- Wilfrid Rall
Infobox_Scientist
name = Wilfrid Rall
birth_date = Birth date and age|1922|08|29
birth_place =Los Angeles ,California
residence =United States
nationality = USA
death_date =
death_place =
field =Neuroscientist
alma_mater =Yale University Wilfrid Rall (born
August 29 ,1922 ) is a neuroscientist who spent most of his career at theNational Institutes of Health . He is considered one of the founders ofcomputational neuroscience , and was a pioneer in establishing the integrative functions of neuronaldendrites . Rall originated the use ofcable theory in neuroscience, and developed passive and active compartmental models of theneuron .Rall studied physics at Yale University, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1943, and where he was Chairman of the
Yale Political Union 's Labor Party. ["The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography". Ed. Squire, Larry R. Volume 5. Academic Press, 1996. 553.] He was involved with theManhattan Project at theUniversity of Chicago during the war, and subsequently worked with K.S. Cole at Woods Hole. He then moved to the University of Otago in Dunedin to work withJohn Carew Eccles for his PhD, and remained there after Eccles' departure for Australia. In 1954 he spent a sabbatical year atUniversity College London in the Biophysics Department headed byBernard Katz , and after a final year in Dunedin (where he was Acting Head of Department) he then moved to Bethesda, Maryland and theNational Institutes of Health , where he remained until his retirement in 1994.Scientific focus
Wilfrid Rall's scientific achievements concern the electrical properties of neurons, and in particular the excitability of dendrites.
Rall's work has led to a number of major conceptual breakthroughs, including the following:
# the application ofcable theory to single neurons "(Rall 1957, 1959, 1960)"
# the first theoretical exploration of active dendrites "(Rall and Shepherd, 1968)"
# the first theoretical exploration of active spines (Rall 1974; Miller, Rall and Rinzel, 1985)"External links
* [http://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Foundations-Dendritic-Function-Computational/dp/0262193566/ The Theoretical Foundations of Dendritic Function: The Collected Papers of Wilfrid Rall with Commentaries]
See also
*
Cable theory References
* Rall W. (1955a) A statistical theory of monosynaptic input-output relations. J. Cell. Comp. Physiol. 46: 373-411.
* Rall W. (1955b) Experimental monosynaptic input-output relations in the mammalian spinal cord. J. Cell. Comp. Physiol. 46: 413-437.
* Rall W. (1957) Membrane time constant of motoneurons. Science 126: 454.
* Rall W. (1959) Branching dendritic trees and motoneuron membrane resistivity. Exp. Neurol. 1: 491-527.
* Rall W. (1960) Membrane potential transients and membrane time constant of motoneurons. Exp. Neurol. 2: 503-532.
* Rall, W. (1962) Theory of physiological properties of dendrites. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 96: 1071-1092.
* Rall, W. (1964) Theoretical significance of dendritic trees for neuronal input-output relations. In Neural Theory and Modeling, ed. R.F. Reiss. Stanford Univ. Press.
* Rall, W., G.M. Shepherd, T.S. Reese, and M.W. Brightman. (1966) Dendro-dendritic synaptic pathway for inhibition in the olfactory bulb. Exptl. Neurol. 14:44-56.
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