Roger Sperry—1981 Nobel Prize Winner

Roger Sperry-1981 Nobel Prize Winner Marc A. Shampo, Ph.D., and Robert A. Kyle, M.D. The 1981 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to three neurobiologists: Roger Wolcott Sperry, Torsten Wiesel (1924), and David Hubel (1926). Sperry won half the prize for his success in demonstrating that the hemispheres of the brain are highly specialized and that many higher functions are centered in the right hemisphere. Hubel and Wiesel shared the other half of the prize for their research on information processing in the visual system. Sperry's studies of functional specialization in the cerebral hemispheres and the surgical and experimental techniques that he developed formed the basis for constructing the sites of mental processes. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, on Aug. 20, 1913, Sperry received his early education in the public schools of Elmwood, a suburb of Hartford, and attended William Hall High School in West Hartford. He entered Oberlin College (Ohio) , where he received a B.A. degree in English in 1935 and an M.A. degree in psychology in 1937. After another year at Oberlin College, during which he pursued his interest in zoology, he entered the University of Chicago to study for a doctorate. Having obtained a Ph.D. degree in zoology in 1941, Sperry became a National Research Council Fellow at Harvard University, where he worked until 1942. He then became a biology research fellow and an associate of American psychologist Karl Lashley (1890-1958) at the Yerkes Laboratories for Primate Biology in Florida; he worked there from 1942 to 1946. During these years, Sperry studied split-brain preparations (experimental animals in which the nerves connecting the left and right sides of the brain were surgically severed). In 1946, Sperry returned to the University of Chicago as an assistant professor of anatomy; in 1952, he was promoted to associate professor of psychology. In 1954, he joined the faculty of the California Institute of Technology at Pasadena as Hixon Professor of Psychobiology. From 1954 to 1984, he continued his research on split-brain function. His work as Hixon professor contributed to current knowledge of specialized functions of the left and right cerebral hemispheres of the brain, transformed the study of cognition, and had major implications in the diagnosis and treatment of nervous disorders. His research eventually helped to explain how the brain functions in such areas as memory, language, and the perception of spatial relationships. Since 1984, Sperry has served on the Board of Trustees at the California Institute of Technology. Sperry wrote extensively on central nervous system readjustment after nerve , muscle, skin, and eye transplantations as well as on split-brain research . He received many honors and awards and belonged to the most prestigious scientific societies of America and the world. He received honorary doctorates from Cambridge University (England) in 1972, the University of Chicago (Illinois) in 1976, Kenyon College (Ohio) in 1979, Rockefeller University (New York) in 1980, and Oberlin College (Ohio) in 1982. Sperry was honored as a Nobel Prize winner on a stamp issued by Sweden in 1984. A sketch of the human brain on the stamp illustrates sites of mental function.

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