Torsten N. Wiesel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Torsten Wiesel (2006)

Torsten Nils Wiesel (born June 3, 1924 in Uppsala ) is a Swedish-American neurophysiologist , neurobiologist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine .

Wiesel received his doctorate in medicine from Carl Gustaf Bernhard in 1954 at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in the field of basic neurophysiological research. He then went to the USA, where he was at Johns Hopkins University from 1955 , from 1958 as an assistant professor of physiological ophthalmology. From 1960 he was assistant professor, from 1967 professor of physiology (and from 1968 of neurobiology) in the psychiatric department of the medical faculty and since 1974 he was Robert Winthrop professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston , Massachusetts . From 1973 to 1984 he was head of the Department of Neurobiology created by Stephen Kuffler in 1959. From 1978 to 1979 he was President of the Society for Neuroscience . From 1983 he was Vincent Brooke Astor Professor in the Laboratory for Neurobiology at Rockefeller University , whose Laboratory for Neurobiology he directed and whose President he was from 1991 to 1998.

In collaboration with David H. Hubel , Wiesel has been investigating the structure and information processing of the visual cortex in detail since the 1960s using the example of cats and monkeys, which, based on these studies, has become the most researched part of the brain.

In 1978 Wiesel was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize . For his work with David Hubel on information processing in vision , both were awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1981. The other half went to Roger Sperry . In 1991 Wiesel was awarded the Neuronal Plasticity Prize and he has received many other prizes such as the Ralph W. Gerard Prize (1993), the Karl Spencer Lashley Prize, the Dickson Prize, the Rosenstiel Award , the Friedenwald Award (1975) and the Jules Stein Award (1971). In 2005 he received the National Medal of Science, the highest scientific award in the USA . He is a multiple honorary doctor.

He is a US citizen. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, since 1967 of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , since 1982 of the American Philosophical Society since 1995 of the Academia Europaea , the Swedish Physiological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

literature

Web links

Commons : Torsten Wiesel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Career data based on Thomson Gale American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ [1]
  3. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rockefeller.edu
  4. ↑ See article David H. Hubel
  5. ↑ PDF at www.nsf.gov
  6. ↑ Book of Members 1780 – present, Chapter W. (PDF; 852 kB) In: American Academy of Arts and Sciences (amacad.org). Retrieved September 28, 2017 (English).
  7. ↑ Member History: Torsten Nils Wiesel. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 10, 2018 .
  8. ↑ Membership directory: Torsten Wiesel. Academia Europaea, accessed September 28, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Wiesel, Torsten N.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wiesel, Torsten Nils (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish-American neurobiologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Uppsala