Horace W. Magoun

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Horace Winchell Magoun (born June 23, 1907 in Philadelphia , † March 6, 1991 in Santa Monica ) was an American neuroanatomist and neuroscientist . He is known for his work on neurophysiology and anatomy, in particular his discovery of the influence of the activity of the reticular formation on the activity of the cerebrum .

Live and act

Magoun earned a bachelor's degree from Rhode Island State College in 1929 and a master's degree in zoology from Syracuse University , New York, in 1931 . Magoun received a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston , Illinois in 1934 under Stephen Walter Ranson (1880–1942). using the Horsley-Clarke apparatus , a device for stereotactic examination of vertebrate brains with the work The Central Path of the Pupilloconstrictor Reflex in Response to Light . In the following years Magoun also dealt with the pupillary reflex , but also with the neurological basis of behavior .

After Ranson's death in 1942, his research group was dissolved and Magoun turned to the neuropathology and neurophysiology of the bulbar form of poliomyelitis with the support of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis ( March of Dimes ) . He found that the reticular nucleus is damaged in this form of the disease . Animal experiments Magoun demonstrated that stimulation of the nucleus depending on the localization of the stimulus to an inhibition or activation of motor neurons led, whereby in addition to the involvement of the pyramidal system one of the extrapyramidal system was adopted. Magoun also dealt with muscle physiology .

Magoun worked with a research group led by Percival Bailey and Warren McCulloch at the Illinois Neuropsychiatric Institute in Chicago . Together they published several papers on tremor and on efferent pathways to the reticular formation . 1947 brought Magoun Donald B. Lindsley (1907-2003) to Northwestern University, who brought with him knowledge of the electroencephalogram (EEG). In 1948 Giuseppe Moruzzi from the University of Pisa came to Magoun as a visiting professor with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and both published a very influential paper on the changes in the EEG under the stimulation of the reticular formation, which resemble an arousal . After Moruzzi's return to Italy, Magoun, Lindsley and colleagues (including the later transplant surgeon Thomas E. Starzl ) continued the work and were able to show the influence of the reticular format on alertness, intellectual performance, voluntary movements and behavior in general (discovery of the ascending reticular Activation system , ARAS).

In 1950 Magoun moved to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as head of anatomy . Due to a lack of space in Los Angeles, Magoun first set up his laboratory at Long Beach Veterans Administration Hospital , 30 miles away , before setting up a ten-story Neuroscience Research Center (BRI) at the University's main campus in Westwood , Los Angeles , under the direction of 1961 John Douglas French was opened. The facility has received many years of funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). For its parent institution, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Magoun served on several advisory boards in central commissions.

At BRI many influential projects were launched, including the Brain Information Service , the Data Processing Laboratory for Computer-assisted analysis of the EEG, a Biosphere Program for the space program of NASA and the Neuroscience History Archives to document the history of neuroscience. Magoun was instrumental in founding the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO). From 1962 to 1972 Magoun was dean for graduate studies . In this position, he was particularly committed to promoting minorities at the university and promoting academic exchange with Japan . Magoun then worked for the Fellowship Office of the National Research Council in Washington, DC for two years before returning to UCLA in 1974, where he helped set up a behavioral research department within the mental hospital and studied the history of neuroscience and the relationship of mind and brain turned.

In 1931 Horace W. Magoun married Jeannette Alice Jackson. The couple had three children.

Fonts (selection)

  • With R. Rhines: Spasticity: The Stretch-Reflex and Extrapyramidal Systems. Springfield, Ill .: Charles C Thomas. 1948
  • The Waking Brain. Springfield, Ill .: Charles C Thomas. 1958
  • With JD French and DB Lindsley: An American Contribution to Neuroscience: The Brain Research Institute, UCLA 1959-1984. Los Angeles: University of California, Brain Research Institute, 1984.
  • With LH Marshall: Discoveries in the Human Brain: Neuroscience Prehistory, Brain Structure, and Function. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press.
  • American Neuroscience in the Twentieth Century: Confluence of the Neural, Behavioral, and Communicative Streams. Lisse, Netherlands: AA Balkema. 2003 (posthumous)

Awards (selection)

literature

  • LH Marshall: Horace Winchell Magoun. In: Biographical memoirs. National Academy of Sciences (US). Volume 84, 2004, pp. 250-269, PMID 15484420 . (PDF, 1.1 MB)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ G. Moruzzi and HW Magoun. [This Week's Citation Classic]. Curr. Cont. Life Sci. 24 (1981): 21. (PDF, 147 kB)
  2. ^ G. Moruzzi, HW Magoun: Brain stem reticular formation and activation of the EEG. In: Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology. Volume 1, Number 4, November 1949, pp. 455-473, ISSN  0013-4694 . PMID 18421835 .
  3. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present (PDF, 323 kB) of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org); Retrieved July 20, 2012
  4. ^ Past Recipients - The Passano Foundation, Inc. In: passanofoundation.org. Retrieved April 17, 2019 .
  5. ^ Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience recipients at the Society for Neurosciences (sfn.org); Retrieved July 21, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Magoun, Horace W.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Magoun, Horace; Magoun, Horace Winchell
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American neuroscientist
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1991
Place of death Santa Monica