György Buzsáki (; born November 24, 1949, Kaposvár, Hungary) is the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience at

New York University School of Medicine The New York University Grossman School of Medicine is a medical school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1841 and is one of two medical schools of the university, the other being the NYU G ...

Education

Buzsáki completed his M.D. in 1974 at the

University of Pécs The University of Pécs ( , PTE; ) is one of the largest higher education institutions in Hungary. The history of the university began in the Middle Ages, when in 1367, at the request of Louis I of Hungary, King Louis I the Great, Pope Urban V gr ...

in Hungary, and obtained his PhD in neuroscience in 1984 under the supervision of

Endre Grastyán Endre Grastyán (February 25, 1924 in Oriszentpeter – June 17, 1988 in Pécs) was a Hungary, Hungarian medical doctor, physiologist, professor, and member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was a groundbreaking researcher in physiology, ...

Work

Buzsáki's primary interests is "neural syntax", i.e., how segmentation of neural information is organized by the numerous

brain rhythm Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillation, oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual ne ...

s to support

cognitive function Cognitive skills are skills of the mind, as opposed to other types of skills such as motor skills, social skills or life skills. Some examples of cognitive skills are literacy, self-reflection, logical reasoning, abstract thinking, critical th ...

s. He identified the cellular-synaptic basis of

hippocampal The hippocampus (: hippocampi; via Latin from Greek , 'seahorse'), also hippocampus proper, is a major component of the brain of humans and many other vertebrates. In the human brain the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, and the subiculum ar ...

theta Theta (, ) uppercase Θ or ; lowercase θ or ; ''thē̂ta'' ; Modern: ''thī́ta'' ) is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth 𐤈. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 9. Gree ...

, gamma oscillations and sharp waves with associated fast oscillations, their relationship to each other and to behavior and

sleep Sleep is a state of reduced mental and physical activity in which consciousness is altered and certain Sensory nervous system, sensory activity is inhibited. During sleep, there is a marked decrease in muscle activity and interactions with th ...

. He was the first to demonstrate the role of

GABA GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid, γ-aminobutyric acid) is the chief inhibitory neurotransmitter in the developmentally mature mammalian central nervous system. Its principal role is reducing neuronal excitability throughout the nervous system. GA ...

ergic interneurons in network oscillations. Buzsáki's recognition of the importance of hierarchical organization of brain rhythms by different frequencies and their cross-frequency coupling has opened up opportunities for the dissection of cognitive mechanisms in health and disease. His most influential work, the two-stage model of memory trace consolidation, demonstrates how the

neocortex The neocortex, also called the neopallium, isocortex, or the six-layered cortex, is a set of layers of the mammalian cerebral cortex involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, ...

-mediated information during learning transiently modifies

networks, followed by reactivation and consolidation of these memory traces during sharp wave-ripple patterns of sleep. Buzsáki's demonstration that in the absence of changing environmental signals, cortical circuits continuously generate self-organized cell assembly sequences is an important link to the

neuronal assembly A neuronal ensemble is a population of nervous system cells (or cultured neurons) involved in a particular neural computation. Background The concept of neuronal ensemble dates back to the work of Charles Sherrington who described the functio ...

basis of cognitive functions. His experiments demonstrated how skewed distribution of firing rates supports robustness, sensitivity,

plasticity Plasticity may refer to: Science * Plasticity (physics), in engineering and physics, the propensity of a solid material to undergo permanent deformation under load * Behavioral plasticity, change in an organism's behavior in response to exposur ...

and stability in neuronal networks. He has pioneered numerous technical innovations, including large-scale recording methods using silicon chips and the

NeuroGrid Neurogrid is a piece of computer hardware that is designed specifically for simulation of biological brains. It uses analog computation to emulate ion channel activity, and digital communication to softwire structured connectivity patterns. Neur ...

, an organic, conformable electrode system used in both animal and patients.

Memberships and honors

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Academiae Europaeae and an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Buzsáki received honoris causa from Université Aix-Marseille, France, University of Kaposvár, Hungary and University of Pécs, Hungary. He was the winner of the inaugural

Brain Prize The Brain Prize, formerly known as The Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize, is an international scientific award honouring "one or more scientists who have distinguished themselves by an outstanding contribution to neuroscience and who are ...

in 2011 together with Tamás Freund and Péter Somogyi for their work describing organization of neurons in the

hippocampus The hippocampus (: hippocampi; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , 'seahorse'), also hippocampus proper, is a major component of the brain of humans and many other vertebrates. In the human brain the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, and the ...

and the

cortex Cortex or cortical may refer to: Biology * Cortex (anatomy), the outermost layer of an organ ** Cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the vertebrate cerebrum, part of which is the ''forebrain'' *** Motor cortex, the regions of the cerebral cortex i ...

. He is the 2020 recipient of the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience, the highest honor from the Society for Neuroscience, USA. Also in 2011 he was awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Zukunftskolleg at the

University of Konstanz The University of Konstanz () is a university in the city of Konstanz in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Its main campus was opened on the Gießberg in 1972 after being founded in 1966. The university is Germany's southernmost university and is ...

Books and scientific papers

He is the author of ''Rhythms of the Brain'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2006), a book detailing the current neuroscientific understanding of brain rhythms, and of more than 300 peer-reviewed papers. He is among the top 1% most-cited neuroscientists ("highly cited") by

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational corporation, multinational content-driven technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and maintains its headquarters at 1 ...

. In 2019 he published ''The Brain from Inside Out'', a book which proposes a new framework of thinking of the brain as an explorer constantly controlling the body to test hypotheses and not as an information-absorbing coding device.

Selected works

*Buzsáki, G. (2019). ''The Brain From Inside Out''. New York: Oxford University Press. * *Buzsaki, G. (2006). ''Rhythms of the Brain''. New York: Oxford University Press. *Buzsáki, G., & Draguhn, A. (2004). Neuronal oscillations in cortical networks. ''Science'', 304(5679), 1926-1929. * *

References

External links

Buzsaki Lab web page

Google Scholar citations
{{DEFAULTSORT:Buzsaki, Gyorgy 1949 births Hungarian neuroscientists Hungarian scientists Living people