Jerzy Konorski (1 December 1903 in
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...
,
Congress Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
– 14 November 1973 in
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
) was a Polish
neurophysiologist who further developed the work of
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physiol ...
by discovering secondary conditioned reflexes and
operant conditioning
Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where behaviors are modified through the association of stimuli with reinforcement or punishment. In it, operants—behaviors that affect one's environment—are c ...
. He also proposed the idea of gnostic neurons, a concept similar to the
grandmother cell
The grandmother cell, sometimes called the "Jennifer Aniston neuron", is a hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object. It activates when a person "sees, hears, or otherwise sensibly discriminates" a specific entit ...
. He coined the term
neural plasticity
Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that differs from how it ...
, and he developed theoretical ideas regarding it that are similar to those proposed soon after by
Donald Hebb
Donald Olding Hebb (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learn ...
.
Secondary conditioned reflexes
When he and Stefan Miller were medical students in Warsaw they proposed another type of conditioned reflex in addition to that discovered by Pavlov which was under the control of reward. This has come to be known as "type II conditioned reflexes," or
secondary conditioned reflexes Type II conditioned reflexes are now known as operant or instrumental conditioning.
He spent two years at Pavlov's laboratory as the result of a letter that he sent to Pavlov describing this work. Pavlov however was never convinced that instrumental conditioning (which Konorski called "Type II" to distinguish it from Pavlov's "Type I" learning) differed in any important way from his own Type I conditioning.
An exchange between
B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.
...
and Konorski also occurred over the two types of learning. Skinner had originally referred to operant conditioning as Type I and Pavlovian conditioning as Type II. Konorski agreed to revise his nomenclature to avoid confusion.
Neural plasticity
Konorski married the neurophysiologist
Liliana Lubinska, who obtained her doctorate with
Louis Lapicque. Konorski, Lubinska, and Miller established a laboratory at the
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology. With Konorski's knowledge of neurophysiology greatly expanded through his collaboration with Lubinska, he turned his attention to the neural mechanisms that underlie conditioning.
Konorski asked how pre-existing connections between neurons in the brain could be changed by conditioning. He suggested an idea similar to Hebb in which coincidental activation in time causes the potential connections to be transformed into actual excitatory connections. Inhibitory connections arise when the excitation of one input coincides in time with a decease in its associated connection.
He described the process: "The plastic changes would be related to the formation and multiplication of new synaptic junctions between the axon terminals of one nerve cell and the soma (i.e. the body and the dendrites) of the other" This idea that synapses strengthen with use was also proposed in the West in the theory of
Hebbian synapses by
Donald Hebb
Donald Olding Hebb (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learn ...
.
Grandmother cells
Konorski first proposed two key concepts in neuroscience (independently of Western scientists who also suggested them). The
grandmother cell
The grandmother cell, sometimes called the "Jennifer Aniston neuron", is a hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object. It activates when a person "sees, hears, or otherwise sensibly discriminates" a specific entit ...
of the West which Konorski called "gnostic unit." This was developed in great detail in his 1967 book.
Publications
He was the author of two important books on learning, ''Conditioned Reflexes and Neuron Organization'' (1948), and ''Integrative Activity of the Brain'' (1967). The first book, presented one of the first theories of associative learning as a result of long-term neuronal plasticity. In the second, he substantially revised his early theories and synthesised work on associative learning and neurobiology of perception and motivation.
World War II and Stalin
The Department of Neurophysiology at the
Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw, Poland was created for him but this was destroyed in the first days of the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
in 1939. He failed to get to England to join his brother who lived there. Konorski managed to escape to the Soviet Union where he was appointed the head of the primate laboratory at
Sukhumi
Sukhumi (russian: Суху́м(и), ) or Sokhumi ( ka, სოხუმი, ), also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa ( ab, Аҟәа, ''Aqwa''), is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of ...
on the Black Sea in
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. Due to German invasion of the Soviet Union, the laboratory was relocated to
Tbilisi
Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the Capital city, capital and the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia, lying on the ...
. He spent much of World War II at
Sukhumi
Sukhumi (russian: Суху́м(и), ) or Sokhumi ( ka, სოხუმი, ), also known by its Abkhaz name Aqwa ( ab, Аҟәа, ''Aqwa''), is a city in a wide bay on the Black Sea's eastern coast. It is both the capital and largest city of ...
treating traumatic injuries of the central nervous system. After the war he returned to Nencki Institute as head of the Department of Neurophysiology. In 1948
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press
A university press is an academic publishing hou ...
published his "Conditioned reflexes and neuron organization". Then in 1949, during the peak of
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
, at a conference in Leningrad commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pavlov's birth, his book was condemned and rejected. In 1951, at a conference organized in
Krynica in support of him, this was shown in a 40-minute period of continuous clapping and applause. With Stalin's death his prosecution ended.
Legacy
Later Konorski became a foreign member of the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
. Since his death his influence has grown considerably and now recognized as the first to systematically investigate the mechanisms underlying instrumental conditioning. Many consider him among the most important of theoretical
neurobiologist
A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial c ...
s.
References
External links
Bibliography of Jerzy KonorskiSelected publications of Jerzy Konorski and history of the Department of Neurophysiology at Nencki Institute. (170MB in pdf files).
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Konorski, Jerzy
1903 births
1973 deaths
Polish neuroscientists
Behaviourist psychologists
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Neurophysiologists
20th-century Polish scientists
Recipients of the State Award Badge (Poland)