Eric R. Kandel: News

Eric R. Kandel is American neuropsychiatrist. Explore interesting quotes on news.
Eric R. Kandel: 162 quotes2 likes

“Every time I embarked on a new course, there were well-meaning people… who advised against it.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)
Context: I have at times felt alone, uncertain, without a well-trodden path to follow. Every time I embarked on a new course, there were well-meaning people... who advised against it. I had to learn early on to be comfortable with insecurity and to trust my own judgement on key issues.

“Much as Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance artists used the revelations of human anatomy to help them depict the body more accurately and compellingly, so, too, many contemporary artists may create new forms of representation in response to revelations about how the brain works.”

Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight (2012)

“Unlike vision, touch, or smell, which are prewired and based on Kantian a priori knowledge, the spatial map presents us with a new type of representation, one based on a combination of a priori knowledge and learning.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)
Context: Unlike vision, touch, or smell, which are prewired and based on Kantian a priori knowledge, the spatial map presents us with a new type of representation, one based on a combination of a priori knowledge and learning. The general capability for forming spatial maps is built into the mind, but the particular map is not. Unlike neurons in a sensory system, place cells are not switched on by sensory stimulation. Their collective activity represents the location where the animal thinks it is.

“The Vienna School of Art History, influenced in part by Sigmund Freud's psychological work, began to develop a science-based psychology of art that was initially focused on the beholder. Today, the new science of mind has… again focused on the beholder.”

Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight (2012)

“Nothing is more stimulating for self-education than working in a new area.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)

“In the period from 1920 to 1960, psychiatry derived its main intellectual impetus from psychoanalysis. During this phase, its most powerful antidisciplines were philosophy and the social sciences. Since 1960, psychiatry has begun (again) to derive its main intellectual challenge from biology, with the result that neurobiology has been thrust into the position of the new antidiscipline for psychiatry.”

Eric R. Kandel

Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and the New Biology of Mind (2008)

“The growth and maintenance of new synaptic terminals makes memory persist. …The ability to grow new synaptic connections as a result of experience appears to have been conserved throughout evolution. As an example… the cortical maps of the body surface are subject to constant modification in response to changing input from sensory pathways.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)

“Five separate pulses of serotonin, designed to simulate five shocks to the tail, strengthened the synaptic connection for days and led to the growth of new synaptic connections… that did involve the synthesis of new protein.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)

“In Vienna, Modernism had three main characteristics. The first was the new view of the human mind as being largely irrational by nature. …they questioned what constitutes reality, what lies below the surface appearances of people, objects, and events. …They discovered that …people harbor not only unconscious erotic feelings, but also unconscious aggressive impulses that are directed against themselves as well as against others. Freud later called these dark impulses the death instinct.”

Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight (2012)

“The function of the modern artist was not to convey beauty, but to convey new truths.”

Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight (2012)

“Reductionism can expand our vision and give us new insights into the nature and creation of art.”

Eric R. Kandel

The Age of Insight (2012)

“Giacomo Rizzolatti… calls these "mirror neurons" and suggests that they provide the first insight into imitation, identification, empathy, and possibly the ability to mime vocalization—the mental processes intrinsic to human interaction. Vilayanur Ramachandran has found evidence of comparable neurons in the premotor cortex of people. …one can see a whole new area of biology opening up… that can give us a sense of what makes us social, communicating beings. An ambitious undertaking of this sort might… teach us something about the factors that give rise to tribalism, which is so often associated with fear, hatred, and intolerance of outsiders.”

Eric R. Kandel

In Search of Memory (2006)