Rodolfo Llinás
Rodolfo Llinás Riascos (born 16 December 1934) is a Colombian and American neuroscientist. He is currently the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman Emeritus of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the NYU School of Medicine. Llinás has published over 800 scientific articles. Early life Llinás was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He is the son of Jorge Enrique Llinás (a surgeon of Spanish descent, whose family arrived in Colombia at the end of the 19th century) and Bertha Riascos. He was motivated to study the brain by watching his grandfather Pablo Llinás Olarte working as a neuropsychiatrist. Llinás describes himself as a logical positivist. Education and early research Llinás went to the Gimnasio Moderno school in Bogotá and graduated as a medical doctor from the Pontifical Xavierian University in 1959. During his medical studies he had the opportunity to travel to Europe and there he met several researchers in Spain, France and finally Switzerland, where he participated in neurophysiology experiments with Dr. Walter Rudolf Hess, Nobel Prize in Physiology, Medicine, professor and director of the Department of the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich. Additionally, while studying medicine he made a theoretical thesis on the visual system under the tuition of neurosurgeon and neurophysiologist Fernando Rosas and the mathematician Carlo Federici at the National University of Colombia. He received his PhD in 1965 from the Australian National University working under Sir John Eccles. Personal life By graduation in Australia, he was very interested in the biological basis of the mind. During this time he met his future wife who was studying philosophy. His two sons, Drs. Rafael and Alexander Llinas, are also physicians. His wife, Gillian Llinas (née Kimber) is an Australian philosopher of mind. Llinás was a scientific advisor during the establishment of an interactive science museum located in Bogotá, Colombia called Maloka Museum. In 2018, Llinás donated a T-Rex skeleton to the museum and helped to design a model of the nervous system for the dinosaur fossils. Work He has studied the electrophysiology of single neurons in the cerebellum, the thalamus, the cerebral cortex, the entorhinal cortex, the hippocampus, the vestibular system, the inferior olive and the spinal cord. He has studied synaptic transmitter release in the squid giant synapse. He has studied human brain function using magnetoencephalography (MEG) on the basis of which he introduced the concept of Thalamocortical dysrhythmia. Career Llinás has occupied a number of positions. Research fellow, Massachusetts General Hosp.-Harvard University, 1960–61 National Institutes of Health research fellow in physiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1961–63 Associate professor, University Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1965–66 Associate member, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1966–68 Member, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1970 Head neurobiology unit, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1967–70 Associate professor neurology and psychiatry, Northwestern University, 1967–71 Guest professor physiology, Wayne State University, 1967–74 Professorial lecturer pharmacology, University Ill.-Chgo., 1967–68 Clinical professor, University Ill.-Chgo., 1968–72 Professor physiology, head neurobiology div., University of Iowa, 1970–76 Prof., chairman