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Bristol Uni professor in 1m Euro brain prize
A University of Bristol professor has been awarded the neuroscience equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Graham Collingridge was part of a team of three that picked up the Euro Brain Prize worth €1 million for their work on memory.
The trio discovered how strengthened connections between brain cells can help store memories. Their research uncovered the cellular and molecular processes through which memories are formed, retained and lost – as well as how they relate to the mechanism of learning.
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“Memory is at the heart of human experience. This year’s winners, through their ground-breaking research, have transformed our understanding of memory and learning, and the devastating effects of failing memory,” said Sir Colin Blakemore, chairman of the selection committee.
Professors Collingridge, Tim Bliss and Richard Morris focused on a brain mechanism known as Long-Term Potentiation (LTP), so-called because it can persist indefinitely.
LTP underpins the life-long plasticity of the brain, meaning its capacity to re-organise itself to some extent after damage such as a stroke or after the loss of normal input, as in blindness.
Their work has revealed some of the basic mechanisms behind the phenomenon and has shown that LTP is the basis for our ability to learn and remember.
Professors Bliss, Collingridge and Morris will share the €1 million prize, which will be presented to them at a ceremony on July 1 in Copenhagen by His Royal Highness Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.
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