Martin Giurfa is an Argentinean-French neurobiologist and neuroethologist (born September 1962), member of the
German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the
, and the Institut Universitaire de France (
IUF
The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is a global union federation of trade unions with members in a variety of industries, many of which relate to food processi ...
). He is acknowledged for his work on the neural mechanisms of
cognition
Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...
in
invertebrates, which he mostly explores using
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
as models for understanding basic principles of learning and memory.
Life and career
Early years in South America
Martin Giurfa was born in
Lima, Peru
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of t ...
, from an Argentinean mother who raised him alone and registered him as an Argentinean citizen. He grew up in Lima where he attended the French School
Lycée franco-péruvien and moved to
Buenos Aires,
Argentina at the end of 1980 to study
Biology at the
University of Buenos Aires. Argentina was still under control of the military dictatorship (
National Reorganization Process
The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...
) and Martin Giurfa enrolled in the student movement resisting dictatorial oppression. Under the banner of the
Partido Intransigente
The Intransigent Party ( es, Partido Intransigente) is a leftist political party in Argentina, founded in 1963 by Oscar Alende. Its membership came from the Intransigent Radical Civic Union, one of the two factions of the Radical Civic Union.
...
, a left-wing party, he played an influential role in that movement and in 1984, after the return of the democracy to Argentina, he became president of the Student Union of his faculty, the Faculty of Natural and Exact Sciences.
As many students in the
Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences
The Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences (''Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales''; FCEN), commonly and informally known as Exactas, is the natural science school of the University of Buenos Aires, the largest university in Argentina.
It o ...
, he benefited then from the return to
Argentina of numerous prestigious Argentinean scientists who were in exile during the dictatorship and who participated in the academic reconstruction of the country (see
Historia de la ciencia y la tecnología en Argentina). He met Prof. Josué Núñez, who trained him in the field of insect behavioral physiology and contacted him with German academia, in particular with Prof. Randolf Menzel
Free University of Berlin, a leading neurobiologist working on color vision, learning and memory in
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
.
Career in Europe
After obtaining his PhD Degree from the
University of Buenos Aires under the supervision of Josué Núñez, he moved to Germany in 1990, to work at the institute of Neurobiology of the
Free University of Berlin under the supervision of Prof. Menzel. He was first Fellow of the
Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst
The German Academic Exchange Service, or DAAD (german: Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), was founded in 1925 and is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation.
Organisation
''DAAD'' is a ...
and then Fellow of the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His first works focused on color and shape vision in
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
leading to the discovery of color preferences. and color detection mechanisms by bees.
His work on symmetry categorization by
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
in 1996 followed by his demonstration of concept learning in bees represented a turning point for the field of insect behavior, as they promoted a novel cognitive perspective to analyze honey bee behavior and decision making. This framework represented conceptual switch for a research domain, which had mostly attributed limited cognitive capacities to insects until then. In 1997, he obtained his Habilitation Degree of the
Free University of Berlin and became group leader and assistant professor at the institute of Neurobiology of that University.
In 2001, he moved to
Toulouse, France, as a Professor of Neurosciences of
Paul Sabatier University
Paul Sabatier University (''Université Paul Sabatier'', UPS, also known as Toulouse III) is a French public university, in the Academy of Toulouse. It is one of the several successor universities of the University of Toulouse.
Toulouse III was ...
. In 2003, he created the Research Center on Animal Cognition, a multidisciplinary research institute depending both on
Paul Sabatier University
Paul Sabatier University (''Université Paul Sabatier'', UPS, also known as Toulouse III) is a French public university, in the Academy of Toulouse. It is one of the several successor universities of the University of Toulouse.
Toulouse III was ...
and the
French National Centre for Scientific Research, which focuses on the mechanisms of cognitive processing in various animal species and which he directed until 2017. From 2008 to 2012, he was President of the National Committee of Neurosciences of the
French National Centre for Scientific Research and served in numerous French and European boards of neurosciences. In 2016, he adopted the French nationality. He has produced significant contributions dissecting the neural mechanisms of learning and memory in bees and other insects.
In 2023, he moved to Paris following an offer to become the director of the Institute of Biology Paris-Seine (IBPS) of
Sorbonne University. He is currently and Exceptional-Class Professor of Neurosciences of
Sorbonne University and will start his function of IBPS director in 2025.
Giurfa is a recipient of the Silver Medal of the
French National Centre for Scientific Research and of an Advanced Fellowship from the
European Research Council
The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...
(ERC). He is also an elected member of the
German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the
Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
The Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium (RASAB) is a non-governmental association which promotes and organises science and the arts in Belgium by coordinating the national and international activities of its constituent academies su ...
and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France (
IUF
The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF) is a global union federation of trade unions with members in a variety of industries, many of which relate to food processi ...
). In 2013, He was distinguished with the Raices Award of the Argentinean Government. He is an Honors Professor of the
University of Buenos Aires and the
Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University.
Giurfa has published ca. 200 articles in international scientific journals in the fields of
insect cognition
Insect cognition describes the mental capacities and study of those capacities in insects. The field developed from comparative psychology where early studies focused more on animal behavior. Researchers have examined insect cognition in bees, ...
, insect neurobiology and insect behavior, many of them being highly cited. He is an Associate Editor of several scientific journals such as
EJN,
Learning & Memory
''Learning & Memory'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the neurobiology of learning and memory. It was established in 1994 and is published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. The editor-in-chief is John H. Byrne (Univers ...
,
Animal Cognition and Frontiers in Behavioral Neurosciences among others. He is a member of
Faculty of 1000 and deploys an intensive science dissemination activity to render scientific knowledge accessible to broad audiences. During the COVID-19 pandemics he established a highly attended series of virtual scientific seminars “''to provide scientific stimulation and keep morale high in difficult times''”.
Research achievements
Martin Giurfa has pioneered the field of insect cognition and has investigated during several decades elemental and non-elemental forms of learning. He adopted conceptual frameworks from experimental psychology and neuroethology to address questions on olfactory learning and memory in
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
and performed the first experiments showing
concept learning
Concept learning, also known as category learning, concept attainment, and concept formation, is defined by Jerome Bruner, Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin (1967) as "the search for and listing of attributes that can be used to distinguish exemplars from ...
in insects trained to solve visual discriminations. He grounded thereby a field he termed “cognitive neuroethology” in which the neural bases of the cognitive capacities of animals are studied in the framework of their natural environment. He has developed his research addressing questions both at the behavioral level, establishing various novel protocols for insect conditioning and at the neural level, using multiple invasive techniques to record neural activity in the bee brain such as calcium imaging recordings, electrophysiology and neuropharmacological interference, among others. His work has led to the establishment of virtual reality scenarios for honey bees in which he studies their visual learning and decision-making.
His discoveries have changed the way scientists regard insects and have brought, in particular, wide attraction and respect towards
honeybees
A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...
.
Bibliography
Journal articles: most highly cited
* Giurfa M, Eichmann B, Menzel R (1996) Symmetry perception in an insect. Nature 382:458- 461. doi: 10.1038/382458a0.
* Giurfa M, Zhang S, Jenett A, Menzel R, Srinivasan MV (2001) The concepts of 'sameness' and 'difference' in an insect. Nature 410(6831):930-933. doi: 10.1038/35073582.
* Menzel R, Giurfa M (2001) Cognitive architecture of a mini-brain: the honeybee. Trends in cognitive sciences 5 (2), 62–71. doi: 10.1016/s1364-6613(00)01601-6.
* Stach S, Benard J, Giurfa M (2004) Local-feature assembling in visual pattern recognition and generalization in honeybees. Nature 429(6993):758-761. doi: 10.1038/nature02594.
* Guerrieri F, Schubert M, Sandoz JC, Giurfa M (2005) Perceptual and neural olfactory similarity in honeybees. PLoS Biology 3(4): e60. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0030060.
* Giurfa M (2007) Behavioral and neural analysis of associative learning in the honeybee: a taste from the magic well. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 193 (8), 801–824. doi: 10.1007/s00359-007-0235-9
* Giurfa M, Sandoz JC (2012) Invertebrate learning and memory: fifty years of olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension response in honeybee. Learning & memory 19 (2), 54–66. doi: 10.1101/lm.024711.111.
* Devaud JM, Papouin T, Carcaud J, Sandoz JC, Grünewald B, Giurfa M (2015) Neural substrate for higher-order learning in an insect: Mushroom bodies are necessary for configural discriminations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 112(43):E5854-62. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1508422112.
* Giurfa M (2013) Cognition with few neurons: higher-order learning in insects. Trends in Neurosciences 36(5):285-94. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2012.12.011.
* Avarguès-Weber A, Combe M, Dyer A, Giurfa M (2012) Simultaneous mastering of two abstract concepts by a miniature brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109:7481- 7486. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1202576109.
Books
Galizia G, Eisenhardt D & Giurfa M. (eds.) 2012. Honeybee Neurobiology and Behavior. Springer, 509pp.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giurfa, Martin
Living people
Neuroethology
French neuroscientists
French National Centre for Scientific Research awards
Argentine scientists
University of Buenos Aires alumni
Paul Sabatier University alumni
1962 births