| Description | Interviewed as part of the 'Todays's Neuroscience, Tomorrow's History' Video Archive Project
NEUROPHARMACOLOGY
British scientists have played major roles in the development of understanding of how drugs work on the peripheral and central nervous system. Scientists such as Sir Henry Dale, Sir Bernard Katz, Marthe Vogt, Sir John Gaddum, and Sir John Vane were instrumental in elucidating the key role that chemical neurotransmitters and neuromodulators play in drug and hormone actions in the nervous system. The contemporary scientists chosen for interview were Alan North, Geoffrey Burnstock, Salvador Moncada, and Ann Silver.
Ann Silver is internationally known for her pioneering work on acetylcholine in both the peripheral and central nervous system. In the 1960’s when many physiologists were sceptical about chemical neurotransmission in the central nervous system, Silver devised methods for measuring acetylcholine’s biosynthetic enzyme choline acetylase in small tissue samples, and produced histochemical methods which allowed choline acetylase and acetylcholine’s degrading enzyme acetylcholinesterase to be visualised in tissue sections (see e.g. Silver A. (1974) The Biology of Cholinesterases, Amsterdam, North Holland Pub Co. ). Using these techniques she mapped cholinergic systems, which helped emphasise the importance of these pathways in brain areas central to cognitive and memory functions and laid the basis for the “cholinergic hypothesis” of Alzheimer’s disease. This in turn led to the development of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors as the only treatments currently approved for Alzheimer’s disease.
Supported by a Wellcome Trust Public Engagement Grant in the History of Medicine to Professor Tilli Tansey (University College London) and Professor Leslie Iverson (Oxford), this project recorded interviews with 12 prominent neuroscientists, between 2006 and 2007.
Neuroscience has been one of the key areas of biomedical science that the Wellcome Trust has fostered since its creation in 1936. Indeed, the very first ' fellowship ' grant awarded by the Wellcome Trust in 1937 was to Otto Loewi, who shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir Henry Dale for their work on the elucidation of chemical neurotransmission.
This project aimed to provide material resources about contemporary neuroscience to inform and stimulate present and new generations of neuroscientists, and for others, such as historians, journalists and policy-makers, engaged in the analysis, understanding and promotion of modern medical sciences.
Each interview is available as text, freely downloadable as a pdf, and also as an audio podcast and as a video via YouTube. Details and links are given on each individual page. The unedited transcripts, all the original film rushes and other correspondence have been deposited in the Wellcome Library. Scientific publicaitons of each interviewee can be retrieved by interrogating the free PubMedCentral database at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov./pmc
Project team;
Tilli and Les Iversen: grant holders and editors
Richard Thomas: producer, interviewer and editor
Michael Sanders: camera and sound
Carole Reeves: podcast and video clips editor
Alan Yabsley: web-site designer
Debra Gee: transcriber
Produced by Glowstars TV Ltd., 5 Albion Terrace, London E8 4ER
SELECTION OF THEMES AND SUBJECTS
Constraints of finance and time have meant that it has been possible to interview only 12 neuroscientists, and difficult decisions had to be made about areas and individuals to include. Mindful of the Society for Neurosciences’ oral–history project, (see http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=HistoryofNeuroscience_videos) we sought to avoid duplication with their subjects. After much discussion and consultation, we focussed on three major thematic groupings: neuropharmacology, psychiatry/neuropsychology, and neuroimaging, with four interviewees in each. This will inevitably exclude some major contributions to modern neuroscience, but we believe that the internal coherence achieved will enhance the material’s historical, educational and out-reach potential.
The interviewees, by the very nature of our purpose, are part of the distinguished elite of international science who have made outstanding contributions to neuroscience, and increased our understanding and awareness of ways in which the nervous system functions in health and disease. These are individual interviews in which the subjects were asked to reflect on their careers and the influences that have affected the problems they have tackled and the directions they have taken. Although inevitably centred on one person, the interviews are far-ranging and include discussions of, inter alia, where relevant, collaborators, technical support staff, clinical relevance, commercial relationships and funding mechanisms. Those interested in hearing many voices in broader discussions of modern medical sciences are directed, in the first instance, towards the Witness Seminar series at; http://www.ucl.ac.uk/histmed/publications/wellcome_witnesses_c20th_med
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