Love & Philosophy #12: Among Superheroes: Memories, Maps & McGill with psychologist Lynn Nadel
A biographical look into the lairs of modern neuroscience. Part 1 of a research conversation on the hippocampus. And notes for a tale of how McGill University, the invasion of Prague, and UCL pulled two expats together towards discoveries and writings that have changed a scientific framework.
Lynn Nadel has been doing influential research about memory and the hippocampus for decades. He is the co-author with Nobel Prize winner John O'Keefe of The Hippocampus As a Cognitive Map, one of the first books to open new fields of research relative to a part of the brain called the hippocampus, known for its role in both memory and navigation.
Nadel and O'Keefe met at McGill University at a time when the place was buzzing with the books, papers and people creating what we now study as neuroscience.
McGill University in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s can look a bit like the superhero headquarters of what would develop into modern neuroscience. Once you begin to list all the people who were working there at that time and all the threads that have since influenced the filed, from Wilder Penfield and Brenda Milner to Donald Hebb to John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel, one begins to see how much of the work being done today was oriented from that starting point.
University of Arizona page
Lynn Nadel
John O'Keefe Nobel Lecture
Henry Moliason (H.M.)
Brenda Milner
Peter Milner, author of Physiological Psychology
Donald Hebb
Wilder Penfield
Ronald Melzac
Suzanne Corkin
Bob Mueller & John Kubie
Jim Ranck
Soviet Invasion of Prague
University College London
The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map
Hippocampus History on Mastadon
Psych Review story on bjks podcast
McGill University Neuro
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