John O'Keefe (neuroscientist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John O'Keefe
FRS FMedSci
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O'Keefe in 2014
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| Born | November 18, 1939 New York City, U.S.
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| Citizenship | United States United Kingdom |
| Alma mater | City College of New York (BA) McGill University (MA, PhD) |
| Known for | Discovery of place cells |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience Psychology |
| Institutions | University College London |
| Thesis | Response properties of amygdalar units in the freely moving cat (1967) |
| Doctoral advisor | Ronald Melzack |
| Notable students | Neil Burgess |
John O'Keefe, born on November 18, 1939, is a famous American-British brain scientist (neuroscientist) and psychologist. He is a professor at University College London.
He is well-known for discovering "place cells" in the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain important for memory. These cells help us understand where we are in space.
In 2014, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He shared this big award with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser for their amazing discoveries about how our brains know where we are. He has also received many other important awards.
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Early Life and Education
John O'Keefe was born in New York City. His parents were immigrants from Ireland. He went to Regis High School in Manhattan.
In 1963, he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the City College of New York. Even though his parents did not finish elementary school, his father did get a high school degree in New York.
O'Keefe then went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada. There, he earned his Master of Arts degree in 1964. In 1967, he received his PhD in Psychology. His supervisor for his PhD was Ronald Melzack.
Career and Brain Research
In 1967, John O'Keefe moved to University College London. He started there as a research fellow, working with Patrick David Wall. He has worked at University College London ever since. In 1987, he became a full professor.
In 2014, he also became a part-time professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. This happened because his friends and fellow researchers, Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser, asked him to join.
Discovery of Place Cells
John O'Keefe and his student, Jonathan Dostrovsky, made an exciting discovery: "place cells." They found these cells by carefully studying how individual brain cells in the hippocampus reacted to different things in the environment.
The hippocampus is a part of the brain that helps us with memory and knowing where we are. O'Keefe's work showed that these place cells become active when an animal is in a specific location.
He wrote many important papers about place cells. He also wrote a very influential book with Lynn Nadel. In this book, they suggested that the hippocampus acts like a "cognitive map." This map helps us remember and understand different places.
Many other scientists have studied place cells since O'Keefe's discovery. They have done experiments and created computer models to learn more about them.
How Brain Cells Code Time: Theta Phase Precession
O'Keefe continued his research on place cells and found something even more interesting. He discovered that place cells don't just tell us where we are, but also when we are there. This is called "temporal coding."
In 1993, he and Michael Recce showed how this works. They found that place cells fire at different times during a brain wave called the theta rhythm.
Imagine a rat moving through a specific spot. When the rat first enters that spot, the place cell fires later in the theta rhythm cycle. As the rat moves further through the spot, the cell fires earlier in the cycle. This shift in timing is called "theta phase precession."
This discovery showed that the exact timing of brain cell signals is very important for how the brain processes information. Many studies have since confirmed this effect. Scientists are still trying to understand how the brain creates this precise timing.
Predicting Boundary Cells
In 1996, O'Keefe and Neil Burgess published another important paper. They showed that if you move the walls or barriers in an environment, the firing patterns of place cells change.
Based on this, they created a model that predicted the existence of "boundary vector cells." These cells would respond when an animal was a certain distance from a boundary or wall in its environment.
Several years later, scientists found these predicted cells! They are called boundary cells (or sometimes "border cells"). They were found in parts of the brain near the hippocampus, like the subiculum and the medial entorhinal cortex. This discovery showed how powerful O'Keefe's predictions were.
Awards and Honours
John O'Keefe has received many important awards and honours for his work.
- In 1992, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
- In 1998, he became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
- He received the Feldberg Foundation Prize in 2001.
- In 2006, he won the Grawemeyer Award in psychology with Lynn Nadel.
- In 2007, he received an award from the British Neuroscience Association.
- In 2008, he received the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies European Journal of Neuroscience Award.
- Later in 2008, O'Keefe was given the Gruber Prize in Neuroscience.
- In 2013, he received the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize with Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser.
- In 2014, he shared the Kavli Prize with Brenda Milner and Marcus Raichle. This prize was given for discovering special brain networks for memory and thinking.
- Also in 2014, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser.
He has also received honorary degrees from several universities:
- University College Cork (2014)
- The City College of New York (2015)
- McGill University (2015)
In 2016, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. In 2019, he became an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy.
See also
In Spanish: John O'Keefe para niños
