Martin Heisenberg

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Martin Heisenberg (born August 7, 1940 in Munich ) is a German neurobiologist and geneticist . From 1975 to 2009 he held the chair for genetics and neurobiology at the Biozentrum of the University of Würzburg and has held a senior professorship at the Rudolf Virchow Center of the University of Würzburg since 2010 . He is considered the founder of neurogenetics in Germany.

Life

As the son of the physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Werner Heisenberg and his wife Elisabeth (née Schumacher), Heisenberg came into contact with scientific questions at an early age. He spent his childhood in Leipzig, Urfeld and Göttingen. When his father Werner Heisenberg was called to Munich, the company moved there. In 1959, Martin Heisenberg passed his Abitur at the Maximiliansgymnasium in Munich. After studying chemistry and molecular biology in Munich and Tübingen and completing his doctorate on the genetics of bacteriophages in 1966, Heisenberg researched the genetics of the fungus Phycomyces in Pasadena in Max Delbrück's laboratory . In 1968 Heisenberg began his research on the fruit fly Drosophila at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen in the laboratory of Karl Georg Götz (* 1930). From there, Heisenberg was appointed professor at the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg in 1975 and worked as head of the chair for genetics and neurobiology at the Biozentrum there until his retirement in 2009 and the subsequent move to the Rudolf Virchow Center.

Heisenberg founded neurogenetics in Germany when he was one of the first to use brain development mutants in Drosophila to research the relationship between brain structures and behavior. His scientific achievements are reflected in a large number of publications. Heisenberg has also repeatedly addressed the position of biology in society, the nature of perception and the connection between neurobiology and free will.

Heisenberg is married to Apollonia Countess zu Eulenburg, a niece of Carl Friedrich and Richard von Weizsäcker . The couple has four children, including Benjamin Heisenberg and Emanuel Heisenberg . The developmental biologist Carl-Philipp Heisenberg is his nephew.

Awards / memberships

Publications (selection)

English-language original scientific papers (selection)

  • M. Heisenberg, A. Borst, S. Wagner, D. Byers: Drosophila mushroom body mutants are deficient in olfactory learning. J. Neurogenetics. 2: 1-30 (1985) PMID 4020527 .
  • JS deBelle, M. Heisenberg: Associative odor learning in Drosophila abolished by chemical ablation of Mushroom Bodies. Science 263: 692-695 (1994) PMID 8303280 .
  • L. Liu, R. Wolf, R. Ernst, M. Heisenberg: Context generalization in Drosophila visual learning requires the mushroom bodies. Nature 400: 753-756 (1999) PMID 10466722 .
  • T. Zars, M. Fischer, R. Schulz, M. Heisenberg: Localization of a short-term memory in Drosophila. Science 288, 672-675 (2000), PMID 10784450 .
  • M. Schwaerzel, M. Monasterioti, H. Scholz, F. Friggi-Grelin, S. Birman, M. Heisenberg: Dopamine and octopamine differentiate between aversive and appetitive olfactory memories in Drosophila. J Neurosci 23, 10495-10502 (2003), PMID 14627633 .
  • S. Tang, R. Wolf, S. Xu, M. Heisenberg: Visual pattern recognition in Drosophila is invariant for retinal position. Science 305, 1020-1022 (2004), DOI: 10.1126 / science.1099839 .
  • G. Liu, H. Seiler, A. Wen, T. Zars, K. Ito, R. Wolf, M. Heisenberg, L. Liu: Distinct memory traces for two visual features in the Drosophila brain. Nature 439: 551-556 (2006), PMID 16452971 .
  • J. Rister, D. Pauls, B. Schnell, CY Ting, CH Lee, I. Sinakevitch, J. Morante, NJ Strausfeld, K. Ito, M. Heisenberg: Dissection of the peripheral motion channel in the visual system of Drosophila melanogaster . Neuron 56: 155-170 (2007), PMID 17920022 .
  • P. Sareen, R. Wolf, M. Heisenberg: Attracting the attention of a fly. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108, 7230-7235 (2011), http://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/7230.abstract
  • Z. Yang, F. Bertolucci, R. Wolf, M. Heisenberg: Flies cope with uncontrollable stress by learned helplessness. Curr Biol 23, 799-803 (2013), PMID 23602474 .
  • NS Chouhan, R. Wolf, C. Helfrich-Förster, M. Heisenberg: Flies remember the time of day. Curr Biol 25, 1619-1624 (2015), DOI: 10.1016 / j.cub.2015.04.032 .

Books and Editing

  • M. Heisenberg, R. Wolf: Vision in Drosophila. Vol. XII, of: Studies of Brain Function, V. Braitenberg, Ed., Springer-Verlag Berlin, Heidelberg, New York (1984)
  • M. Heisenberg (Ed.). Special issue mushroom body. Learning & Memory 5, (1998)

English language reviews and essays (selection)

  • M. Heisenberg: Voluntariness and the general organization of behavior. In: Flexibility and Constraints in Behavioral Systems, RJ Greenspan, CP Kyriacou, eds .; pp. 147-156, John Wiley & Sons Ltd. (1994)
  • M. Heisenberg: Mushroom body memoir: From maps to models. Nature Rev Neurosci 4, 266-275 (2003)
  • M. Heisenberg: Is free will an illusion? Nature 459, 1052-1053 (2003)
  • B. Gerber, H. Tanimoto, M. Heisenberg: An engram found? Evaluating the evidence from fruit flies. Curr Op Neurobiol 14, 737-744 (2004)
  • M. Heisenberg: Erich Buchner. J Neurogenet 24: 93-94 (2010)
  • M. Heisenberg: The beauty of the network in the brain and the origin of the mind in the control of behavior. J Neurogenet 28, 389-399 (2014)

German-language reviews and essays (selection)

  • M. Heisenberg: Initial activity and arbitrary behavior in animals. Natural Sciences 70, 70-78 (1983)
  • M. Heisenberg: Freedom from the point of view of behavioral research In: order and disorder. G. Becker, H. Becker, L. Huber, Eds .; pp. 74–82, Beltz Verlag (1985)
  • M. Heisenberg: About universals of perception and their genetic basis. In: Mannheimer Forum 89/90 HvDitfurth, EP Fischer, Eds .; Vol. 1104, pp. 11-69. Piper Munich, Zurich
  • M. Heisenberg: Freedom as a property of behavior. Nova Acta Leopoldina NF 86, 79-95 (2002)
  • M. Heisenberg: The mushroom bodies of insects - Trojan horse of functional brain research? Neuroforum 2, 179-186 (2002)

Academic writings

  • M. Heisenberg: A new gene function of the bacteriophage fr. Dissertation, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen (1966)

About Martin Heisenberg

  • Drosophila Neurogenetics: The Heisenberg impact. E. Buchner and CF Wu, Eds .; J. Neurogenetics 23, 1-2, (2009)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DZG, laudation (PDF; 138 kB)
  2. ↑ Leopoldina zu Heisenberg (PDF; 153 kB)
  3. ↑ Member entry of Martin Heisenberg (with picture and CV) at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on July 20, 2017.
  4. ↑ Directory of members: Martin Heisenberg. Academia Europaea, accessed July 20, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Martin Heisenberg. Member entry at the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen , accessed on July 20, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Martin Heisenberg. with picture. Member entry at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on July 20, 2017 .


personal data
SURNAME Heisenberg, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German neurobiologist and geneticist
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich