Neuroscience
Santiago RAMÓN Y CAJAL’s self-portrait. Source: Instituto Cajal del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
Did you know that a Spanish doctor was the father of modern neuroscience?
Santiago RAMÓN Y CAJAL was like Leonardo Da Vinci, always interested in learning different things. He liked drawing, photography and even bodybuilding!
Ramón y Cajal was born in Petilla de Aragon, Spain in 1852. His father was Professor of Applied Anatomy at the University of Zaragoza, where he eventually graduated in Medicine in 1873.
Ramón y Cajal started to view stained cells under the microscope, and he drew what he saw while developing theories on how the brain and the nervous system work. He theorised that the neurons (a specialised cell that transmits information to other cells) don’t form one single network but many networks which connect with one another.
Ramón y Cajal published more than 100 articles in Spanish and French, especially on the inner workings of the brain and the nervous system.
In 1906, Santiago Ramón y Cajal and Camillo Golgi were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology “in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system”. (Source: www.nobelprize.org).
Note: Golgi discovered that cells could be stained with silver nitrate.
The Weisman Art Museum in collaboration with the University of Minnesota have organised a travelling exhibition of Ramón y Cajal’s original drawings. In January 2017, Abrams Books, in collaboration with the Weisman Art Museum, published the book ‘The Beautiful Brain’ to accompany the exhibition.
For more information visit: Institute Cajal
Sabias que el padre de la neurociencia fue un Espanol?
Santiago RAMÓN Y CAJAL era otro Leonardo Da Vinci, le interesaba investigar y saber un poco de todo, fue un rebelde que llego a ganar el premio nobel.
Isabel Osuna-Gatty 