W. ALDEN SPENCER LECTURE
W. ALDEN SPENCER, Professor of Physiology and Neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, died at the age of 46 in November of 1977. Alden was born in Portland, Oregon, received his B.A. at Reed College, and his M.D. and M.S. degree in neurophysiology at the University of Oregon Medical School. After internship, he became a research fellow in the laboratory of Neurophysiology at the N.I.H. He then took post-doctoral training in Moruzzi's laboratory at the University of Pisa, Italy. He returned to the United States in 1961, teaching first at Oregon, and then at New York University Medical Center. In 1974 he moved to Columbia with laboratories in the Center for Neurobiology & Behavior.
Spencer's research covered a broad spectrum of neurophysiology. At the NIH, he studied the electrophysiology of the hippocampal pyramidal cell. This was the first intracellular study of a non-motor neuron in the mammalian central nervous system, and opened up the modern study of the hippocampus. He next showed that the epileptiform discharge in the hippocampus was due to a shift in the balance between excitatory and inhibitory pathways in which excitatory activity was potentiated and inhibitory action suppressed. The notion that some forms of epilepsy are due to abnormalities in the potency of synaptic connections, as well as to intrinsic changes in the spiking behavior of individual neurons, has made a major impact on clinical thinking about epilepsy. In a major series of studies Spencer developed a neural model for studying habituation, the simplest form of learning. In later years, Spencer turned to sensory neurophysiology where he introduced the idea of looking at a stimulus in its context -- how multiple stimuli transform one another. To his friends, Spencer is remembered as a most generous and humorous colleague, a deeply creative man whose modesty and enthusiasm remain a source of continual delight and enrichment. To honor his contributions and his friendship the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University established an award, with an endowment raised from neural scientists throughout the world.
The Thirty-second Annual W. Alden Spencer Award will be presented to Michael N. Shadlen, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Physiology & Biophysics, Adjunct Professor of Neurology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, of the University of Washington School of Medicine. He will present his talk, "The Neurobiology of Decision Making: A Window on Cognition," on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 5:00 p.m at the Hammer Health Science Center Lecture Hall, Room 401.
The W. Alden Spencer Lecture and Award is given each year, by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Department of Neuroscience and The Kavli Institute for Brain Science, to an investigator in recognition of outstanding research contributions in Neural Science. The Thirty-second Annual Spencer Award will recognize Michael N. Shadlen. Shadlen's experiments elucidate the neural mechanisms that underlie decision making. By combining neural recording with behavioral testing and computational modeling, he has begun to ascertain how the brain reasons from evidence, deliberates and forms beliefs.
Past Alden Awards
W. ALDEN SPENCER, Professor of Physiology and Neurology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, died at the age of 46 in November of 1977. Alden was born in Portland, Oregon, received his B.A. at Reed College, and his M.D. and M.S. degree in neurophysiology at the University of Oregon Medical School. After internship, he became a research fellow in the laboratory of Neurophysiology at the N.I.H. He then took post-doctoral training in Moruzzi's laboratory at the University of Pisa, Italy. He returned to the United States in 1961, teaching first at Oregon, and then at New York University Medical Center. In 1974 he moved to Columbia with laboratories in the Center for Neurobiology & Behavior.
Spencer's research covered a broad spectrum of neurophysiology. At the NIH, he studied the electrophysiology of the hippocampal pyramidal cell. This was the first intracellular study of a non-motor neuron in the mammalian central nervous system, and opened up the modern study of the hippocampus. He next showed that the epileptiform discharge in the hippocampus was due to a shift in the balance between excitatory and inhibitory pathways in which excitatory activity was potentiated and inhibitory action suppressed. The notion that some forms of epilepsy are due to abnormalities in the potency of synaptic connections, as well as to intrinsic changes in the spiking behavior of individual neurons, has made a major impact on clinical thinking about epilepsy. In a major series of studies Spencer developed a neural model for studying habituation, the simplest form of learning. In later years, Spencer turned to sensory neurophysiology where he introduced the idea of looking at a stimulus in its context -- how multiple stimuli transform one another. To his friends, Spencer is remembered as a most generous and humorous colleague, a deeply creative man whose modesty and enthusiasm remain a source of continual delight and enrichment. To honor his contributions and his friendship the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University established an award, with an endowment raised from neural scientists throughout the world.
The Thirty-second Annual W. Alden Spencer Award will be presented to Michael N. Shadlen, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Physiology & Biophysics, Adjunct Professor of Neurology, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, of the University of Washington School of Medicine. He will present his talk, "The Neurobiology of Decision Making: A Window on Cognition," on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at 5:00 p.m at the Hammer Health Science Center Lecture Hall, Room 401.
The W. Alden Spencer Lecture and Award is given each year, by the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Department of Neuroscience and The Kavli Institute for Brain Science, to an investigator in recognition of outstanding research contributions in Neural Science. The Thirty-second Annual Spencer Award will recognize Michael N. Shadlen. Shadlen's experiments elucidate the neural mechanisms that underlie decision making. By combining neural recording with behavioral testing and computational modeling, he has begun to ascertain how the brain reasons from evidence, deliberates and forms beliefs.
Past Alden Awards
| Year | Speaker | Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Emilio Bizzi, M.D. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 1979 | Charles F. Stevens, M.D., Ph.D. | Yale University |
| 1980 | John Heuser, M.D. | Washington University |
| Thomas Reese, M.D. | National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke | |
| 1981 | Gerald Fischbach, M.D. | Washington University |
| 1982 | Patricia Goldman-Rakic, Ph.D. | Yale University School of Medicine |
| 1983 | Erwin Neher, Ph.D. Bert Sakmann, M.D. | Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry |
| 1984 | Paul H. Patterson, Ph.D. | California Institute of Technology |
| 1985 | A.J. Hudspeth, M.D., Ph.D. | University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco |
| 1986 | H. Robert Horvitz, Ph.D. | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| John Sulston, Ph.D. | Medical Research Council Cambridge, England | |
| 1987 | Robert H. Wurtz, Ph.D. | National Eye Institute |
| 1988 | Lily Yeh Jan, Ph.D. Yuh Nung Jan, Ph.D. | University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco |
| 1989 | Holger Wigström, Ph.D. Bengt Gustafsson, M.D., Ph.D. | University of Göteborg |
| Roger Nicoll, M.D. | University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco | |
| 1990 | Michael P. Stryker, Ph.D. | University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco |
| 1991 | Roger Y. Tsien, Ph.D. | University of California School of Medicine, San Diego |
| 1992 | Corey S. Goodman, Ph.D. | University of California at Berkeley |
| 1993 | Richard H. Scheller, Ph.D. | Stanford University Medical Doctoral Program |
| Thomas C. Südhof, M.D. | University of Texas Southwestern Medical Doctoral Program | |
| 1994 | Richard A. Andersen, Ph.D. | California Institute of Technology |
| William T. Newsome III, Ph.D. | Stanford University | |
| 1995 | Richard W. Aldrich, Ph.D. | Stanford University |
| Christopher Miller, Ph.D. | Brandeis University | |
| 1996 | Carla Shatz, Ph.D. | University of California, Berkeley |
| 1997 | Cori Bargmann, Ph.D. | University of California, San Francisco |
| 1998 | Roderick MacKinnon, M.D. | The Rockefeller University |
| 1999 | David Anderson, Ph.D. | California Institute of Technology |
| 2000 | Joshua Sanes, Ph.D. | Washington University School of Medicine |
| 2001 | Joseph Takahashi, Ph.D. | Northwestern University |
| 2002 | Eric Knudsen, Ph.D. | Stanford University |
| Charles Gilbert, M.D., Ph.D. | Rockefeller University | |
| 2003 | Huda Zoghbi, M.D. | Baylor College of Medicine |
| 2004 | Thomas R. Insel, M.D. | NIMH |
| Emmanuel Mignot, M.D., Ph.D. | Stanford University | |
| 2005 | Edvard Moser, Ph.D. | Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
| May-Britt Moser, Ph.D. | Norwegian University of Science and Technology | |
| 2006 | Winfried Denk, Ph.D. | Max Planck Institute for Medical Research |
| David W. Tank, Ph.D. | Biological Computation Research Department, Bell Laboratories | |
| 2007 | David Julius, Ph.D. | University of California, San Francisco |
| Charles G. Zuker, Ph.D. | University of California, San Diego | |
| 2008 | Nikos K. Logothetis, Ph.D. | Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics |
| 2009 | Michael N. Shadlen, M.D., Ph.D. | University of Washington |
