David Hubel

David H. Hubel received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries concerning information processing in the human visual system. His work shed light on one of the mind's darkest mysteries, the process by which the brain interprets the signals it receives from the eyes. Born and raised in Canada, he attended McGill University Medical School and completed his residency in neurology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He began his research in the visual cortex of the brain while serving in the U.S. Army at Walter Reed hospital, where he developed the microelectrode and the modern hydraulic microdrive to observe neural activity in the visual cortex. He joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1959. His pioneering studies of the process by which the brain perceives contour, motion, depth and color have enabled treatment and prevention of numerous visual impairments in adults and children. In this podcast, recorded during his appearance before the Academy of Achievement at Coronado, California in 1983, he discusses his experimental process. He explores the role of different areas of the brain, and the physiology of human emotions, as well as the values of freedom and education in the United States. Today he is John Franklin Embers Professor of Neurology, Emeritus, at Harvard University.