John Eccles

John Carew Eccles (1903–1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist who investigated synaptic transmission and shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Chemical synapse: A junction where one neuron signals another by releasing neurotransmitters across a synaptic cleft. Eccles’s work showed how chemical signals mediate transmission between neurons.
Charles Sherrington: An English neurophysiologist who developed influential accounts of reflexes and synaptic integration. Sherrington’s ideas on excitation and inhibition shaped Eccles’s early research questions.
University of Melbourne: A public research university in Melbourne, Australia, founded in 1853. Eccles studied medicine there before pursuing physiological research in Britain.
The Self and Its Brain: A 1977 book by Karl Popper and John Eccles arguing that mental life cannot be reduced to brain processes. The book presents Eccles’s mature philosophical position on the relation between mind and brain.
Excitatory postsynaptic potential: A graded change in a postsynaptic cell’s voltage that makes it more likely to fire an action potential. Eccles measured excitatory responses to explain how synaptic input drives neuronal firing.
Rudolf Peter Gasser: An American physiologist who shared the 1944 Nobel Prize for work on differentiated nerve fibers. Eccles worked with Gasser at Oxford on electrical responses in nerve fibers.
University of Oxford: A collegiate research university in Oxford, England, with origins dating to the eleventh century. Eccles studied and conducted early research at Oxford under Charles Sherrington.
Mind–body problem: The philosophical problem of how mental phenomena relate to physical bodies and processes. Eccles’s dualist views placed his later work within this longstanding philosophical problem.
Inhibitory postsynaptic potential: A graded postsynaptic voltage change that makes an action potential less likely. His experiments distinguished inhibitory synaptic effects from excitation.
Bernard Katz: A German-born British biophysicist whose research established quantal release at the neuromuscular junction. Katz’s complementary work helped clarify the chemical basis of synaptic transmission.

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