The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science presented to Fernando Nottebohm, Ph.D. for demonstration of Central Neurogenesis in Adult Avians, with Concomitant Implications for the Theory of Memory and for the Future of Neurological Repair in Injury and Disease

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Abstract

Nottebohm is noted for his demonstration of Central Neurogenesis in Adult Avians, with Concomitant Implications for the Theory of Memory and for the Future of Neurological Repair in Injury and Disease.

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Overview

As a teenager, Fernando Nottebohm was already preoccupied with the question that formed his life work: how do some songbirds, usually those most advanced on the evolutionary scale, abandon songs learned one year and replace them with new ones learned the next year? If it is true that they do so, what possible evolutionary advantage could be bestowed? The first question, in itself, presupposes rather extraordinary musical sensibilities. Buenos Aires, where he was born and educated through high

Discoveries of Fernando Nottebohm and Colleagues

Rockefeller University provided a 29 item chronological list of the findings of Nottebohm's laboratory to the Committee on Science and the Arts. With added intervening explanatory information, including some on experimental methods, that list in paraphrase forms the basis for much of the remainder of this report.

1. The rufous-collared sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis, uses local dialects to enforce a strategy of positive assortative mating.
Similarly, the females of some species prefer one color

Conclusion

As was previously stated, the bird brain has conventionally been regarded as more primitive than mammalian brain. This was because for a long time evolution was believed to move forward from primitive to more advanced in a strictly linear fashion. In that view, bird brain had to be more primitive and less developed than mammalian brain, of which the highest expression would be the human brain. Critics of the findings of the Nottebohm laboratory with regard to neurogenisis in the adult avian

Summary

Information has been provided to demonstrate that Fernando Nottebohm is deserving of a Benjamin Franklin Medal in the Life Sciences. Certainly it has been shown that he found answers to his youthful questions, why do some songbirds forget a learned song and learn a new one the next year? And what if any is the evolutionary benefit? Subsequently his work has modified the theory of memory, in a very significant way, and helped to advance the search for cures for neurological disease and injury.

Scientific citation

It is hereby proposed that, for his discovery of neuronal replacement in the adult vertebrate brain, and the elaboration of the mechanism and choreography of this phenomenon, Fernando Nottebohm be awarded a Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in the Life Sciences.

Lay citation

It is hereby proposed that, for his discovery of neuronal replacement in the adult vertebrate brain, and the elaboration of the mechanism and choreography of this phenomenon; and also for showing that neuronal stem cells are the responsible agents, thereby generating a completely new approach to the quest for cures for brain injury and degenerative disease, Fernando Nottebohm be awarded a Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in the Life Sciences.

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Retired.

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