understood up to this point: memory. What is memory, and how does it function?
NEW YORK
Now What Was That?
What Is Memory?
Eric Kandel has certainly earned the right to rest on his laurels, but basking in all his past accomplishments is not in his nature. Sporting wide suspenders, a flashy red bow tie with blue polka dots, and a gray pinstripe suit, he stands straight as an arrow in his study, looking like one of the Broadway greats from the 1950s. But Kandel is not an entertainer. He is the world’s foremost memory researcher.
His twelfth-floor office is simply furnished but inviting. The scholarly tomes on the bookshelf are dog-eared, among them a thick, well-worn copy of Principles of Neural Science , the standard neuroscience textbook, which made Kandel famous. On the windowsill are photos of his family and colleagues. Through the tinted glass you can see Upper Manhattan; down below, the traffic on Riverside Drive crawls through this desolate area of dark high-rises, housing projects, and barbed wire. Ten years have passed since Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for a lifetime of memory research full of sparkling ideas and astounding discoveries. He has spent the second half of his long career up here on this floor. The crowded laboratories down the corridor from his office look the way they do everywhere in theworld, but the unremarkable interior is deceptive. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia University is one of the world’s leading institutions in the field of neuroscience. And the lively octogenarian behind it all has no intention of relaxing into retirement. Kandel still holds sway over a large number of eager colleagues, and is still in the prime of his research.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the world is made up of atoms or of stories. Eric Richard Kandel’s story begins with Hitler’s invasion of Austria. On November 7, 1938, little Erich was given a blue battery-operated remote-control model car for his ninth birthday. His parents, a Jewish couple in Vienna, owned a toy store, and the car was Erich’s pride and joy. Two days later, late in the evening, the family was startled by loud banging on the apartment door. It was Kristallnacht (Night of the Shattered Glass), and anti-Semitism descended on Vienna more brutally than anywhere else in the Greater German Reich. Erich, his mother, and his brother had to leave the apartment. His father was taken into custody, interrogated, and humiliated, and did not return to his family for ten days. For an entire year, the Kandels endured increasing persecution by the Nazi regime; they were robbed of their belongings, forced out of their home, and stripped of their rights. Erich’s father was unemployed, and Erich lost all his friends. The Jewish community organization in Vienna helped keep the family afloat. In April 1939, the sons were able to leave for the United States, and their parents followed later. The surviving Jews’ pledge to ‘never forget’ always stayed with Erich. His parents had trouble adapting to life in New York, but Erich, who now went by Eric, settled in quickly. He attended the Yeshivah of Flatbush, a well-known Hebrew day school, then Erasmus Hall High School on Flatbush Avenue. He was one of two Erasmus graduates (in a class of more than 1,150) to be accepted to Harvard; both were awarded scholarships. There he met Anna Kris, who came from a family of psychoanalysts. He fell in love with Anna, but even more with psychoanalysis, calling it ‘the most fascinating science there is – imaginative, comprehensive, and empirical all at the same time.’Kandel immersed himself in the writings of Sigmund Freud and discovered ‘the only promising approach to understanding the mind.’ To become a psychoanalyst, though, he would have to study medicine, which he considered to be ‘an indescribably boring subject.’ In the fall of 1955, he sat in the office of Harry Grundfest at Columbia University
NEW YORK
Now What Was That?
What Is Memory?
Eric Kandel has certainly earned the right to rest on his laurels, but basking in all his past accomplishments is not in his nature. Sporting wide suspenders, a flashy red bow tie with blue polka dots, and a gray pinstripe suit, he stands straight as an arrow in his study, looking like one of the Broadway greats from the 1950s. But Kandel is not an entertainer. He is the world’s foremost memory researcher.
His twelfth-floor office is simply furnished but inviting. The scholarly tomes on the bookshelf are dog-eared, among them a thick, well-worn copy of Principles of Neural Science , the standard neuroscience textbook, which made Kandel famous. On the windowsill are photos of his family and colleagues. Through the tinted glass you can see Upper Manhattan; down below, the traffic on Riverside Drive crawls through this desolate area of dark high-rises, housing projects, and barbed wire. Ten years have passed since Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for a lifetime of memory research full of sparkling ideas and astounding discoveries. He has spent the second half of his long career up here on this floor. The crowded laboratories down the corridor from his office look the way they do everywhere in theworld, but the unremarkable interior is deceptive. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Columbia University is one of the world’s leading institutions in the field of neuroscience. And the lively octogenarian behind it all has no intention of relaxing into retirement. Kandel still holds sway over a large number of eager colleagues, and is still in the prime of his research.
Sometimes it is hard to tell whether the world is made up of atoms or of stories. Eric Richard Kandel’s story begins with Hitler’s invasion of Austria. On November 7, 1938, little Erich was given a blue battery-operated remote-control model car for his ninth birthday. His parents, a Jewish couple in Vienna, owned a toy store, and the car was Erich’s pride and joy. Two days later, late in the evening, the family was startled by loud banging on the apartment door. It was Kristallnacht (Night of the Shattered Glass), and anti-Semitism descended on Vienna more brutally than anywhere else in the Greater German Reich. Erich, his mother, and his brother had to leave the apartment. His father was taken into custody, interrogated, and humiliated, and did not return to his family for ten days. For an entire year, the Kandels endured increasing persecution by the Nazi regime; they were robbed of their belongings, forced out of their home, and stripped of their rights. Erich’s father was unemployed, and Erich lost all his friends. The Jewish community organization in Vienna helped keep the family afloat. In April 1939, the sons were able to leave for the United States, and their parents followed later. The surviving Jews’ pledge to ‘never forget’ always stayed with Erich. His parents had trouble adapting to life in New York, but Erich, who now went by Eric, settled in quickly. He attended the Yeshivah of Flatbush, a well-known Hebrew day school, then Erasmus Hall High School on Flatbush Avenue. He was one of two Erasmus graduates (in a class of more than 1,150) to be accepted to Harvard; both were awarded scholarships. There he met Anna Kris, who came from a family of psychoanalysts. He fell in love with Anna, but even more with psychoanalysis, calling it ‘the most fascinating science there is – imaginative, comprehensive, and empirical all at the same time.’Kandel immersed himself in the writings of Sigmund Freud and discovered ‘the only promising approach to understanding the mind.’ To become a psychoanalyst, though, he would have to study medicine, which he considered to be ‘an indescribably boring subject.’ In the fall of 1955, he sat in the office of Harry Grundfest at Columbia University
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