Ramachandran is a world renowned brain researcher widely known for the ingenuity and elegance of his experiments which have had far-reaching impact on the field. Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins has called him as the Marco Polo of neuroscience and Nobel laureate Eric Kandel refers to him as “The modern Paul Broca”. Referring to his new book “A brief tour of consciousness” David Hubel says “Vintage Ramachandran, packed with ideas that are bold, irreverent original, and ingenious”. Ramachandran has published over 150 papers in scientific journals (including five invited review articles in the Scientific American), and is author of the critically acclaimed book “Phantoms in the brain” that has been translated into eight languages and formed the basis for a two part series on PBS special in USA. His work is featured frequently in the major news media. NEWSWEEK magazine recently named him a member of “the century club”...one of the “hundred most prominent people to watch in the next century.” His other honors and awards include two honorary doctorates, the annual Ramon Y. Cajal award from the international neuropsychiatry society, the Ariens Kappers gold medal from the Royal Nederland’s academy of sciences, and the presidential lecture award from the American academy of neurology. In 2000, he gave the decade of the brain lecture at the annual meeting of the society for neuroscience.