Caltech News 28(3), 11 Ered, Ro Regenerate Cormecrions to Their Roger Sperry with His Work." Sperry Was Also an Avid Original Targets
specificity of neural reconnection—that 1981 interview. "He soilpted phe• is, by the ability of neurons, when sev• nomenally. The Sperrys' home is filled Caltech News 28(3), 11 ered, ro regenerate cormecrions to their Roger Sperry with his work." Sperry was also an avid original targets. This work led in the paleontologist, with an extensive col• early 19(50s to a new theory explaining lection of prehistoric moUusks. 1913-1994 how neurons grow, assemble, and orga• "He was one of the premier experi• nize themselves in the brain by means mental neurobiologists of his time," Roger W. Spetiy, 1981 Nobel laure• of amazingly intricate, genetically said Norman Davidson, the Norman ate in physiology or medicine and the determined chemical codes. Chandler Professor of Chemical Biol• Institute's Board of Trustees Professor Sperry is best known for his "left- ogy, Emeritus, and executive oflScer for of Psychobiology, Emeritus, <;lied on brain/right-btain" research, work that biology at Caltech. "Those of us who April 17,1994, of a heart attack and of has had an incalculable impact on fields have kpown him since those early years complications associated with a neuro• ranging fimm neurophysiology to psy• will always remember the courage and muscular degenerative disease from chology to education. Working in the tenacity with which he continued to which he had suffered for many years. 1950s and early 1960s with patients carry on his work in later years in spite He was 80. who had had their corpus callosum— of a debilitating degenerative disease. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, the bundle of fibers connecting the left It was an inspiration ro all who knew Sperry earned his bachelor's degree in and right cerebral hemispheres—surgi• him." English literature from Oberlin College cally cut in an effort to control epilep• The late Caltech professor is sur• in 1935, then focused his attention on tic seizures, he demonstrated how the vived by his wife of 45 years.
[Show full text]