The Nansen Neuroscience Lectures (NNLs) honour Nansen’s ground-breaking contribution to neuroscience and since the 10th of October 2010 the lectures are part of the Academy’s annual Nansen-celebration.

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Norges første hjerneforsker (Foto: Johan v.d. Fehr. Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen. Billedsamlingen)
Nansen's doctoral thesis on the central nervous system comprised most types of invertebrate and vertebrate animals (among our own phylum, the chordates , he focused on the Atlantic hagfish, Myxine glutinosa). (Photo: Johan v.d. Fehr. Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen).

 

Nansen is to be credited as father of the Neuron Doctrine (the idea that the nervous system consists of separate nerve cells rather than a continuum of tubes, published in two papers in 1886) and for realizing the significance of the neuropil (the 'dotted substance' between the nerve cell bodies) as the site of communication between the cells. (From The Fridtjof Nansen Science Symposium 2011).

 

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Arrangører NNl