Nathaniel A. Buchwald (July 19, 1924 – July 14, 2006) was an American

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 ...

, educator and administrator, who was Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Neurobiology at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

(UCLA). Buchwald was internationally recognized for his pioneering research on the functions of the

basal ganglia The basal ganglia (BG), or basal nuclei, are a group of subcortical nuclei, of varied origin, in the brains of vertebrates. In humans, and some primates, there are some differences, mainly in the division of the globus pallidus into an exter ...

, an area of the brain closely associated with neurological diseases like

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

.IN MEMORIAM Nathaniel A. Buchwald: Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Neurobiology, Emeritus Los Angeles (1924—2006)
by Michael S. Levine, University of California. Retrieved 21 April 2008.

Biography

Buchwald was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1924, as eldest child of Nellie and Sol Buchwald. He received his

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

in chemistry at

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

in Florida in 1946, and his Ph.D. from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

in 1953 in

neuroanatomy Neuroanatomy is the study of the structure and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defi ...

and

neurophysiology Neurophysiology is a branch of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function rather than nervous system architecture. This area aids in the diagnosis and monitoring of neurological diseases. Historically, it has been dominated b ...

. Buchwald started working as an

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 ...

instructor at

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...

Medical School in 1953. In 1957 he returned to the

to work at the new Brain Research Institute. He became an associate professor in the Department of Anatomy in 1961 and later was promoted to professor and joined the Department of Psychiatry in 1970. Buchwald was the Director of the UCLA Mental Retardation Research Center for more than 40 years. End of the 1950s he had been among the first members of the

Society for General Systems Research The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: :"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...

. In 1969 he was the founder and Group Coordinator of the Neurophysiology Group of the new Mental Retardation Research Center. He became the Associate Director for Research in 1971 and Director of the UCLA Mental Retardation Research Center in 1973, a position he held until 1993. Buchwald died July 14, 2006 in Los Angeles, CA.

Work

Buchwald was an "internationally renowned neuroscientist and electrophysiologist who made pioneering seminal contributions concerning the functions of the

, areas of the brain involved in the etiology of neurodegenerative disorders like Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, and of specific forms of developmental disabilities".IN MEMORIAM Nathaniel A. Buchwald
, Neuroscience news, Published by the UCLA Brain Research Institute, Fall, 2006, Volume 15, No. 3. Retrieved 21 April 2008 He was "one of the first neuroscientists to study

electrophysiology Electrophysiology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''ēlektron'', "amber" ee the Electron#Etymology, etymology of "electron" , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical propertie ...

in subcortical

brain nuclei In neuroanatomy, a nucleus (plural form: nuclei) is a cluster of neurons in the central nervous system, located deep within the cerebral hemispheres and brainstem. The neurons in one nucleus usually have roughly similar connections and functions. ...

in awake and unrestrained animals. His early studies on evoked potentials garnered much recognition in the late 1950s. Starting with his classic experiments on the “ caudate spindle” published in the major journal of the early 1960s Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, Nat and his colleagues, especially his closest and longest collaborator, Chester D. Hull, Ph.D., maintained a continuing examination of how neurons in the basal ganglia communicate with each other and how this communication is altered in models of diseases and during maturation". Nate has also been known as the "Cutty King of Syracuse."

Publications

* 1975, ''Brain Mechanisms in Mental Retardation'' by Nathaniel A. Buchwald and Mary A. B. Brazier. .

References

External links

IN MEMORIAM
by Michael S. Levine, University of California. {{DEFAULTSORT:Buchwald, Nathaniel A. 1924 births 2006 deaths University of Minnesota alumni American neuroscientists University of California, Los Angeles faculty