Among Superheroes: memories, maps & McGill with psychologist Lynn Nadel

A biographical look into the lairs of modern neuroscience. Part 1 of a research conversation on the hippocampus. And notes for a tale of how McGill University, the invasion of Prague, and UCL pulled two expats together towards discoveries and writings that have changed a scientific framework.

Lynn Nadel has been doing influential research about memory and the hippocampus for decades. He is the co-author with Nobel Prize winner John O'Keefe of The Hippocampus As a Cognitive Map, one of the first books to open new fields of research relative to a part of the brain called the hippocampus, known for its role in both memory and navigation.

Nadel and O'Keefe met at McGill University at a time when the place was buzzing with the books, papers and people creating what we now study as neuroscience.

McGill University in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s can look a bit like the superhero headquarters of what would develop into modern neuroscience. Once you begin to list all the people who were working there at that time and all the threads that have since influenced the filed, from Wilder Penfield and Brenda Milner to Donald Hebb to John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel, one begins to see how much of the work being done today was oriented from that starting point.

University of Arizona page

Lynn Nadel

John O'Keefe Nobel Lecture

Henry Moliason (H.M.)

Brenda Milner

Peter Milner, author of Physiological Psychology

Donald Hebb

Wilder Penfield

Ronald Melzac

Suzanne Corkin

Bob Mueller & John Kubie

Jim Ranck

Soviet Invasion of Prague

University College London

The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map

Hippocampus History on Mastadon

Psych Review story on bjks podcast

McGill University Neuro