David Hunter Hubel

1926-

American neurobiologist who shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Torsten Wiesel and Roger Sperry.

Hubel and Wiesel, colleagues at Johns Hopkins University, studied the mechanisms of the brain's visual cortex. In experiments with cats and monkeys, they were able to trace the exact path of amino acids in the brain, uncovering the transmission route for nerve impulses. They found that the visual cortex contains a variety of cells, ranging from simple, complex, and hypercomplex, arranged in vertical columns that allow for sight in animals and humans.