- Email: [email protected]
Draw to attention
Aperture
26 | NewScientist | 21 00 January Month 2016 2017
Draw to attention SANTIAGO RAMÓN Y CAJAL was always a rebel. Born in Spain in 1852, as a youngster he ignored his father’s pleas to follow a career in medicine and instead pursued his own interests – drawing, bodybuilding and photography, to name just a few. The photograph to the left is one of his many self-portraits. He even built his own cannons, and played multiple games of chess at the same time. He eventually became interested in medicine after working with his father to produce anatomical drawings. In the 1870s, as microscope technologies advanced, he became fascinated with the inner workings of the body’s cells. Ramón y Cajal adapted a technique of staining cells to view them under a microscope, and used this to create many drawings, as well as theories on how the brain works. For example, he proposed that neurons in the brain don’t form a single, connected network. Instead, he believed they are separate and individual, but ready to communicate with each other. This discovery formed the basis of modern neuroscience, and Ramón y Cajal is often referred to as its father. He was awarded a Nobel prize in 1906 for his work on the nervous system. Pictured top right is Ramón y Cajal’s drawing of the inner ear – a labyrinth of structures that pick up sounds and detect how the head tilts and rotates. This information is sent to the brain via the neurons labelled A and B. Below this is a drawing of the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory that, in this case, was taken from a man three hours after his death. In it, Ramón y Cajal has illustrated several starshaped astrocytes. These cells support other cells in the brain, and here they “hug” the larger, pale grey neurons. A collection of drawings by Ramón y Cajal are featured in the book The Beautiful Brain published this month by Abrams and edited with commentaries and essays by leading neuroscientists. Jessica Hamzelou
Images Santiago Ramón y Cajal Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
2017 Aperture calendar Available now – featuring 12 of our favourite Aperture images newscienti.st/2hjOSiM 21 00January Month 2016 2017 | NewScientist | 27
26 | NewScientist | 21 00 January Month 2016 2017
Draw to attention SANTIAGO RAMÓN Y CAJAL was always a rebel. Born in Spain in 1852, as a youngster he ignored his father’s pleas to follow a career in medicine and instead pursued his own interests – drawing, bodybuilding and photography, to name just a few. The photograph to the left is one of his many self-portraits. He even built his own cannons, and played multiple games of chess at the same time. He eventually became interested in medicine after working with his father to produce anatomical drawings. In the 1870s, as microscope technologies advanced, he became fascinated with the inner workings of the body’s cells. Ramón y Cajal adapted a technique of staining cells to view them under a microscope, and used this to create many drawings, as well as theories on how the brain works. For example, he proposed that neurons in the brain don’t form a single, connected network. Instead, he believed they are separate and individual, but ready to communicate with each other. This discovery formed the basis of modern neuroscience, and Ramón y Cajal is often referred to as its father. He was awarded a Nobel prize in 1906 for his work on the nervous system. Pictured top right is Ramón y Cajal’s drawing of the inner ear – a labyrinth of structures that pick up sounds and detect how the head tilts and rotates. This information is sent to the brain via the neurons labelled A and B. Below this is a drawing of the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory that, in this case, was taken from a man three hours after his death. In it, Ramón y Cajal has illustrated several starshaped astrocytes. These cells support other cells in the brain, and here they “hug” the larger, pale grey neurons. A collection of drawings by Ramón y Cajal are featured in the book The Beautiful Brain published this month by Abrams and edited with commentaries and essays by leading neuroscientists. Jessica Hamzelou
Images Santiago Ramón y Cajal Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
2017 Aperture calendar Available now – featuring 12 of our favourite Aperture images newscienti.st/2hjOSiM 21 00January Month 2016 2017 | NewScientist | 27