Eric Kandel Biography
Eric Kandel is a neuroscientist, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a physician who specializes in psychiatry who was born in Austria.
He won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his investigation into the physiological underpinnings of memory storage in neurons. Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard split the honor.
At the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he is a Senior Investigator. Additionally, he served as the first director of Columbia University’s Department of Neuroscience, which later became the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation’s Scientific Council now has him on its membership.
He enrolled at the New York University Medical School in 1952. He had a strong interest in the biological foundations of the mind by the time he graduated. He met Denise Bystryn, his future wife, during this period.
Kandel initially became acquainted with research while working in Harry Grundfest’s lab at Columbia University. Grundfest is renowned for utilizing the oscilloscope to show that the axon width affects the action potential conduction velocity.
The scientists Kandel talked with were thinking about the difficulties in recording the electrical activity of the very tiny neurons in the vertebrate brain inside individual cells.
Kandel was inspired by the advancements achieved by Stephen Kuffler employing neurons obtained from marine invertebrates after beginning his neurobiological studies in the challenging thicket of the electrophysiology of the cerebral cortex.
After seeing Kuffler’s work in 1955, Kandel finished medical school and studied microelectrode construction from Stanley Crain in order to create intracellular recordings of crayfish large axons.
Eric Kandel Age
On November 7, 1929, he was born in Vienna, Austria. Eric is 94 years old as of 2023. He celebrates his birthday on November 7th of every year.
Eric Kandel Education
Eric received Judaic studies instruction from his grandpa after they moved to Brooklyn after their arrival in the United States.
Later, he was admitted to the Yeshiva of Flatbush, from which he graduated in 1944. He subsequently enrolled in the New York City public school system and attended Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. He majored in history and literature at Harvard.
Carl Zuckmayer, Hans Carossa, and Ernst Jünger’s attitudes on national socialism were the subject of Eric’s college honors thesis. ”
Eric Kandel Family
His parents resided in Vienna, Austria, where he was born and reared. His parents, Hermann Kandel and Charlotte Zimels were both born in Kolomyya, Pokuttya (today Ukraine), in 1897, and Olesko, Galicia, in 1898. (then part of Austria-Hungary). Jewish Ashkenazi immigrants raised Charlotte.
Kolomyya was a part of Austria-Hungary at the time. When World War I started, Charlotte and Hermann relocated to Vienna, Austria, where they later fell in love and were wed in 1923.
When Eric was not long old, his father opened a toy shop.
Despite being completely absorbed and acclimated, they departed Austria once it was invaded by Germany in March 1938. As a result of Aryanization, Jewish property was being seized and attacks on Jews increased (Arisierung).
At the age of 9, Eric and his older brother Ludwig, who was 14 at the time, boarded the Gerolstein at Antwerp, Belgium. On May 11, 1939, the two brothers moved in with their uncle in Brooklyn, and their parents followed later.
Eric Kandel Height
The man’s height is typical. Eric is around 1.7 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall. In addition, he manages to maintain an average body weight. More information concerning his other body measurements is currently under review. You will be updated.
Eric Kandel Marriage
He is married to Denise Kandel, an epidemiologist and medical sociologist from the United States who was born on February 27, 1933, in Paris, France, and is now 89 years old. At Columbia University, Denise teaches sociomedical sciences and psychiatry.
She also serves as the director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s Department of Epidemiology of Substance Abuse. The couple has two kids after getting married in 1956.
Eric Kandel Contribution To Psychology
He majored in history and literature while an undergraduate at Harvard. “The Attitude Toward National Socialism of Three German Writers: Carl Zuckmayer, Hans Carossa, and Ernst Jünger” was the topic of Eric’s college honors thesis. B. F. Skinner’s work dominated psychology at Harvard.
Eric had a keen interest in memory and learning while there. However, Skinner advocated for a clear division between psychology and biological factors like neurology as its own level of discourse.
The main focus of Eric’s work is to clarify the connections between neurology and psychology. When he first met Anna Kris, the daughter of psychoanalysts Ernst Kris and Marianne Rie, he was introduced to the field of neuroscience.
Eric Kandel 2000 | Nobel Prize
He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for his studies on the physiological underpinnings of memory storage in neurons. Paul Greengard and Arvid Carlsson and Eric all received a prize.
His study with Aplysia on the biological processes underlying memory storage contributed to his success. In Vienna, it was stated that Eric was an “Austrian” Nobel when he received the award.
This comment, in Eric’s opinion, was “typically Viennese: extremely opportunistic, quite dishonest, slightly hypocritical.”
