Jon Kaas is a professor at

Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...

and a member of the

United States 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 ...

. He has made discoveries about the organization of the mammalian

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

, including the description of many areas of the

cerebral cortex The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consisting of ...

and their

neuroplasticity Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of Neural circuit, neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. It is when the brain is rewired to function in some way that diffe ...

. Work from the Kaas's laboratory is notable for its emphasis on

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

. Kaas's approach is to try to understand how complex brains evolved from ancestor forms which had relatively few areas. Some of the career highlights include: * Some of the first descriptions of topographically organized areas in the

extrastriate cortex The extrastriate cortex is the region of the occipital cortex of the mammalian brain located next to the primary visual cortex. Primary visual cortex (V1) is also named striate cortex because of its striped appearance in the microscope. The extra ...

of primates, including the middle temporal area MT, or V5 (Allman and Kaas, 1971), and the

dorsomedial area The visual cortex of the brain is the area of the cerebral cortex that processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe. Sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus and ...

, or V6. * Demonstration of changes in the topographic representation of sensory organs in the cerebral cortex after lesions of the

sensory organs A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system rec ...

(Kaas et al. 1990; see also

References

Other sources

*Allman JM, Kaas JH (1971) A representation of the visual field in the caudal third of the middle temporal gyrus of the owl monkey (

Aotus trivirgatus The three-striped night monkey (''Aotus trivirgatus''), also known as northern night monkey or northern owl monkey, is one of several species of owl monkeys currently recognised. It is found in Venezuela and north-central Brazil. Until 1983, all ...

). Brain Res 31(1):85-105. *Allman JM, Kaas JH (1975) The dorsomedial cortical visual area: a third tier area in the occipital lobe of the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus). Brain Res 1 Living people American neuroscientists Vanderbilt University faculty Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) {{US-academic-scientist-stub