Rodolfo Llinás

Llinás was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He is the son of Jorge Enrique Llinas (a surgeon) and Bertha Riascos. He was motivated to study the brain by watching his grandfather Pablo Llinás Olarte working as a neuropsychiatrist. Llinás describes himself as a logical positivist.[1]

Llinás went to the Gimnasio Moderno school in Bogotá and graduated as a medical doctor from the Pontifical Xavierian University in 1959.[2] During his medical studies he had the opportunity to travel to Europe and there he met several researchers in Spain, France and finally Switzerland, where he participated in neurophysiology experiments with Dr. Walter Rudolf Hess, Nobel Prize in Physiology, Medicine, professor and director of the Department of the Institute of Physiology of the University of Zurich. Additionally, while studying medicine he made a theoretical thesis on the visual system under the tuition of neurosurgeon and neurophysiologist Fernando Rosas and the mathematician Carlo Federici at the National University of Colombia.[3] He received his PhD in 1965 from the Australian National University working under Sir John Eccles.[2]

By graduation in Australia, he was very interested in the biological basis of the mind. During this time he met his future wife who was studying philosophy. His two sons are also physicians and his wife is an Australian philosopher of mind. Llinás was a scientific advisor during the establishment of an interactive science museum located in Bogotá, Colombia called Maloka Museum. Recently, Llinás has donated a T-Rex skeleton to the museum and helped to design a model of the nervous system for the dinosaur fossils.[4][5]

He has studied the electrophysiology of single neurons in the cerebellum, the thalamus, the cerebral cortex, the entorhinal cortex, the hippocampus, the vestibular system, the inferior olive and the spinal cord. He has studied synaptic transmitter release in the squid giant synapse. He has studied human brain function using magnetoencephalography (MEG) on the basis of which he introduced the concept of Thalamocortical dysrhythmia.[6]

Llinás has occupied a number of positions.[7]

• Research fellow, Massachusetts General Hosp.-Harvard University, 1960–61
• National Institutes of Health research fellow in physiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1961–63
• Associate professor, University Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1965–66
• Associate member, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1966–68
• Member, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1970
• Head neurobiology unit, American Medical Association Institute Biomed. Research, Chicago, 1967–70
• Associate professor neurology and psychiatry, Northwestern University, 1967–71
• Guest professor physiology, Wayne State University, 1967–74
• Professorial lecturer pharmacology, University Ill.-Chgo., 1967–68
• Clinical professor, University Ill.-Chgo., 1968–72
• Professor physiology, head neurobiology div., University of Iowa, 1970–76
• Prof., chairman physiology and biophysics, New York University, New York City, 1976—2011
• Thomas and Suzanne Murphy professor neuroscience., New York University, 1985—
• University Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Physiology., New York University, 2011—

Llinás is known for his many contributions to neuroscience, however, his most important contributions are the following:

• Discovery of dendritic inhibition in central neurons (at the mammalian motoneuron).[8][9]
• The functional organization of the cerebellar cortex neuronal circuits.[10]
• Defining cerebellar function from an evolutionary perspective.[11]
• First description of electrical coupling in the mammalian CNS (mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus).[12]
• First determination of presynaptic calcium current, under voltage clamp, at the squid giant synapse.[13][14]
• Discovery that vertebrate neurons (cerebellar Purkinje cell) can generate calcium-dependent spikes.[15][16]
• Proposal and Organization of NASA Neurolab Project that flew on April 17, 1998, Space Shuttle Columbia.[17]
• Discovery of the P-type calcium channel in the Purkinje cells.[15]
• Discovery of low threshold spikes generated by low voltage activated calcium conductaces (presently known as due to T-type calcium channel) in inferior olive and thalamus neurons.[18][19]
• A tensor network model of the transformation of sensory space-time coordinates into motor coordinates by the cerebellum.[20]
• Asserting the law of no interchangeability of neurons, which it is known as Llinás' law.[21]
• Direct demonstration of calcium concentration microdomains at the presynaptic active zone.[22]
• Utilization of magnetoencephalography in clinical research.[23]
• Discovery of subthreshold membrane potential oscillations in the inferior olive, thalamus and entorhinal cortex.[24][25]
• The discovery of Thalamocortical dysrhythmia.[6]
• Artificial olivo-cerebellar motor control system as part of the project BAUV (Undersea Vehicle) of the US Navy developed by P. Bandyopadhyay.[26][27]

Llinás is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1986), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1996), American Philosophical Society (1996), the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (Spain) (1996) and the French Academy of Science (2002). Dr. Llinás has received honorary degrees from the following universities:

• Universidad de Salamanca (Spain) (1985)
• Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain) (1993)
• National University of Colombia (1994)
• Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain (1997)
• Los Andes University (Colombia), Bogotá, Colombia, (1998)
• Toyama University, Toyama, Japan (2005)
• University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy (2006)

Dr. Llinás has received the following awards:

• UNESCO Albert Einstein medal (1991)
• Order of Boyaca Awarded President of Colombia for exceptional service to Colombia (1992)
• Bernard Katz Award Biohysical Society, Washington USA (2012)
• Gold Medal of CSIC, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain (2012)
• Cajal Diploma given by Queen Sofia of Spain Madrid, Spain (2013)
• Ragnar Granit Lecture and Award, Nobel Institute, Stockholm, Sweden (2013)
• Castilla del Pino Lecture and Award Cordoba, Spain (2015)
• Nansen Neuroscience Lecture and award Norwegian Academy of Science, Oslo, Norway (2016)
• Scholar of the Year Australian National University, Canberra, Australia (2016)
• Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience Society for Neuroscience, (2018)

He was the chairman of NASA/Neurolab Science Working Group, in 2011 received University Professor Distinction from New York University and in 2013, the NYU Neuroscience Institute created the Annual Rodolfo Llinás Lecture Series in recognition of his contributions to the field of neuroscience.[28]

• Llinas, el cerebro y el universo. Documentary film, by Gonzalo Argandoña, Cabala Producción Audiovisual, (2018) RTVCplay

Llinás is the author of more than 20 book chapters and has edited several books on neuroscience.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rodolfo Llinás.

• Rodolfo Llinás official website
• NYU Neurophysiology website about Rodolfo Llinás
• NYU Medicine faculty website about Rodolfo Llinás
• "List of Articles on Google Scholar". Google Scholar. 2016. Retrieved 2 June 2016.