Semir Zeki facts for kids
Dr. Semir Zeki, born in 1940, is a British and French scientist who studies the brain. He is a neurobiologist, which means he focuses on how our brains work, especially how we see. He has spent a lot of time studying the brains of monkeys and humans to understand how we see colors, movement, and shapes. More recently, he has explored how our brains create feelings like love, desire, and beauty when we see or hear things. This field is called Neuroesthetics. Dr. Zeki studied at University College London (UCL) and is now a Professor of Neuroesthetics there.
Contents
How Dr. Zeki Started His Research
Early in his career, Dr. Zeki studied the brains of monkeys. He mapped out different parts of their brains that are used for vision. He found several special areas in the brain that work together to help us see.
His research showed two main things about how our brains see:
- Different parts of the brain's visual area have special jobs. For example, one part might handle color, another movement, and another shapes.
- The brain processes these different visual things at the same time. This is like different parts of a team working on their own tasks all at once.
Discoveries at University College London
Later, Dr. Zeki used special brain scanning tools to see if the same ideas applied to human brains. He found that humans also have different brain areas for different visual tasks. He also discovered that this parallel processing might go beyond just seeing. It could also help group what we see in another part of the brain.
His work on how we see color was inspired by another scientist, Edwin H. Land. Dr. Zeki used Land's methods in his own experiments. This led him to believe that our brain actually "builds" the colors we see. He found that a specific visual area, called V4, is very important for this process.
How We See Things at Different Times
These discoveries made scientists wonder how all the information from different brain areas comes together. How do we get one clear picture of the world?
Dr. Zeki and his team did experiments that showed something surprising. We don't actually see everything at the exact same moment. We become aware of different visual things at slightly different times. For example, we might see color about 80 milliseconds (a tiny fraction of a second) before we see movement. We might see shapes about 40 milliseconds before movement.
This means that our vision isn't perfectly unified. Instead, Dr. Zeki suggested that we have many "mini-consciousnesses" for vision. These are spread out in time and space. It's like each visual area can become aware of its own task without needing to report to another part of the brain first.
Brain and Feelings
More recently, Dr. Zeki has also studied how our brain reacts to feelings. These feelings can be caused by things we see or hear. He has looked at experiences like love, beauty, and even hate.
His studies on how we experience visual and musical beauty showed something interesting. A specific part of the emotional brain, called field A1 of the medial orbito-frontal cortex, seems very important for these feelings.
Sharing His Knowledge
Dr. Zeki has traveled all over the world to give talks about his research. He has given more than 60 special lectures at famous universities and institutions.
He has also written several books to share his ideas with others:
- A Vision of the Brain (1993)
- Inner Vision: an exploration of art and the brain (1999)
- Splendors and Miseries of the Brain (2009)
He also worked with other people on books like La Quête de l'essentiel (1995) and La bella e la bestia (2011).
In 2011, he even had an art exhibition of his own work in Milan, Italy.
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Zeki has received many honors and awards for his important work. He was the editor of a science journal called Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (B) for several years.
He has also been a leader in many scientific groups. For example, he was a trustee for Fight for Sight (UK), which helps people with vision problems. He was also a member and chairman of the Wellcome Trust Vision Panel.
He has been a visiting professor at many universities around the world, including St Andrews University and Duke University. He has also had public discussions with famous writers, artists, and art historians.
Dr. Zeki is a Fellow of the Royal Society (since 1990), which is a very high honor for scientists in the UK. He is also a member of many other important scientific academies around the world. He has received honorary degrees from several universities, meaning they recognized his great achievements.
Some of his awards include:
- The Golden Brain Award (1985)
- Rank Prize in Opto-Electronics (1992)
- King Faisal International Prize in Biology (2004)
- Erasmus Medal (2008)
- Aristotle Gold Medal (2011)
Key Scientific Discoveries
Dr. Zeki's most important scientific achievements include:
- Finding many different visual areas in the brain. He showed that each area has a special job for seeing things like color, movement, and shapes.
- Discovering neurons (brain cells) in monkeys that only reacted to a specific color, no matter how the light changed. This was the first time scientists linked color perception to single brain cells.
- Showing that the places in the brain where visual information is processed are also where we become aware of what we see.
- Proving that we see different parts of a visual scene at different times.
- Mapping how brain activity changes over time and showing that different visual areas work at different speeds.
- Studying how our brains create subjective feelings, like love, beauty, and hate.
