Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
By Jessica Hamzelou
SANTIAGO RAMÓN Y CAJAL was always a rebel. Born in Spain in 1852, as a youngster he ignored his father’s pleas to follow a career in medicine and instead pursued his own interests – drawing, bodybuilding and photography, to name just a few. This photograph (top) is one of his many self-portraits. He even built his own cannons, and played multiple games of chess at the same time.
He eventually became interested in medicine after working with his father to produce anatomical drawings. In the 1870s, as microscope technologies advanced, he became fascinated with the inner workings of the body’s cells.
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Ramón y Cajal adapted a technique of staining cells to view them under a microscope, and used this to create many drawings, as well as theories on how the brain works. For example, he proposed that neurons in the brain don’t form a single, connected network. Instead, he believed they are separate and individual, but ready to communicate with each other. This discovery formed the basis of modern neuroscience, and Ramón y Cajal is often referred to as its father. He was awarded a Nobel prize in 1906 for his work on the nervous system.
Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
Pictured above is Ramón y Cajal’s drawing of the inner ear – a labyrinth of structures that pick up sounds and detect how the head tilts and rotates. This information is sent to the brain via the neurons labelled A and B.
Below is a drawing of the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory that, in this case, was taken from a man three hours after his death. In it, Ramón y Cajal has illustrated several star-shaped astrocytes. These cells support other cells in the brain, and here they “hug” the larger, pale grey neurons.
Courtesy Instituto Cajal del Consjo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Madrid, © 2017 CSIC
A collection of drawings by Ramón y Cajal are featured in the book The Beautiful Brain published this month by Abrams and edited with commentaries and essays by leading neuroscientists.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Draw to attention”
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