Sten Grillner

Erik Sten Grillner (born 14 June 1941 in Stockholm ) is a Swedish neuroscientist.

Grillner studied medicine at the University of Gothenburg (Candidate Title 1962) and was in 1969 in neurophysiology PhD ( dissertation title: supraspinal and segmental control of static and dynamic y- motor neurones in the cat ). After that, he was a lecturer until 1975 in Gothenburg. In 1971 he was a visiting scientist at the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He is since 1975 professor of physiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in the Department of Neuroscience, which he chaired from 1993 to 2000. Since 1987 Professor and Director of the Nobel Institute for Neurophysiology, Karolinska Institute.

He explored the cellular neural basis of basic motor programs that animals have, for example, to produce locomotion, for posture and orientation, or eye movement. The role of individual neurons is investigated (which are often equipped with individually different ion channels ) and their synaptic connectivity to derive higher functional properties of neuronal networks to explain. It mainly used as an animal model of the lamprey, but mammals such as in the study of how the sequence of the individual elementary motor programs is controlled. In the lamprey model 1987 he succeeded with colleagues the detailed elucidation of the mechanisms for motor movement, posture and control at the cellular level. Later he was able to demonstrate that basic elements of the system were maintained at higher vertebrates in evolution.

In 2008 he received with Pasko Rakic ​​and Thomas Jessell the Kavli Prize in neuroscience that he showed how networks of nerve cells in the spinal cord of mammals generate elementary rhythmic motor movements. In 2003 he received the Neuronal Plasticity Prize, 1993 Bristol -Myers Squibb Award in Neuroscience, 2005 Ralph W. Gerard Prize of the Society of Neuroscience and in 2006 the Finnish Ragnar Granit price.

He is a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences since 1993 ( since 2004 in their Leitungsrat and chairman of the Biology Department ) and since 1997 the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea since 1990. Since 2010 he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the Institute of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1987 to 1997 he was a member of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine from 1995 to 1997 and Chairman of the Nobel Committee. 1988 to 2008 he was a member of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in 2005 and its chairman.

In 2009 he was president of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies.

He has been married since 1963 and has two children.

Writings

Books:

  • Published by Gordon M. Shepherd Handbook of Brain Microcircuits, Oxford University Press 2010
  • With G.N. Orlovsky, T. G. Delia Gina Neuronal control of locomotion: from mollusc to man, Oxford University Press 1999
  • Publisher with Avis H. Cohen, Serge Rossignol Neural control of rhythmic movements in vertebrates, Wiley 1988
  • Publisher with AM Graybiel Microcircuits: the interface in between neurons and global brain functions ( Dahlem Workshop), MIT Press 2006

Selected essays:

  • Neural networks for vertebrate locomotion, Scientific American, January 1996
  • With M. Stephenson -Jones, E. Samuelsson, J. Ericsson, B. Robertson: Evolutionary conservation of the basal ganglia as a common vertebrate mechanism for action selection, Current Biology, Volume 21, 2011, p 1081-1091
  • With A. Kozlog, M. Huss, A. Lansner, JH Kotaleski JH: Simple cellular and network control principles Governs complex patterns of motor behavior, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 106, 2009, pp. 20027 - 20032
  • Biological pattern generation: The cellular and computational logic of networks in motion, Neuron, Volume 52, 2006, pp. 751-766
  • With J. Hellgren, A. Menard, K. Saitoh, M. Wikström Mechanisms for selection of basic motor programs - roles for the striatum and pallidum, Trends in Neuroscience, Volume 28, 2005, pp. 364-370
  • The motor infrastructure: From ion channels to neuronal networks, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Volume 4, 2003, pp. 573-586
  • With T. Matsushima The neural network underlying locomotion in lamprey -synaptic and cellular mechanisms, Neuron, Volume 7, 1991, pp. 1-15.
  • Neurobiological bases of rhythmic motor acts in vertebrates, Science, Volume 228, 1985, pp. 143-149.
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