Masao Ito

Masao Itō (Japanese伊藤 正 男, Masao Ito, * 1928 in Nagoya ) is a Japanese neuroscientist.

Itō studied medicine with the M. D. degree in 1953 and his doctorate in 1959 at the University of Tokyo. After clinical training graduate studies in physiology in 1954 followed by 1957 at the Kumamoto University and then at the University of Tokyo, where he received his doctorate in 1959. 1959-1962 he worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of John Eccles at the Australian National University. In 1963 he became associate professor in 1970 and professor at the University of Tokyo. 1986 and 1989 he was dean of his university. In 1990 he became Professor Emeritus and was a group leader and as of 1993 Director General for Research of RIKEN.

Itō discovered the inhibitory role of Purkinje cells in the cerebellum ( cerebellum) and their characteristic synaptic plasticity (LTD, long term depression ). He developed a theory of how the cerebellum learns not only motor skills, but also plays a role in implicit memory.

In 2006 he was awarded the Gruber Prize for Neuroscience; Furthermore, he received the Ipsen Foundation Award (1993 ), the Robert Dow Neuroscience Award (1993 ) and high Japanese prices ( Fujiwara Price 1981 Academy Prize and Imperial Prize in 1986, person with special cultural merits 1994 Japan Prize in 1996, the Order of Culture 1996). From 1983 he was president of the Japan Society for Neuroscience and 1980-1986 President of the International Brain Research Organization ( IBRO ). He is a member of the Royal Swedish, Russian and Armenian Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Japan Academy of Sciences. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Southern California and the University of Turin.

Writings

• With John C. Eccles, J. Szentagothai: The Cerebellum as a Neuronal Machine, Springer -Verlag, 1967
• The Cerebellum and Neural Control, Raven Press, 1984