| Authorised form of name | Barlow; Horace Basil (1921 - 2020) |
| Dates | 1921 - 2020 |
| Nationality | British |
| Place of birth | England, United Kingdom |
| Date of birth | 08/12/1921 |
| Date of death | 05/07/2020 |
| Occupation | Neuroscientist |
| Research field | Neuroscience |
| Vision |
| Physiological optics |
| Activity | Education:
Winchester College; Harvard University, MD (1946)
Career:
Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Royal Society Research Professor of Physiology at the University of Cambridge; University of California at Berkeley (1964-1973); University of Cambridge (1973-2020)
Medals/Awards:
Australia Prize 1993, Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience 2009; Ken Nakayama Prize 2016
|
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 20/03/1969 |
| Age at election | 47 |
| RSActivity | Royal Society roles:
Council: 1989-1990
Medals and prizes:
Royal Medal 1993
Lectures:
Ferrier 1980 |
| Relationships | Son of the civil servant Sir Alan Barlow and his wife Lady Nora (née Darwin), great grandson of Charles Darwin FRS; married 1. (1954) Ruthala Salaman, 2. (1980) Miranda Weston-Smith; professional collaboration with Richard Fitzhugh, Stephen Kuffler, William Levick |
| OtherInfo | Horace Barlow was best known for his analysis of the way that visual information is encoded as significant nerve signals. He was the first to show (in amphibians) the fundamental organisation of optic nerve fibres, namely that each is connected to a clump of receptors that excite, surrounded by a ring that inhibits. With Richard Fitzhugh and Stephen Kuffler, he analysed how this organization changes in dark adaptation.
Horace’s work on human vision greatly strengthened the modern concept of threshold as signal detection in noisy channels, and he measured the quantum efficiency of seeing in various conditions. With William Levick, he showed that rabbits have optic nerves that signal not position but direction of movement, and by ingenious experiments analysed the neural mechanism by which specific movement is encoded.
Dr Horace Barlow FRS died on 5 July 2020. |
| Source | Sources:
https://royalsociety.org/people/horace-barlow-11035/; Wikipedia
References:
David Burr, 'Interview with Horace Barlow' in Current Biology volume 18, issue 12, June 2008 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.04.005 (accessed 6/7/2020) |
| Virtual International Authority File | http://viaf.org/viaf/73913419 |
| Code | NA4295 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| IM/GA/GRS/8590 | Barlow, Horace Basil | nd |
| EC/1969/01 | Barlow, Horace Basil: certificate of election to the Royal Society | |
| TG/1/6/80 | Letter from Thomas Gold to Professor Horace Barlow, School of Optometry, University of California, Berkeley | 25 March 1969 |
| IM/000248 | Barlow, Horace Basil | 30 November 1993 |