Dr. Rodolfo Llinas
NYU Medical Center, New York, NY, USA
Featured Author: Rodolfo Llinas
Rodolfo Llinas (b. Dec 16, 1934 in Bogota, Colombia) received his M.D. in 1959 from the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota. After postdoctoral training at Harvard and the University of Minnesota, he completed a Ph.D. in neurophysiology in 1965 at the Australian National University (in John Eccles' lab). Dr. Llinas then held several research positions across the United States. In 1976, he was appointed Full Professor and Chairman of the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, New York University School of Medicine, his current position. Since 1985 he has been the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience at NYU.
Dr. Llinas is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the French National Academy of Science and the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine. He has received 7 doctorates honoris causa from universities in Colombia, Spain, Italy and Japan as well as several prizes (full list). He was Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience for over 20 years, and is currently Senior Editor of Thalamus & Related Systems.
Dr. Llinas's research interest encompasses all levels of brain science, from ion channels to cognition. This includes the study of (i) the intrinsic electrophysiological properties of mammalian neurons in vitro (ii) the ion channels that generate some of the sodium and calcium currents responsible for the electrophysiological properties of neurons and their distribution in different cell types, (iii) calcium microdomains in the squid giant synapse and (iv) cerebellar control of movement and thalamocortical connectivity. Dr. Llinas has authored a large number of research papers (ISI Highly Cited Researcher (HistCite Analysis 17,836 citations up to Jan 2007) complete list) and 3 monographs, the most recent being The Squid Giant Synapse: A Model for Chemical Transmission (Oxford University Press, New York, 1999) and I of the Vortex. From Neurons to Self (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001).
Scholarpedia articles:
- Neuron (2008), Scholarpedia, 3(8):1490.
- Purkinje neuron
- Cerebellum
(Author profile by Abdellatif Nemri)
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