Marian Cleeves Diamond (November 11, 1926 – July 25, 2017) was an American scientist and educator who is considered one of the founders of modern
neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...
. She and her team were the first to publish evidence that the brain can change with experience and improve with enrichment, what is now called
neuroplasticity
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 p ...
. Her research on the brain of Albert Einstein helped fuel the ongoing scientific revolution in understanding the roles of
glial cell
Glia, also called glial cells (gliocytes) or neuroglia, are non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system that do not produce electrical impulses. They maintain homeostasis, form myel ...
s in the brain. Her YouTube Integrative Biology lectures were the second most popular college course in the world in 2010. She was a professor of
anatomy
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. Other published research explored differences between the cerebral cortex of male and female rats, the link between positive thinking and immune health, and the role of women in science.
Biography
Early life
Marian Cleeves was born in
Glendale, California to Dr. Montague Cleeves and Rosa Marian Wamphler Cleeves as the sixth and last child in the family. Her father was an English physician and her mother a Latin teacher at
Berkeley High School. Diamond grew up in
La Crescenta
La Crescenta-Montrose () is an unincorporated area in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The community is bordered by Glendale to the south and west, La Cañada Flintridge to the east, and Angeles National Forest to the north. Accor ...
. She was educated with her siblings near home at La Crescenta grammar school, Clark Junior High,
Glendale High School and finally
Glendale Community College, before going to
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
. She played
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
at Berkeley, earning a
letter
Letter, letters, or literature may refer to:
Characters typeface
* Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; any of the symbols of an alphabet.
* Letterform, the graphic form of a letter of the alphabe ...
.
[
]
Career
After graduating with a bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in 1948, Diamond spent a summer at the University of Oslo
The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...
, Norway before returning to Berkeley for her graduate studies, the first female graduate student in the department of anatomy. Her doctoral dissertation thesis "Functional Interrelationships of the Hypothalamus and the Neurohypophysis" was published in 1953.
While studying for her PhD degree, Diamond also began to teach, a passion that continued well into her eighties. Marian Diamond received her PhD degree in human anatomy.[ After working as a research assistant at ]Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
between 1952–53, Diamond became the first woman science instructor at Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
from 1955–58 where she taught human biology and comparative anatomy. Diamond returned to the University of California, Berkeley in 1960 in the role of lecturer. In the role as neuroanatomist, Diamond joined an ongoing research project with psychologists David Krech, Mark Rosenzweig, and chemist Edward Bennett, as a .
By 1964, Diamond had the first evidence, from anatomical measurements, of plasticity in the mammalian cerebral cortex. These results "opened the doors for our experiments to follow for the next 37 years."
UC Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
invited Diamond to be an Assistant Professor in 1965, progressing later to be a full professor, and finally, Professor Emeritus until her death in 2017. In 1984, Diamond and her associates had access to sufficient tissue from Einstein's brain to make the first ever analysis of it, followed by publication of their research. The 1985 paper "On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein" created some controversy in academia over the role of glial cells. However, it also ushered in new interest in neuroglia.[Diamond MC, Scheibel AB, Murphy GM Jr, Harvey ]
"On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein"
"Experimental Neurology 1985;198-204"; retrieved February 18, 2017
Personal life
Diamond married Richard Martin Diamond in 1950 and they had four children: Catherine Theresa (1953), Richard Cleeves (1955), Jeff Barja (1958), and Ann (1962). They divorced in 1979 after which Diamond married Professor Arnold Bernard Scheibel in 1982.[
]
Documentary film
''My Love Affair with the Brain: The Life and Science of Dr. Marian Diamond'' is a 2017 documentary about Diamond's life as a pioneering woman of science, her curiosity and passion for the human brain, as well as her research and love of teaching. Produced and directed by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg of Luna Productions, it was broadcast on PBS, was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary (2018, National News and Documentary Emmy Awards), won the PRIX ADAV for Best Educational film of the year at the Pariscience Festival International du Film Scientifque, won the Kavli-AAAS Science Journalism Gold Award for best in-depth science documentary of 2017, was included among Science Books & Film year-end list of Best Science Films OF 2017,[Ryan, C., & Weimberg, G. (2017). My love affair with the brain (free, courtesy of Frontiers for Young Minds), Luna Productions. https://vimeo.com/417009456] and won numerous awards at various festivals, including the Audience Award Best in Fest-RiverRun International Film Festival 2016, the Best Feature Film-American Psychological Association Film Festival 2016, the Best Documentary – Indigo Moon film festival, the Best Documentary – High Falls Film Festival, NY, the Best Documentary, Audience Award, Durango Film Festival, and the Audience Favorite Award – Mill Valley Film Festival, CA.
Contributions to neuroscience, neuroanatomy, neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity: Diamond was a pioneer in anatomical neuroscience whose major scientific contributions have changed forever how we view the human brain. Diamond produced the first scientific evidence of anatomical neuroplasticity
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 p ...
in the early 1960s. At that time, the scientific consensus was that the nature of your brain was due to genetics and was unchangeable and fixed. Diamond showed that the structural components of the cerebral cortex can be altered by either enriched or impoverished environments at any age, from prenatal to extremely old age. Her initial anatomical experiment, and replication experiments, with young rats showed that the cerebral cortex of the enriched rats was 6% thicker than the cortex of the impoverished rats based on different kinds of early life experiences. An enriched cortex shows greater learning capacity while an impoverished one shows lesser learning capacity. These paradigm-changing results, published in 1964, helped to launch modern neuroscience.
Einstein's Brain:
In early 1984, Diamond received four blocks of the preserved brain of Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
from Thomas Stoltz Harvey
Thomas Stoltz Harvey (October 10, 1912 – April 5, 2007) was an American pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Albert Einstein in 1955. Harvey later kept Einstein's brain without permission for decades.
Early career
Harvey studied at Yale U ...
. Harvey, pathologist of Princeton Hospital at the time of Einstein's death, had removed Einstein's brain during autopsy in 1955 and maintained personal possession of the brain. The fact that the Einstein brain tissue was already embedded in celloidin when the Diamond lab received it meant that their choice of methods of examination would be somewhat limited. However, they were able to successfully analyze both the superior prefrontal (area 9) and inferior parietal (area 39) association cortices of the left and right hemispheres of Einstein's brain and compare results with the identical regions in the control base of 11 human, male, preserved brains. From previous analysis of the eleven control brains, the Diamond lab "learned the frontal cortex did have more glial cells/neuron than the parietal cortex." After many years of research, Diamond and her team had data proving that, in the rat brain, glial cells increased with enriched conditions, but did not increase with age. Diamond and her associates discovered that the big difference in all four areas was in nonneuronal cells. Einstein had more glial cells per neuron than the average male brains of the control group. Importantly, the biggest difference was found in area 39 of the left hemisphere of Einstein's brain where the increase in the number of glial cells per neuron was statistically significantly greater than in the control brains. Astrocyte
Astrocytes (from Ancient Greek , , "star" + , , "cavity", "cell"), also known collectively as astroglia, are characteristic star-shaped glial cells in the brain and spinal cord. They perform many functions, including biochemical control of e ...
and oligodendrocyte
Oligodendrocytes (), or oligodendroglia, are a type of neuroglia whose main functions are to provide support and insulation to axons in the central nervous system of jawed vertebrates, equivalent to the function performed by Schwann cells in the ...
glial cells were pooled for these results.
Diamond demonstrated that the structural arrangement of the male and female cortices is significantly different and can be altered in the absence of sex steroid hormones.
Diamond also showed that the dorsal lateral frontal cerebral cortex is bilaterally deficient in the immune deficient mouse and can be reversed with thymic transplants. In humans, cognitive stimulation increases circulating CD4-positive T lymphocytes, supporting the idea that immunity can be voluntarily modulated, in other words, that positive thinking can impact the immune system.
Selected publications
Mohammed, A. H., Zhu, S. W., Darmopil, S., Hjerling-Leffler, J., Ernfors, P., Winblad, B., ... & Bogdanovic, N. (2002). Environmental enrichment and the brain. In ''Progress in brain research'' (Vol. 138, pp. 109–133). Elsevier.
Diamond, M. C. (2001). Response of the brain to enrichment. ''Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências'', ''73''(2), 211–220.
Diamond, M. C. (1994). Hearts, Brains, and Education: A New Alliance for Science Curriculum. ''Higher Learning in America, 1980-2000'', 273.
Diamond, M. C. (1990). An optimistic view of the aging brain. In ''Biomedical advances in aging'' (pp. 441–449). Springer, Boston, MA.
Diamond, M. C. (1988). ''Enriching heredity: The impact of the environment on the anatomy of the brain''. Free Press.
Diamond, M. C., Scheibel, A. B., Murphy Jr, G. M., & Harvey, T. (1985). On the brain of a scientist: Albert Einstein. ''Experimental neurology'', ''88''(1), 198–204.
Globus, A., Rosenzweig, M. R., Bennett, E. L., & Diamond, M. C. (1973). Effects of differential experience on dendritic spine counts in rat cerebral cortex. ''Journal of comparative and physiological psychology'', ''82''(2), 175.
Diamond, M. C., Law, F., Rhodes, H., Lindner, B., Rosenzweig, M. R., Krech, D., & Bennett, E. L. (1966). Increases in cortical depth and glia numbers in rats subjected to enriched environment. ''Journal of Comparative Neurology'', ''128''(1), 117–125.
Diamond, M. C., Krech, D., & Rosenzweig, M. R. (1964). The effects of an enriched environment on the histology of the rat cerebral cortex. ''Journal of Comparative Neurology'', ''123''(1), 111–119.
Bennett, E. L., Diamond, M. C., Krech, D., & Rosenzweig, M. R. (1964). Chemical and anatomical plasticity of brain. ''Science'', ''146''(3644), 610–619.
Diamond, M. C. (1963). Women in modern science. ''Journal of the American Medical Women's Association'', ''18'', 891–896.
Rosenzweig, M. R., Krech, D., Bennett, E. L., & Diamond, M. C. (1962). Effects of environmental complexity and training on brain chemistry and anatomy: a replication and extension. ''Journal of comparative and physiological psychology'', ''55''(4), 429.
Awards
*Council for Advancement & Support of Education. Wash. D.C. award for California Professor of the Year and National Gold Medalist
*California Biomedical Research Association Distinguished Service Award
*Alumna of the Year—California Alumni Association
*San Francisco Chronicle Hall of Fame
*University Medal, La Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, Venezuela
*Brazilian Gold Medal of Honor
*Benjamin Ide Wheeler Service Award
*The Distinguished Senior Woman Scholar in America awarded by the American Association of University Women, 1997.
*Clark Kerr Award for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education 2012
*International House Alumni Faculty Award, 2016
*Paola S. Timiras Memorial Award for Aging Research from the Center for Research and Education in Aging (CREA)2016
*Distinguished Teaching Award 1975 awarded by the University of California Berkeley
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diamond, Marian
1926 births
American women neuroscientists
Women anatomists
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Oslo alumni
University of California, Berkeley faculty
2017 deaths
Sportspeople from Los Angeles County, California
American neuroscientists
California Golden Bears women's tennis players
People from Glendale, California
People from La Crescenta-Montrose, California