Citation | Nick Strausfeld is one of the world's leading neuroanatomists. He has made numerous fundamental contributions to our understanding of insect brains, encapsulated in a masterly monograph that is widely acknowledged to have no rival. In particular he has pioneered our understanding of insect vision by revealing the initial pathways through which signals from the photoreceptors are processed in ordered layers of neurons. He has also identified areas of the brain that may be associated with spatial learning. All this has shown that insect brains are far more sophisticated than is generally appreciated and that their small size is no impediment to computational complexity. What may prove to be his most significant contribution to date is to demonstrate hitherto unsuspected similarities between insect brains and those of mammals, including parallels in the construction of the visual cortex, the cerebellum and hippocampus. He is now applying these detailed neuroanatomical data to metazoan phylogeny whereby brain structures can be used as diagnostic features, and is thus entering a field that has been very largely ignored by evolutionary biology. Strausfeld possesses both outstanding technical abilities and also an artistic flair that make him a gifted communicator of science at many levels. His scientific stature is also acknowledged by the winning of fellowships from the MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations. |