Eric R. Kandel. There Is Life after the Nobel Prize. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022. 120 pp. $19.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-20014-1.
Reviewed by Margaret Henderson (San Diego State University)
Published on H-Sci-Med-Tech (October, 2022)
Commissioned by Penelope K. Hardy (University of Wisconsin-La Crosse)
Eric R. Kandel, author, researcher, and professor at Columbia University, was exhorted by his wife, Denise, not to win the Nobel Prize early, because her own research showed that people did not contribute much more to science after winning the prestigious prize. Kandel then won the prize in 2000, and he wrote this book to illustrate that he is still contributing to science, in fact quite a lot.
The book starts with just enough pre-Nobel Prize information to explain Kandel’s work leading up to his award, including the role of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in providing long-term funding to allow extended research. Kandel’s work is related to the development of evidence-based psychotherapy and the integration with biological studies of the brain, for example, studies of genes and neural circuits, with psychoanalysis. His descriptions of experiments require some understanding of neuroscience to fully comprehend.
After winning the 2000 Nobel Prize, Kandel turned his studies to short- and long-term memory formation via the study of memory disorders. One focus was on memory storage through disorders of memory, specifically the nature of memory loss in drug abuse and schizophrenia and age-related memory loss. Mouse models were created for this research.
This slim book is a memoir, so readers will need to look into Kandel’s many books, research papers, or even The Brain Series video series with Charlie Rose (2009-17) to learn more about the science behind all the experiments mentioned. But the book provides an overview of how neuroscience intersects with many different disciplines: the collaborations with epidemiology examining how nicotine addiction leading to harder drug use, the impact of socioeconomic factors on memory and learning, and research on gender and the brain. Kandel has also ventured outside of the sciences to look at the brain and art, with his work on art, the mind, and the brain in the art of Vienna in the early twentieth century. Kandel used his status as a Nobel laureate born in Austria to create a symposium on the disastrous impact of Nazi rule on education and research in Austria.
The book finishes with Kandel's current work at Columbia University as co-director of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. The institute brings together Columbia faculty and students not just in neural sciences but also in the social sciences, humanities, arts, economics, law, and engineering to study the mind and how the brain works.
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Citation:
Margaret Henderson. Review of Kandel, Eric R., There Is Life after the Nobel Prize.
H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews.
October, 2022.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=58096
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