Torsten Wiesel only participated and lectured once at the Lindau meetings during the 20th century. But during the present one, he is a more regular participant in the meetings. The lecture he gave at the 40th meeting gave an overview of his results concerning how the brain treats the electrical impulses coming from the eyes. The tape recording cannot really give full credit to his fascinating lecture, which among other things included a film, in which sound played an important role. But since I am lucky enough to have heard Wiesel lecture on a similar subject at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, I believe that I understand what is going on. By inserting fine electrodes as antennas into the brain of, e.g., a cat and showing the cat different objects, the signals from the antennas give important clues on how the brain treats the information from the eyes. As I remember it, showing, e.g., a triangle, the signals from the antennas show that the triangle is actually projected on the surface of the brain! It is a strange coincidence that another film was shown at the meeting, on the day before Wiesel gave his talk. This was because of the 40th anniversary of the meetings and the film was a documentary with the title “Nobel brought them together”. In German this becomes “Nobel führte sie zusammen”, which is also the title of a book by Alexander Dées de Sterio from 1975 (2nd edition 1985). This is a very interesting and useful book for someone interested in the history of the Lindau Meetings. It has a complement in Ralph Burmester’s bi-lingual book from year 2000, “Science at First Hand” (“Wissenschaft aus erster Hand”), which tells the story of the Lindau meetings up to 1999/2000. A large part of the information in these two books is, of course, also available on the Lindau web site. Try writing “Wiesel” in the search engine and read more about the background and present activities of this Nobel Laureate! Anders Bárány |