Timothy Vivian Pelham Bliss FRS (born 27 July 1940) is a British

neuroscientist 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 ...

. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto, and a group leader emeritus at the Francis Crick Institute, London. In 2016 Professor Tim Bliss shared with Professors

Graham Collingridge Graham Leon Collingridge (born 1 February 1955) is a British neuroscientist and professor at the University of Toronto and at the University of Bristol. He is also a senior investigator at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sina ...

and Richard Morris the 2016 Brain Prize, one of the world's most coveted science prizes.

Life

Born in England he was educated at

Dean Close School Dean Close School is a public school in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. The school is divided into pre-prep, preparatory and senior schools located on separate but adjacent sites outside Cheltenham town centre, occupying the largest privat ...

and

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

(BSc, 1963; PhD, 1967). In 1967 he joined the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, London, where he was Head of the Division of Neurophysiology from 1988 till 2006. His work with Terje Lømo in

Per Andersen Per Oskar Andersen (12 January 1930 – 17 February 2020) was a Norwegian brain researcher at the University of Oslo. Research by his lab, specifically by Terje Lømo (and Timothy Bliss, who helped characterize the phenomenon years later), led t ...

's laboratory at the University of Oslo in the late 1960s established the phenomenon of long-term potentiation (LTP) as the dominant synaptic model of how the mammalian brain stores memories.

Career and research

In 1973, he and Terje Lømo published the first evidence of a Hebb-like synaptic plasticity event induced by brief tetanic stimulation, known as

long-term potentiation In neuroscience, long-term potentiation (LTP) is a persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity. These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons ...

(LTP). His work has done much to provide a neural explanation for learning and memory. Studying the

hippocampus The hippocampus (via Latin from Greek , ' seahorse') is a major component of the brain of humans and other vertebrates. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain. The hippocampus is part of the limbic system, ...

– the memory centre of the brain – Tim showed that the strength of signals between neurons in the brain exhibits a long-term increase following brief but intense activation, a phenomenon known as long-term potentiation (LTP). One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: Whilst LTP was discovered in Oslo in the lab of

, Tim's subsequent research into the cellular properties of LTP and its relation to memory was conducted at London's

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (commonly abbreviated to NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR b ...

where he worked from 1968 to 2006, becoming head of

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 ...

s. He is visiting professor at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Bliss is on the board of the

Feldberg Foundation The Feldberg Foundation promotes scientific exchange between German and British scientists in the field of experimental medical research. The foundation is registered in Hamburg, Germany with the secretariat based in the UK. The pharmacologist Wil ...

and was trustee of

Sir John Soane's Museum Sir John Soane's Museum is a house museum, located next to Lincoln's Inn Fields in Holborn, London, which was formerly the home of neo-classical architect, John Soane. It holds many drawings and architectural models of Soane's projects, and ...

from 2004 to 2009. From the years 2009 until 2013, Bliss worked as an adjunct professor in the South Korean university, Seoul National University.

Awards and Honours

* 1991

Bristol-Myers Squibb Award Between 1977 and 2006, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation presented annual awards of US$50,000 to scientists for distinguished achievements in fields such as cancer, infectious disease, neuroscience, nutrition, and cardiovascular disease. The rec ...

for Neuroscience (with E. Kandel) * 1994

Feldberg Prize The Feldberg Foundation promotes scientific exchange between German and British scientists in the field of experimental medical research. The foundation is registered in Hamburg, Germany with the secretariat based in the UK. The pharmacologist Wi ...

* 1994

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...

* 1998 Founding Fellow of the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

* 2003 Annual Award for Contributions to British Neuroscience, British Neuroscience Society * 2012 Croonian Prize Lecture, Royal Society (this is the Society's principal lecture in the biological sciences, given annually since 1738) * 2013 Ipsen Prize for Neuronal Plasticity; Hon LlD Dalhousie University (with R. Morris and Y. Dudai) * 2014 Hon DSc University of Hertfordshire * 2016 The Brain Prize, Lundbeck Foundation

Notable Contributions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bliss, Timothy Vivian Pelham Living people 1940 births People educated at Dean Close School McGill University alumni British neuroscientists Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of University College London