Neuroscience 190 (2011) 1–11 EDITORIAL WHAT THE NOSE KNOWS, WHAT THE EYES SEE, HOW WE FEEL, HOW WE LEARN, HOW WE UNDERSTAND MOTOR ACTS, WHY “YY” IS ESSENTIAL FOR ION TRANSPORT, HOW EPIGENETICS MEET NEUROBIOLOGY IN RETT SYNDROME: SEVEN TOPICS AT THE 2010 KAVLI PRIZE SYMPOSIUM ON NEUROSCIENCE L. H. BERGERSEN,a M. SANDERb AND Symposium included lectures by: Richard Axel of Colum- J. STORM-MATHISENa* bia University, New York, USA; Tobias Bonhoeffer of Max aDepartment of Anatomy, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences and Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Martinsried, Germany; Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, University of Oslo, Michael E. Goldberg of Columbia University, New York, PO Box 1105 Blindern, 0317 Oslo, Norway USA; Poul Nissen of Aarhus University, Denmark; Gia- b Page One Editorial Services, 685 Poplar Avenue, Boulder, CO como Rizzolatti of the University of Parma, Italy; and Huda 80304, USA Y Zoghbi of Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA. The seven symposium lectures described the most The Kavli Prizes were awarded for the second time in recent advances in understanding emotion, olfaction, vi- Oslo, Norway on 7 September, 2010 to eight of the sual information processing, synaptic plasticity, ion flux in world’s most prominent scientists in astrophysics, nano- neurons, perception of self and other, and the conse- science, and neuroscience. Jerry Nelson, of the Univer- quences of epigenetic dysregulation in the human brain. sity of California, Santa Cruz, USA, Ray Wilson, formerly The Kavli Prize Symposium on Neuroscience was or- of Imperial College London and the European Southern ganized by Linda H. Bergersen, Edvard Moser, May-Britt Observatory, and Roger Angel, of the University of Ari- Moser, and Jon Storm-Mathisen, and was made possible zona, Tucson, USA, shared the astrophysics prize for by the combined support of The Kavli Foundation, the their innovative contributions in the field of telescope Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and the Nor- design. The nanoscience prize was awarded jointly to wegian Ministry of Education and Research. The event US researchers Donald Eigler, of the IBM Almaden Re- was hosted by the University of Oslo, whose rector, Ole search Centre, San Jose, California and Nadrian See- Petter Ottersen, himself a renowned neuroscientist, gave man, of New York University, for developing a method the introductory address. The Kavli Foundation is dedi- for moving single atoms and inventing structural DNA cated to advancing basic research for the benefit of hu- nanotechnology, respectively. Finally, the joint recipi- manity, promoting public understanding of scientific re- ents of the neuroscience prize were US scientists search, and supporting scientists and their work. The par- Thomas Südhof, of Stanford University School of Med- ticipants in the Symposium expressed their gratitude for icine, Richard Scheller, of the biotech company Genen- the opportunity to take part in the great celebration of tech, and James Rothman, of Yale University, for their science, the legacy of Fred Kavli, and the achievements work on the molecular basis of neurotransmitter release of the winners of the 2010 Kavli Prizes. The main points (See review of the laureates’ work by Hussain and of the presentations of the 2010 Kavli Prize Symposium Davanger, 2011, in this issue of Neuroscience). on Neuroscience are summarized below. Readers inter- As part of the week-long Kavli Prize celebration in ested in a more detailed consideration of any of the Oslo, The University of Oslo hosted The Kavli Prize Sym- topics discussed at the Symposium are referred to the posium on Neuroscience on 6 September, 2010, an event reading list at the end of this article. designed to celebrate excellence in Neuroscience re- search. At this Symposium, seven leading neuroscientists Antonio Damasio described their groundbreaking research, covering a di- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA verse selection of problems in Neurobiology. Starting with The Neuroscience of Emotion and Consciousness a “public awareness” lecture by Antonio Damasio of the Antonio Damasio opened the Symposium with a des- University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA, the ignated public awareness lecture, in which he elegantly *Corresponding author. Tel: ϩ47-97193044; fax: ϩ47-22851278. described recent developments in understanding the neu- E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Storm-Mathisen). rological bases of emotion. Damasio emphasized the fact Abbreviations: FHM2, familial hemiplegic migraine 2; LIP, lateral intra- parietal area; MD, monocular deprivation; MeCP2, methyl-CpG-bind- that multiple cortical and noncortical brain regions, includ- ing protein 2; NKA, NaϩKϩATPase; SM, an anonymous patient. ing the insular cortex, the amygdala, and brain stem re- 0306-4522/11 $ - see front matter © 2011 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.05.036 1 2 L. H. Bergersen et al. / Neuroscience 190 (2011) 1–11 gions, express neural circuits that are active during human For example, Damasio and other neuroscientists have emotional experience. extensively studied the patient “SM,” who has the rare Early neuroscientists treated the study of emotion and genetic disorder Urbach–Wiethe disease. Because of feeling with deference, and consequently focused most of this condition, SM has focal bilateral brain damage in the their research effort on other neurobiological functions and subcortical brain, resulting in loss of all functional re- mechanisms. However, recent work, including Damasio’s sponse in the amygdala. Experimental studies showed own studies, suggests that emotions have significant bio- that SM completely lacks normal fear responses. Thus, logical importance, despite early tendencies among neu- when presented with fear-inducing triggers, such as spi- roscientists to minimize their relevance to cognitive per- ders, snakes, or videos of violent acts, SM’s reaction is ception of the external environment. Researchers now characterized by excessive approach, lack of with- appreciate that emotions are associated with complex and drawal, lack of facial, or postural reactions typical of a important behavioral programs and physiological re- fear response, and lack of fear conditioning. While SM’s sponses, and that these programs are mechanisms by subjective rating of fear-inducing film clips scored Ͻ1on which the individual being, human or animal, solves spe- a scale of 1–10 (normal control score was in the range cific situational problems or life-threatening encounters. In 4–7), the patient reported a normal intensity of subjec- fact, for animal species that have a lower cognitive capac- tive experience of sadness, anger, surprise, happiness, ity than Homo sapiens, such emotional/behavioral pro- and disgust. Similarly, sampling over a 3-month or a grams can be highly advantageous. For humans, emo- 1-year period, SM reported normal frequency of emo- tional responses provide great benefit in many situations, tional states other than fear, but virtually no experience but can conflict with social and/or cultural conventions in of fear. Nevertheless, SM was capable of experiencing other situations. “chemo-induced” fear, when exposed to inhaled CO . According to Damasio, emotions are “complex pro- 2 This result demonstrates that the emotion of fear is grams of actions triggered by the presence of certain evoked by two parallel neurosensory pathways, one stimuli”. The triggers can be perceived as external or internal phenomena, and the emotions elicited by these dependent on an external stimulus (defective in SM) and stimuli have been grouped into several classes, includ- the other dependent on an internal stimulus (intact in ing the primary emotions (fear, anger, happiness, sad- SM). ness, disgust), background emotions (enthusiasm, dis- Real-time magnetoencephalographic (MEG) studies couragement) and complex social emotions (compas- of the normal neurological response to emotionally com- sion, shame, contempt, pride, and awe/admiration). petent visual stimuli demonstrated that emotions are Emotions are not learned behaviors; instead, they are activated in distinct kinetic stages involving different genetically-encoded responses to specific objects or cortical areas (Fig. 1). A recent study showed that pleas- events that correlate with neurological activity in specific ant and unpleasant visual stimuli induce strong neuro- brain regions. Emotional programs are enacted in well- logical activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, ventromedial defined stages, including initial cognitive appraisal, trig- prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and somatosensory gering, execution, and finally, physiological impact or cortices 350–500 ms after stimulation. Less strong re- upheaval. sponses were noted in the visual cortex in the 70–200 In normal individuals, neurological activity in specific ms time frame, and in the ventral visual stream, tem- brain regions correlates with specific emotions. How- poropolar and orbitofrontal regions in the 200–350 ms ever, some of these specific responses are altered or time frame. Stronger activity correlated with more emo- absent in individuals with impaired emotional capacity. tionally competent stimuli. These data suggest complex Fig. 1. Dynamics of the human cerebral cortex during the induction of emotion by visual stimuli. The figure illustrates temporal phases of magnetoencephalographic evoked cortical responses during experience of pleasurable feelings. The order