XClose

UCL Division of Biosciences

Home
Menu

NPP Seminar: Professor Ricardo Martinez Murillo, Cajal Institute

28 February 2023, 1:00 pm–2:00 pm

Ricardo Martinez Murillo

Title: “Santiago Ramón y Cajal´s conception of synaptic plasticity in the Croonian Lecture, March 8th1894: Insights relevant to emerging concepts of mind”

This event is free.

Event Information

Open to

UCL staff | UCL students | UCL alumni

Availability

Yes

Cost

Free

Organiser

Charlette Bent-Gayle

Location

G46 H O Schild Pharmacology LT,
Medical Sciences and Anatomy
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

Academic Host: Frances Edwards

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) is commonly regarded as the ‘father of neuroscience’. Cajal called the year 1888 as his year of fortune, when he reached the most compelling conclusions about the structure and function of the nervous system.  The lecture will be based around the talk that Cajal gave at the Royal Society in 1894 when he met Sherrington beginning a life long friendship. Where Ramón y Cajal's lecture attracted most interest, other than recent discoveries like the neuron doctrine or the dynamic polarization was the part dedicated to speculations about cerebral cortical plasticity, both for its novelty and for implications in the physiology of the nervous system. Cajal assumed that “ … ... The adult cerebral cortex resembles a garden populated by countless trees, pyramidal cells, which thanks to an intelligent crop can multiply their branches, sink their roots further and produce flowers and fruits every day more exquisite”. 

About the Speaker

Professor Ricardo Martinez Murillo

Director of the Cajal Institute at Cajal Institute, Madrid

Santiago Ramón y Cajal´s conception of synaptic plasticity exhibited at the Croonian Lecture, March 8th1894:  Insights relevant to emerging concepts of mind

 

Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) is commonly regarded as the ‘father of neuroscience’. Cajal called the year 1888 as his year of fortune, when he reached the most compelling conclusions about the structure and function of the nervous system.  Cajal was summoned by Michael Foster, then Secretary of the Royal Society of London, to deliver the Croonian Lecture in 1894 on the structure of the human brain and on his latest researches on this subject. Initially, he thought that Foster's invitation had been addressed to the wrong person. After some initial hesitation, occasioned by nervousness at the prospect and concern about the illness of one of his children, Cajal accepted after taking advice from Rudolf Albert von Kölliker, the doyen of anatomical science in Wurzburg, Germany. The lecture was delivered in the headquarters of the Royal Society at “Bourlington House”. It was a master class that Cajal gave in French with the title “La fine structure des centres nerveux” illustrated with lantern slides made by Sherrington taken from Ramon y Cajal's preparations. Sherrington at that time was a brilliant young physiologist Lecturer in Systematic Physiology at St Thomas' Hospital that later introduced the term “synapse” to define the connection between two neurons. The nomination for the Croonian medal and Lecture was regarded by Cajal as a great honor. Where Ramón y Cajal's lecture attracted most interest, other than recent discoveries like the neuron doctrine or the dynamic polarization was the part dedicated to speculations about cerebral cortical plasticity, both for its novelty and for implications in the physiology of the nervous system. Cajal assumed that “ … ... The adult cerebral cortex resembles a garden populated by countless trees, pyramidal cells, which thanks to an intelligent crop can multiply their branches, sink their roots further and produce flowers and fruits every day more exquisite”. Ramón y Cajal proposed that because of their morphology, pyramidal cell might be a proper storage of sensory perceptions recollected from the external world in the form of ideas and volitions. In this regard, Cajal termed the pyramidal cell the 'psychic cell'. In Cajal words: “La morphologie de la cellule pyramidale n'est qu'une des conditions anatomiques de la pensee”, but in addition because of its key role in the integrative circuitry of the cerebral cortex related with capacity of sprouting “, but memory might also be related with an intraprotoplasmic particular structure even perfected in elite intelligences. Cajal did not really coin the term ‘neuronal plasticity’, but adopted it from the Romanian neuroscientist Ioan Minea. Ramón y Cajal´s conception on central plasticity gave rise to controversies with his contemporary’s neuroscientists, as Max Bielschowsky (1869–1940) and Walther Spielmeyer (1880–1939) that were rather hesitant to accept central regeneration, a concept considered as a dogma. In words of Cajal: “Cerebral gymnastics is not likely to improve the organization of the brain by increasing the number of cells, because, as we know, the nervous elements have lost, since the embryonic period, the property of proliferating; but it can be admitted as a very probable thing that mental exercise arouses in the cerebral regions most solicited a greater development of the protoplasmic apparatus and of the system of nervous collaterals”. In this way, associations already created between certain groups of cells would be notably reinforced by means of the multiplication of the branches. To Ramón y Cajal, small brain size was not incompatible with superior intelligence and, indeed, might be a requisite accompaniment of the increase on cortical connections under the influence of well-directed mental education or “cerebral gymnastic”. The central dogma of the Neuroscience brain plasticity as the morpho-functional substrate of memory and learning processes was already proposed and documented with notable insights by Cajal. The twenty-first century studies on neuronal plasticity are underpinning on Cajal´s basic principles. Functional and structural concepts introduced by Cajal in the 1894 Croonian Lecture provided support to the neuron doctrine, and can be regarded as a landmark in taking the study of the central circuitry to a cellular level of resolution in which the cells of the gray matter should be considered as plastic integrative links in a chain of intrinsic processing that forms the basis of the unique functional properties of each brain region and memory processes. New and improved patterns of connections could be acquired as the result of evolution, and that hereditary intelligence had to be based upon the transmission of 'superior' patterns of connections.

*This year, The President of the Government of Spain announced the 'Santiago Ramón y Cajal Year of Research' (2022). where he pointed out that the "three main objectives" of this initiative are to "promote the Cajal legacy with the creation of a museum dedicated to the workings of the brain, to celebrate and disseminate science as a natural discipline for a civic culture and progress"; and last "to raise awareness of the importance of investment in scientific research in neuroscience".

Some words about the Cajal Institute (IC): The IC has a history that dates back to the end of the 19th century, when Cajal was recognized abroad, for his work on the fine structure of the nervous centers having received several scientific distinctions, and for the accolade obtained after its intervention in the Congress of Anatomy, Berlin in 1889. The IC officially began its journey at the beginning of 1920. A royal decree by H.M. King Alfonso XIII promoted the construction of a new building dedicated to Biological Research and the appointment of Cajal as the first director, an Institute that would be called Cajal Institute. Works for construction began in 1922 on the hill of “San Blas”, next to the “Retiro” Park, in Madrid. Cajal died in October 1934, a year after finishing the works of the new Institute. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), the IC was badly damaged, even occupied by battle contenders and had to be rebuilt in part. In 1939, following the creation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the IC was incorporated to this national organization. The IC became heir to the work of Cajal and his Spanish Neurohistological School, receiving in inheritance his “Legacy”. Thus, the IC is and should be a flagship in neuroscience in Spain. Given the validity and timeliness of the” Cajal Legacy”, both in terms of the history of science and for current research, it is essential to have a “Cajal Museum”. In this regard, it should be pointed out that the “Archives of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the Spanish Neurohistological School”, are included in the Memory of the World Register in 2017. Throughout its existence, the IC is now stablished in a third headquarter located on Avenída del Dr. Arce, 37, in the heart of the Chamartín district. The new center was inaugurated in 1989, in Madrid in a building of 4,500 square meters, which is now quite tight owing to the increase of its staff during these last years. In 2022 the IC housed 32 research teams and around 41 researchers (staff, senior and postdoc researchers), with operating costs of 5.062 M€, 52 competitive national research projects, 13 European projects and / R&D projects. However, weakness of the IC at the present location is that it remains small and geographically and scientifically isolated from other research centers. The new IC in the Campus of the Alcala University (UAH) (fourth headquarter) is intended to be the house of a modern center with all the necessary equipment for the development of cutting-edge research in neurobiology. A research center called “Centro International de Neurociencias Cajal” (Cajal Neuroscience International Center, CINC) will share space and technical facilities (CI2A) with the IC. IC and CINC will become world reference centers equipped with the most cutting-edge technology to collect the baton of more than a century of scientific efforts in the field of neurosciences. The new building is expected to be occupied in the third quarter of 2023 by both Cajal´s centers.