Journal of Translational Neuroscience , 2016, 1 (1) ： 56 -59
DOI ： 10. 3868/j. issn. 2096 - 0689.01.009
Profiles
A brief history of neuroscience at the University of British Columbia
Max S Cynader ** , Heather Amos
University of British Columbia (UBC) , Canada
Over the past few decades, the f i e l d of neuroscience has grown dramatically and made tremendous progre ss. From i t s origin s in physics, philosophy and psychology, the f i e l d has grown t o include among i t s practitioners t a l-ented individuals not only from these founding disciplines but from many o t h e r s.Though our progress in Neuro-science has been immense,there i s s t i l l much t o be done, and i t has become clear that a large number of overlapping complimentary s k i l l s e t s are required t o make progress on the challenging problems that l i e ahead. The vision of an int erdi sciplina ry, integrated neuroscience en-ter p ris e has characterized our University since the incep-t i o n of the f i e l d.The University of British Columbia i s one of the world’s top leading academic i n s t i t u t i o n s, and i t s Faculty of Medicine i s renowned f or i t s broad expertise in research, teaching, and c l i n i c a l innovation. From the very beginning of the foundation of the University, UBC^s commitment t o better understanding the brain was a prior-i t y.Just seven years before UB C opened i t s doors in 1913，the Nobel Prize was awarded t o Ramon y Cajal and Camillo Golgi, the s c i e n t i s t s who discovered neurons, the amazing, multi-variant, c e l l s t hat communicate informa-t i on t o,from and within the brain. The study of the brain, was s t i l l in i t s infancy in 1906 when the Nobel Prize was awarded, but one of the f i r s t courses offered a t U B C was Elementary Psychology, the study of brain and behaviour.
In the years a f t e r the University launched i t s medical school in 1950，UBC made i t s mark in neuroscience. The university housed one of the f i r s t magnetic resonance ima-ging (M R I) machines and one of the f i r s t PET scanners in Canada and used these powerful instruments t o study the structure, function and chemistry of the brain. Using these technologies, major progress was made in develo-ping one of the f i r s t treatments fo r multiple s c l e r o s i s and in understanding the changes that take place in the brains of Parkinson’s p a t i e n t s.In addition t o i t s established ex-pert ise in imaging,U B C researchers have made major contributions t o our understanding of neurogenetics. To-day ,Dr. Michael Hayden i s the worlds most highly cite d researcher in the area of Huntington’s disease g e netics. Drs. Ian MacKenzie and Howard Feldman were leaders of international teams that discovered c r i t i c a l mutations involved in frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic l a t-eral s c l e r o s i s.Terry Snutch’s success in cloning a whole series of calcium channel genes led t o deep new under-standings of the genetic roots of epilepsy and pain. In the l a s t decade, Matt Farrer and his collaborators have identified several key mutations that lead t o Parkinson^ disease, and in 2016, Carles Vilarino-Guell and Dessa Sadovnick id entified a new gene defect that leads t o mul-t i p l e s c l e r o s i s.
When U B C’s Medical School was f i r s t opened,in 1950, neurobiologist William Gibson was a c l i n i c a l asso-ciate professor a t the University. He became director of the Kinsmen Laboratory for neurological research and es-tablished one of Canada^s f i r s t and most important neuro-science c l u s t e r s.Gibson fostered the careers of talented individuals l ike Juhn Wada, who developed the Wada t e s t for identifying which hemisphere was crucial for speech production in individuals who were about t o have su rg ery. Neuroscience a t UB C grew and prospered under their di-r e c t i o n.In 1959, Drs. Pat and Edith McGeer joined UBC as professors in the Faculty of Medicine in the Department
Received：2016 -07-15Accepted：2016 -07 -31
* Correspondence：
Max S Cynader, E-mail：cynader@brain, ubc. ca