Wilfrid Rall (August 29, 1922 - April 1, 2018) was a

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, Biological neural network, n ...

who spent most of his career at the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

. He is considered one of the founders of

computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to u ...

, and was a pioneer in establishing the integrative functions of neuronal

dendrites Dendrites (from Greek δένδρον ''déndron'', "tree"), also dendrons, are branched protoplasmic extensions of a nerve cell that propagate the electrochemical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the n ...

. Rall developed the use of

cable theory Classical cable theory uses mathematical models to calculate the electric current (and accompanying voltage) along passive neurites, particularly the dendrites that receive synaptic inputs at different sites and times. Estimates are made by model ...

in neuroscience, as well as passive and active compartmental modeling of the

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

. Rall studied physics at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, from which he graduated with highest honors in 1943, and where he was Chairman of the

Yale Political Union The Yale Political Union (YPU) is a debate society at Yale University, founded in 1934 by Alfred Whitney Griswold. It was modeled on the Cambridge Union and Oxford Union and the party system of the defunct Yale Unions of the late nineteenth and ...

's Labor Party.''The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography''. Ed. Squire, Larry R. Volume 5. Academic Press, 1996. 553. He was involved with the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

during the war, and subsequently worked with K.S. Cole at Woods Hole. He then moved to the University of Otago in Dunedin to work with

John Carew Eccles Sir John Carew Eccles (27 January 1903 – 2 May 1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist and philosopher who won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse. He shared the prize with Andrew Huxley and Alan Lloy ...

for his PhD, and remained there after Eccles' departure for Australia. In 1954, he spent a sabbatical year 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 = ...

in the Biophysics Department headed by

Bernard Katz Sir Bernard Katz, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (; 26 March 1911 – 20 April 2003) was a German-born British people, British physician and biophysics, biophysicist, noted for his work on nerve physiology. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiol ...

, and after a final year in Dunedin (where he was Acting Head of Department) he then moved to Bethesda, Maryland and the

, where he remained until his retirement in 1994.

Scientific focus

Wilfrid Rall's scientific achievements concern the electrical properties of neurons, and in particular the excitability of dendrites. Rall's work has led to a number of major conceptual breakthroughs, including the following: # the application of

to single neurons ''(Rall 1957, 1959, 1960)'' # the first theoretical exploration of active

''(Rall and Shepherd, 1968)'' # the first theoretical exploration of active spines (Rall 1974; Miller, Rall and Rinzel, 1985)''

Notes

References

* Rall W. (1955a) A statistical theory of monosynaptic input-output relations. J. Cell. Comp. Physiol. 46: 373-411. * Rall W. (1955b) Experimental monosynaptic input-output relations in the mammalian spinal cord. J. Cell. Comp. Physiol. 46: 413-437. * Rall W. (1957) Membrane time constant of motoneurons. Science 126: 454. * Rall W. (1959) Branching dendritic trees and motoneuron membrane resistivity. Exp. Neurol. 1: 491-527. * Rall W. (1960) Membrane potential transients and membrane time constant of motoneurons. Exp. Neurol. 2: 503-532. * Rall, W. (1962) Theory of physiological properties of dendrites. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 96: 1071-1092. * Rall, W. (1964) Theoretical significance of dendritic trees for neuronal input-output relations. In Neural Theory and Modeling, ed. R.F. Reiss. Stanford Univ. Press. * Rall, W., G.M. Shepherd, T.S. Reese, and M.W. Brightman. (1966) Dendro-dendritic synaptic pathway for inhibition in the olfactory bulb. Exptl. Neurol. 14:44-56.

External links

The Theoretical Foundations of Dendritic Function: The Collected Papers of Wilfrid Rall with Commentaries

Washington Post obituary
* Wilfrid Rall computational neuroscience research collection, Medical Historical Library, Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, Yale University.
Wilfrid Rall Archive: Pioneer of Dendritic Function and Computational Neuroscience.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rall, Wilfrid American neuroscientists 1922 births 2018 deaths Writers from Los Angeles University of Otago alumni University of Otago faculty Yale University alumni Manhattan Project people University of Chicago staff American expatriates in New Zealand American expatriates in the United Kingdom

Scientific focus

See also

Notes

References

External links