Vernon Mountcastle 1828840 224635694 2008-07-09T19:25:25Z 160.94.44.202 '''Vernon B. Mountcastle''' (born [[July 15]], [[1918]] in [[Shelbyville, Kentucky]]) is a retired neuroscientist from the [[Johns Hopkins University]]. He discovered and characterized the [[cortical column|columnar organization]] of the [[cerebral cortex]] in the 1950s. This discovery was a turning point in investigations of the cerebral cortex as nearly all cortical studies of sensory function after Mountcastle's 1957 paper [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=13439410&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum] on the somatosensory cortex used columnar organization as their basis. Indeed, [[David Hubel]] in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech said Mouncastle's "discovery of columns in the somatosensory cortex was surely the single most important contribution to the understanding of cerebral cortex since Cajal [[http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:g9C-REnkN6UJ:nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1981/hubel-lecture.pdf+wiesel+hubel+mountcastle&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us]]. Mountcastle's interest in [[cognition]], specifically [[perception]], led him to guide his lab to studies that linked perception and neural responses in the 1960s. Although there were several notable works from his lab, the highest profile early paper was in 1968 [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=4972033&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_DocSum], a study explaining the neural basis of [[flutter]] and [[oscillation|vibration]] by the action of peripheral [[mechanoreceptor]]s. Mountcastle's devotion to studies of single unit [[neural coding]] evolved through his leadership in the Bard Labs of Neurophysiology at the [[Johns Hopkins University]] School of Medicine, which was for many years the only institute in the world devoted to this sub-field, and its work is continued today in the [http://www.mb.jhu.edu/ Krieger Mind/Brain Institute]. He is [[University Professor]] [[Emeritus]] of Neuroscience [[Johns Hopkins University]]. Professor Mountcastle was elected to the [[United States National Academy of Sciences|National Academy of Sciences]] in [[1966]].In 1978, he was awarded the [[Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize]] from [[Columbia University]] together with [[David Hubel]] and [[Torsten Wiesel]], who both received the [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] in 1981. In 1983, he was awarded the [[Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research]]. He also received the United States [[National Medal of Science]] in 1986. Professor Mountcastle is a graduate of [[Roanoke College]] in Virginia. ==Bibliography== *Vernon Mountcastle ([[1978]]), "An Organizing Principle for Cerebral Function: The Unit Model and the Distributed System", ''The Mindful Brain'' (Gerald M. Edelman and Vernon B. Mountcastle, eds.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ==External links== *[https://sciencegrants.dest.gov.au/SciencePrize/Pages/Doc.aspx?name=previous_winners/Aust1993Mountcastle.htm Biography] *[http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hmn/W07/classnotes.cfm Brain Voyager] * [http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/horwitz/ The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize] {{DEFAULTSORT:Mountcastle, Vernon}} [[Category:American neuroscientists]] [[Category:Members of the National Academy of Sciences]] [[Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society]] [[Category:National Medal of Science laureates]] [[Category:1918 births]] [[Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty]] [[Category:Roanoke College alumni]] [[de:Vernon Mountcastle]] [[es:Vernon Mountcastle]]