The Australian-born scientist John Carew Eccles was a pioneer in neuroscience, discovering the elementary synaptic processes of the central nervous system known as excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs and IPSPs). He was particularly eager to understand how synaptic changes could serve learning and memory processes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1963 for his pioneering analysis of central synaptic transmission.

Education

Eccles was born on January 27,1903, in Melbourne, Australia. His parents, Mary and William Eccles, were both schoolteachers and strongly supported his academic interests. Although he was highly interested in mathematics, he eventually decided to study medicine and entered Melbourne University at the age of seventeen. After finishing his medical course with top marks in 1925, he won a Rhodes Scholarship and entered Magdalen College, Oxford, as an undergraduate. In 1927, he began working with Charles Sherrington, Nobelist and pioneer of...