Eric Kandel

Eric Kandel is University Professor at Columbia University and a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also founding Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000.

Professor Kandel's research has shown that learning produces changes in behavior by modifying the strength of connections between nerve cells, rather than by altering the brain's basic circuitry. He went on to determine the biochemical changes that accompany memory formation, showing that short-term memory involves a functional modulation of the synapses while long-term memory requires the activation of genes and the synthesis of proteins to grow new synaptic connections. For this work, the Austrian-born Kandel was awarded the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.More recently, Professor Kandel has expanded his studies of simple learning and memory in Aplysia to include more complex forms of memory storage in genetically modified mice. These studies have focused on explicit memory (the conscious recall of information about places and objects), revealing the importance of a balance of activation and inhibition in memory storage so that animals as well as humans do not store information in their memories that is not important to recall.