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Edgar Adrian Free

30 November 2018

The Nobel-winning scientist studied the electrical activity of the brain and nervous system.

Edgar Adrian

Born on 30 November 1889 in London, Edgar Adrian was a Nobel Prize–winning electrophysiologist who conducted pioneering research on the brain and nervous system. After graduating with a medical degree in 1915 from Trinity College, Cambridge, Adrian treated soldiers with nerve damage or nervous disorders during World War I. After the war, he returned to Cambridge, where he would remain for the rest of his career. It was in 1919 that Adrian began what would become his most important research: the measurement of nerve impulses from sense organs. With the use of the thermionic vacuum tube, he amplified and recorded the nerve impulses of frog muscle when stimulated through touch. From those experiments, he was able to detect the sensory area affected in the animal’s cerebral cortex and the presence of electricity within nerve cells. For his discoveries of how neurons function, Adrian was awarded a share of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. After 1934 Adrian studied the electrical activity of the brain through the use of the electroencephalogram, work which led to a better understanding of epilepsy and other cerebral lesions. In 1937 Adrian became Professor of Physiology at Cambridge, a post he held until 1951, when he was elected Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Besides his research and teaching, Adrian authored several books and received numerous distinctions and honors. He served as president of the Royal Society (1950–55) and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1954). In addition to the Nobel, he received the Royal Medal in 1934 and the Copley Medal in 1946. Adrian retired from Cambridge in 1965 but continued to live there until his death at age 87 in 1977.

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