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Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian



Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian

BornEdgar Douglas Adrian
November 30 1889(1889-11-30)
Hampstead, London, England
DiedAugust 04 1977 (aged 87)
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
NationalityBritish
Occupationelectrophysiologist

Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian OM PRS (Hampstead, London, 30 November 1889 [1] – Cambridge, Cambridgeshire 4 August 1977 [2]) was a British electrophysiologist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology, won jointly with Sir Charles Sherrington for work on the function of neurons.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Son of Alfred Douglas Adrian CB MC, legal adviser to the British Local Government Board, he attended Westminster School and studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, remaining in Cambridge for the major part of his life.

Completing a medical degree in 1915, he did clinical work at St Bartholomew's Hospital London during World War I, treating soldiers with nerve damage and nervous disorders such as shell shock. Adrian returned to Cambridge in 1919 and in 1925 began his studies of nerve impulses in the human sensory organs.

He married Hester Agnes Pinsent on 14 June 1923 and they had three children, a daughter and mixed twins:

Work

Continuing earlier studies of Keith Lucas, he used a capillary electrometer and cathode ray tube to amplify the signals produced by the nervous system and was able to record the electrical discharge of single nerve fibres under physical stimulus. An accidental discovery by Adrian in 1928 proved the presence of electricity within nerve cells. Adrian said,

"I had arranged electrodes on the optic nerve of a toad in connection with some experiments on the retina. The room was nearly dark and I was puzzled to hear repeated noises in the loudspeaker attached to the amplifier, noises indicating that a great deal of impulse activity was going on. It was not until I compared the noises with my own movements around the room that I realized I was in the field of vision of the toad's eye and that it was signaling what I was doing."

A key result, published in 1928, stated that the excitation of the skin under constant stimulus is initially strong but gradually decreases over time, whereas the sensory impulses passing along the nerves from the point of contact are constant in strength, yet are reduced in frequency over time, and the sensation in the brain diminishes as a result.

Extending these results to the study of pain causes by the stimulus of the nervous system, he made discoveries about the reception of such signals in the brain and spatial distribution of the sensory areas of the cerebral cortex in different animals. These conclusions lead to the idea of a sensory map, called the homunculus, in the somatosensory system.

Later, Adrian used the electroencephalogram to study the electrical activity of the brain in humans. His work on the abnormalities of the Berger rhythm paved the way for subsequent investigation in epilepsy and other cerebral pathologies. He spent the last portion of his research career investigating olfaction.

Among the many awards and positions he received during his career were Foulerton Professor 1929-1937; Professor of Physiology at the University of Cambridge 1937-1951; President of the Royal Society 1950-1955; Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 1951-1965; Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1967-1975. In 1942 he was awarded the Order of Merit, and in 1955 was created Baron Adrian, of Cambridge in the County of Cambridge.

Bibliography

  • The Basis of Sensation (1928)
  • The Mechanism of Nervous Action (1932)
  • Factors Determining Human Behavior (1937)

References

  1. ^ GRO Register of Births: DEC 1889 1a 650 HAMPSTEAD - Edgar Douglas Adrian
  2. ^ GRO Register of Deaths: SEP 1977 9 0656 CAMBRIDGE - Edgar Douglas Adrian, DoB = 30 Nov 1889
  3. ^ Peter Townend, ed., Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 105th edition (London, U.K.: Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1970), page 27.
  • The Master of Trinity at Trinity College, Cambridge
  • Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965.
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Robert Robinson
President of the Royal Society
1950–1955
Succeeded by
Cyril Hinshelwood
Academic offices
Preceded by
George Macaulay Trevelyan
Master of Trinity College, Cambridge
1951–1965
Succeeded by
The Lord Butler of Saffron Walden
Preceded by
New position
Chancellor of the University of Leicester
1957–1971
Succeeded by
Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
Preceded by
The Lord Tedder
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
1967–1976
Succeeded by
HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
New Creation
Baron Adrian
1955–1977
Succeeded by
Richard Adrian


Persondata
NAME Adrian, Edgar Douglas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adrian, Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron
SHORT DESCRIPTION Electrophysiologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1889-11-30
PLACE OF BIRTH Hampstead, London, England
DATE OF DEATH 1977-08-04
PLACE OF DEATH Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Edgar_Adrian,_1st_Baron_Adrian". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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