Eric Kandel

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Eric Kandel in Vienna at the Long Night of Research

Eric Richard Kandel (born November 7, 1929 in Vienna ) is an American psychiatrist, physiologist, neuroscientist , behavioral biologist and biochemist of Austrian origin. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000.

Life

Youth and Studies

Memorial plaque for Nazi victims at Vienna 9th house, Severingasse 8, including the Kandel family (unveiled on April 26, 2018)

Eric Kandel was born in Vienna in 1929 as the second son of the toy retailer Hermann Kandel and his wife Charlotte (née Zimels) . The family lived on Alsergrund , in the 9th district of the city, at Severingasse 8, not far from the Technological Trade Museum , a technical college. After the "Anschluss" of Austria by the National Socialists in 1938, Eric ran into massive problems in everyday life: no children spoke to him in school because of his Jewish origins. In 1939, Kandel and his family had to emigrate to the United States because anti-Semitism in Austria had become life-threatening. “I was afraid of crossing the street, but I went across the Atlantic with my 14-year-old brother!” He reported on German television in 2009. He spent the remainder of his elementary school at the yeshiva in Flatbush , a borough of New York , until he transferred to Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn in 1944 , where he began to be interested in history and literature. There he was awarded a scholarship to study at Harvard University as one of two students selected from more than 1,400 applicants . In 1945 he received American citizenship.

Kandel came to the neurosciences through a fellow student friend whose parents were staunch supporters of Freud's theory of psychoanalysis . Sigmund Freud was the reason for Kandel's interest in the biology of motivation as well as conscious and unconscious memory. Even as a psychoanalyst, like Freud himself, he was of the opinion that all psychological processes and symptoms are ultimately physiological processes in the brain. Accordingly, he has always dealt with the question of how successful psychoanalytic treatment changes the brain.

research

In the fall of 1952 changed Kandel at the New York University to there medicine to study and eventually psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. Towards the end of his studies, however, he decided, unlike most other psychiatrists of his time, not the psychological, but the biological processes of the brain to investigate and research more closely. In the end he decided not to become a psychoanalyst, but to devote himself entirely to science. During this time he met his future wife Denise Bystryn .

A short time later, he began to research at Columbia University in the laboratory of neurobiologist Harry Grundfest . The other researchers Kandel worked with were thinking about the technically very complex recording of electrical activity in the relatively small neurons of the vertebrate brains .

After starting to work his way through the difficult field of electrophysiology of the cerebral cortex , he was impressed by the progress Stephen W. Kuffler made with a system more accessible through experimentation. This isolated neurons from marine invertebrates for further use.

In 1957, Kandel moved to the Laboratory of Neurophysiology at the National Institutes of Health , where he continued his work on electrophysiological recordings on neurons from the region of the hippocampus , specifically to find out whether the hippocampus was involved in the process of storing memories in the brain and Remembering is directly involved. However, he was unable to find any evidence that the hippocampus is responsible for human memory. He realized that memory had to be related to the synaptic connections between the neurons and that the hippocampus, with its complex interrelationships, was not well suited to researching the exact function of the synapses. He also knew from comparable behavioral studies by Konrad Lorenz , Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch , for example , that all animals had at least a poor ability to learn. So he decided to conduct his experiments on a less complex animal species in order to simplify his electrophysiological analyzes on synapses. He believed that the results of his studies could then be transferred to humans and their brains. This decision was not without risk, as many - especially older - biologists believed that studying the physiology of invertebrates did not reveal much about human memory.

From 1960 to 1965 Kandel worked in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston .

Aplysia californica

Aplysia , a marine snail that Kandel was doing research with

In 1962 Kandel went to Paris to study the Californian sea hare ( Aplysia californica ), a sea ​​snail . He had found that simple forms of learning such as sensitization as well as classical and operant conditioning can also be investigated on individual ganglia of the Aplysia.

While observing the behavior of a single ganglion cell, one axon leading to the ganglion could be easily stimulated and thus act as a tactile stimulus, while another axon could be used as a pain stimulus. The procedure otherwise followed for natural stimulation in vertebrates would have to be observed.

Electrophysiological changes triggered by the interacting stimuli could then be traced back to specific synapses. In 1965 Kandel published the results of his studies.

New York Medical School

Kandel later took a position in the Department of Physiology and Psychiatry at New York Medical School , where he helped establish the Department of Neurobiology and Behavioral Sciences. Here he began research on short and long-term memory with some colleagues .

In 1981, members of the research group succeeded in extending the Aplysia system to include a study of classical conditioning, which ultimately helped bridge the gap between the simple forms of learning associated with less developed animals such as invertebrates and had opened up the more complex learning processes of vertebrates.

In addition to the fundamental behavioral research, the researchers also observed the networking of the different types of nerve cells involved in the learning process. This allowed a detailed analysis of the synapses that are changed by learning in animals. The laboratory results supported the thesis that learning is a functional change in the effectiveness of previously existing connections.

Molecular changes in the learning process

Since 1966, James Schwartz worked with Kandel on a biochemical analysis of changes in nerve cells that have to do with learning and memory. At that time it was known that storing things in long-term memory, unlike short-term memory, required the production of special proteins . In 1972 they came to the conclusion that the second messenger cAMP is produced in the ganglia of the Aplysia under conditions that cause storage in short-term memory . In 1974 it was found out that the neurotransmitter serotonin , which is involved in the production of cAMP, can directly lead to a molecular sensitization to a certain reflex .

In 1983, Kandel helped establish the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for Molecular Neuroscience at Columbia University. With his laboratory colleagues, he went on to identify the proteins that need to be made to convert short-term memory into long-term memory. In collaboration with other researchers was transcription factor CREB ( Engl. CAMP response element binding protein ) discovered and proved its role as a contributing to long-term memory protein. A consequence of the activation of CREB is an increase in the number of synaptic connections. It was concluded from this that short-term memory is a consequence of functional changes in existing synapses and that long-term memory arises from a change in the total number of synapses.

Some of the synaptic changes discovered in Kandel's laboratory are examples of Hebb's rule learning . One of the publications ( Activity-dependent presynaptic facilitation and hebbian LTP are both required and interact during classical conditioning in Aplysia ) describes the role of Hebbian learning in Aplysia siphon-withdrawal reflex .

In addition, important experiments were carried out in the laboratory with artificially mutated mice to search for the molecular basis for memory in the hippocampus of vertebrates. Kandel's original assumption that certain learning mechanisms show up in all living things has proven to be correct. It has been established that neurotransmitters , second messengers , protein kinases , ion channels and transcription factors such as CREB are involved in learning and storage processes in both vertebrates and invertebrates.

Awards

Eric Kandel has been a member of the US National Academy of Sciences since 1974, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1976 . From 1980 to 1981 he was President of the Society for Neuroscience . In 1983 Kandel received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research , in 1987 a Gairdner Foundation International Award and in 1988 the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing and the Pasarow Award . In the following year he was elected a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 2008 National Academy of Sciences). In 1992 he received the first Jean Louis Signoret Prize .

Was established in 2000 Eric R. Kandel, together with the Sweden Arvid Carlsson -Americans US and the Paul Greengard of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system awarded. Kandel is also the holder of the German order Pour le mérite for science and the arts and the Austrian decoration of honor for science and art .

In 1997 he received the Ralph W. Gerard Prize . The American Philosophical Society , of which he has been a member since 1984, awarded him their Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2006 . Since 2002 he has been an honorary member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 2008 he was awarded the Honorary Prize of the Viktor Frankl Institute of the City of Vienna; In 2009 he was granted honorary citizenship by the City of Vienna , and later he also took on Austrian citizenship again.

In 2012 he received the Great Silver Medal of Honor with the Star for Services to the Republic of Austria . On June 6, 2013 he received the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book 2012. In 2013 he also became a foreign member of the Royal Society . The Hertie Foundation awards the Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize, endowed with 75,000 euros .

In 2015, the high school Am Heimgarten in Ahrensburg was renamed Eric-Kandel-Gymnasium . In 2018 he received an honorary doctorate from the Medical University of Vienna.On November 10, 2018, he was supposed to give the keynote address for the opening of the House of History in the Vienna Hofburg . Due to a short-term illness, the speech was read out by contemporary historian Oliver Rathkolb , chairman of the company's scientific advisory board. Kandel wrote, based on the novel Die Stadt ohne Juden by Hugo Bettauer : "Austria: A Country Without Jews". Austria is now a country with a tiny percentage of the Jewish population, for two reasons: on the one hand because of the Holocaust , on the other hand also because of the post-war politics. The expelled Jews were not only not invited to return, but on the contrary, it was made very difficult for them to come home.

In 2019, Kandel received the Golden City Hall Man of the City of Vienna and the "Great Decoration on Ribbon" from the Medical Association for Vienna. His book What is man? Brain disorders and what they reveal about human nature (2018) was recognized as the Austrian Science Book of the Year 2019 in the Medicine / Biology category.

family

Eric Kandel has been working with social medicine and epidemiologist Denise Kandel , born in 1956 . 1933 married as Denise Bystryn in Paris. You have two children.

Quote

“[...] At the moment I am dreaming of Vienna, the city where I was born and from which I was expelled as a child. I became an honorary citizen there this year, a bittersweet moment. I dream that Austria comes to terms with its past . The integrity and openness with which Germany examined the Hitler era and shaped a democracy is exemplary. There is no trace of such transparency in Austria.
I dream of scientists, especially young Jewish scientists, who are coming back to Vienna. The fact that the University of Vienna, the moral authority, is located on part of the Ringstrasse, which was named after the anti-Semite Karl Lueger , is unacceptable. This former mayor of Vienna showed Hitler that you can win elections with anti-Semitism .
So much was lost. I would like to see a Jewish society rebuilt in Vienna. If you like, you call it meschugge . "

The quote is taken from an interview published in 2009; the Dr.-Karl-Lueger-Ring was renamed Universitätsring in 2012 .

mention

Under the title "Older people know the abbreviation" was published in the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit , No. 39, September 20, 2018, p. 34, an interview on the book The Better Half by Eckart von Hirschhausen and Tobias Esch, just published by Rowohlt . Hirschhausen: We did a lot of interviews for the book, and I was thrilled to meet people like Eric Kandel, who goes to his laboratory every day when he is over 80 and works towards his second Nobel Prize - with excellent health and a brilliant sense of humor.

Fonts

  • Cellular basis of behavior: an introduction to behavioral neurobiology. Freeman, San Francisco 1976.
  • Behavioral biology of Aplysia: A Contribution to the Comparative Study of Opisthobranch Molluses. Freeman, San Francisco 1979.
  • Edited with James H. Schwartz, Thomas M. Jessell, Steven A. Siegelbaum, and AJ Hudspeth: Principles of neural science. 5th edition, 1760 pages, McGraw-Hill, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-07-139011-8 . (First published by Elsevier in 1981.)
  • Edited with Rita Levi Montalcini, P. Callisano P and A. Maggi A. Molecular Aspects of Neurobiology (Proceedings in Life Sciences). Springer, Berlin - Heidelberg - New York - Tokyo 1986
  • Molecular neurobiology in neurology and psychiatry. (Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease Research Publications, Vol 65). Raven, New York 1987.
  • Edited with James H. Schwartz, Thomas M. Jessel: Essentials of neural science and behavior. Appleton & Lange, Norwalk 1995.
    • Neuroscience: An Introduction. Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg / Berlin / Oxford 1996, ISBN 3-86025-391-3 .
  • With Larry R. Squire: Memory. From Mind to Molecules. Scientific American Library, New York 1999.
    • Memory. The nature of remembering. Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg / Berlin / Oxford 1999, ISBN 3-8274-0522-X .
  • Psychiatry, psychoanalysis and the new biology of mind. American Psychiatric Publishing, Washington 2005.
    • Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and the New Biology of Mind. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-518-58451-0 .
  • In search of memory: the emergence of a new science of mind. Norton, New York 2006.
    • In search of memory. The emergence of a new science of the mind. Siedler, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88680-842-4 .
  • The age of insight: the quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain, from Vienna 1900 to the present. Random House, New York 2012.
    • The age of knowledge: the exploration of the unconscious in art, mind and brain from Viennese modernism to today. Siedler, Munich 2012, ISBN 3-88680-945-5 .
  • Edited with Y. Dudai Y, and MR Mayford. Learning and Memory (Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology). Cold Spring Habor Laboratory Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York 2016
  • Reductionism in Art and Brain Science. Bridging the Two Cultures. Columbia University Press, New York - Chichester, West Sussex 2016
  • The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves , Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2018, ISBN 978-0-374-28786-3 .

Awards

literature

  • Gerhard Danzer: Eric Kandel. In: Ders .: Who are we? In search of the human formula: anthropology for the 21st century - medical philosophers and their theories, ideas and concepts. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg / New York 2011, ISBN 978-3-642-16992-2 , pp. 475-486.
  • The arts, sciences, and literature (= International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945. Vol. 2). Edited by Herbert A. Straus, Werner Röder. Saur, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , part 1, p. 590.

Filmography

Web links

Commons : Eric Kandel  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Eric Kandel  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oona Kroisleitner: A memory of suffering and injustice on the Alsergrund , in: Der Standard newspaper , Vienna, August 22, 2016, p. 9
  2. ^ Nobelprize.org: Curriculum vitae .
  3. ^ President of the Society for Neuroscience
  4. ↑ Member History: Eric R. Kandel. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 17, 2018 (with biographical information).
  5. ↑ Nobel laureate Eric Kandel became an honorary citizen of the City of Vienna Rathauskorrespondenz from June 3, 2009 (accessed June 4, 2009)
  6. ↑ [1] Nobel laureate Eric Kandel on the great miracle of the brain Interview from August 20, 2015 (accessed April 4, 2019)
  7. ^ New Fellows 2013 of the Royal Society (royalsociety.org); Retrieved May 7, 2013
  8. ↑ Naming Eric-Kandel-Gymnasium: The Nobel Prize winner feels honored , ahrensburg24.de, September 11, 2015, accessed on September 12, 2015.
  9. ↑ orf.at: Eric Kandel Honorary Doctorate from MedUni Vienna . Article dated April 24, 2018, accessed April 24, 2018.
  10. ^ ORF : Kandel speech on displacement , November 10, 2018
  11. ↑ People: Nobel Prize Winner Eric Kandel in Vienna. In: ORF.at . November 6, 2019, accessed November 6, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Minister Faßmann congratulates the winners of the science book of the year 2019 election . OTS announcement of January 16, 2019, accessed on January 16, 2019.
  13. ↑ “So much was lost.” The neuroscientist Eric Kandel wants a Jewish society to be rebuilt in Vienna In: Die Zeit from July 16, 2009
  14. ↑ Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book Prize winners 1993-2018 , renner-institut.at, accessed December 1, 2019
  15. ↑ Filmfonds-Wien ( Memento from June 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Petra Seeger: In search of memory - The brain researcher Eric Kandel, TV documentary 2008.
personal data
SURNAME Kandel, Eric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kandel, Eric Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neuroscientist, Nobel Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna