Henry Molaison - Contribution To Science

Contribution To Science

The study of Molaison revolutionized the understanding of the organization of human memory. It has provided broad evidence for the rejection of old theories and the formation of new theories on human memory, in particular about its processes and the underlying neural structures (cf. Kolb & Whishaw, 1996). In the following, some of the major insights are outlined.

Molaison's brain is the subject of an unprecedented anatomical study funded by the Dana Foundation and the National Science Foundation. The project, headed by Jacopo Annese, the Director of The Brain Observatory at UC San Diego, will provide a complete microscopic survey of the entire brain and reveal the neurological basis of Molaison's historical memory impairment at cellular resolution. On December 4, 2009, Annese's group acquired 2401 brain slices with only two damaged slices and 16 potentially problematic slices. The group is currently planning the second phase of the project.

Read more about this topic:  Henry Molaison

Famous quotes containing the words contribution to, contribution and/or science:

    “Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them—their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “Parents are used to being made to feel guilty about...their contribution to the population problem, the school tax burden, and declining test scores. They expect to be blamed by teachers and psychologists, if not by police. And they will be blamed by the children themselves. It is hardy a wonder, then, that they withdraw into what used to be called “permissiveness” but is really neglect.”
    —C. John Sommerville (20th century)

    “What is done for science must also be done for art: accepting undesirable side effects for the sake of the main goal, and moreover diminishing their importance by making this main goal more magnificent. For one should reform forward, not backward: social illnesses, revolutions, are evolutions inhibited by a conserving stupidity.”
    —Robert Musil (1880–1942)