Theneuroscientists Joseph Altman, Arturo Álvarez-Buylla and Giacomo Rizzolattihave been awarded thePrince of Asturias Award for Scientific and Technical Research 2011. These researchers are considered world leaders in neurology for having provided strong evidence thatneurons regenerate in adult brains (neurogenesis), as well as by the discovery of the so-calledmirror neurons. His research has opened up hopeful avenues for a new generation of treatments to combat neurodegenerative or brain-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or autism.
Joseph Altman began his research in 1961 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he discovered neurogenesis in adults. This finding received very little attention from the scientific community until in the 1990s the veracity of his theory was demonstrated. His investigative work certified the existence ofneurogenesis in some areas of the rat postnatal and adult brain, especially in the olfactory bulb and the dentate gyrus. He also suggested that these new neurons play acrucial role in memory and learning processes. It has been shown that in several species, during the postnatal stage and throughout life, new neurons continue to be generated, especially in the subventricular (ZSV) and subgranular areas of the dentate gyrus (GD) of the hippocampus.
Arturo Álvarez-Buylla, graduated in Biomedical Research from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1983, received his doctorate from Rockefeller University in 1988, and is currently a researcher and professor of Anatomy and Neurosurgery at the University of California-San Francisco. His main fields of work are the neurogenesis of the adult mammalian brain, brain assembly, brain tumors and their healing, and the ontogeny and phylogeny of behavior. He discovered that a subpopulation of glial cells function as primary progenitors ofnew neurons joining the olfactory bulb. In this system he described the sub-ventricular zone, which is the origin of the neurogenesis of olfactory cells in adults and the chain migration of these cells to reach the olfactory bulb, following a specific path calledrostral migratory stream. Corresponding foreign academic of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Spain, he is also a member of the Society of Neurosciences (USA), of the International Organization for Brain Research and others.
Giacomo Rizzolatti (Kiev, 1937) completed his university studies in Padua, where he graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Neurology. He is currently Professor of Physiology in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of Parma. His early research was focused onfields of sleep and vision physiology. In particular, he studied the functional organization of the superior colliculus and the corpus callosum of the brain. Subsequently, he studied the motor system and its role in perception, as well as attention and the relationships between attention and the motor system. While studying the relationship between the motor system and cognitive functions in the early 1990s, Rizzolattidiscovered in the brain of monkeys a type of neurons that were activated not only when the individual performed a specific action, but also when he observed a fellow man perform the same action. Namedmirror neurons, this finding started a revolution in understanding how to interact with others. Subsequent research demonstrated the role of these neurons in humans and their different implications for sensory abilities and the development of language and communication. Mirror neurons are what make it possible to explain imitation and empathy. In the same way, a deficit of the same can be responsible for several symptoms of autism: social, motor and language problems. These neurons provide a suitable framework for understanding the mechanisms underlying emotional empathy, imitation, communication, and social behavior.
