John Morgan Allman is an American neuroscientist at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commerci ...

, active in the fields of

primates Primates is an order of mammals, which is further divided into the strepsirrhines, which include lemurs, galagos, and lorisids; and the haplorhines, which include tarsiers and simians ( monkeys and apes). Primates arose 74–63 ...

cognition Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

and

evolutionary neuroscience Evolutionary neuroscience is the scientific study of the evolution of nervous systems. Evolutionary neuroscientists investigate the evolution and natural history of nervous system structure, functions and emergent properties. The field draws on co ...

Life

He graduated from

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

with a PhD in anthropology. In 2000, Allman's laboratory reported identification of a class of

neurons A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an membrane potential#Cell excitability, excitable cell (biology), cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network (biology), neural net ...

- large spindle-shaped cells - unique to humans and our closest relatives, the

great apes The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); '' Gorilla'' (the ...

. The

spindle neuron Von Economo neurons, also called spindle neurons, are a specific class of mammalian Cerebral cortex, cortical neurons characterized by a large Spindle (textiles), spindle-shaped soma (biology), soma (or body) gradually tapering into a single ap ...

s, now called the Von Economo neurons to distinguish them from other spindle-shaped cells, were first located in layer V of the

anterior cingulate cortex In human brains, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33. It is involved ...

(ACC), and later found in the frontoinsular cortex. Allman's team has reported reduced ACC size and metabolic activity in

autistic Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing di ...

patients, and activity of the ACC is also reduced in patients diagnosed with

attention deficit disorder Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, and emotional dysregulation that are excessive and pervasive, impairing in multiple con ...

(ADD) and depression, whereas ACC activity is increased in patients with obsessive-compulsive, phobic,

post-traumatic stress Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster, traffic collision, ...

, and

anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...

disorders. The ACC is largely responsible for relaying waves of neural signals from deep within the brain to far flung regions, including

Brodmann area 10 Brodmann area 10 (BA10, frontopolar prefrontal cortex, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, or anterior prefrontal cortex) is the anterior-most portion of the prefrontal cortex in the human brain. BA10 was originally defined broadly in terms of its c ...

. Spindle neurons may develop abnormally in people with

disorders, and abnormalities may also be linked to

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

and frontotemporal lobe degeneration, but research into these correlations is at a very early stage. Allman studies brain

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

in mammals from multiple perspectives, and has created a number of 3d reconstructions of mammalian brains.

Grants

* 2009 James S. McDonnell FoundationGrants
jsmf.org

Works

* John Allman, Atiya Hakeem, J.M. Erwin, E. Nimchinsky, P. Hof (2001).
Anterior cingulate cortex: The evolution of an interface between emotion and cognition
, ''Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences'', Vol 935, pp 107–117. * John Allman, Atiya Hakeem, and Karli Watson (2002).
Two phylogenetic specializations in the human brain
, ''The Neuroscientist'', Vol 8, No 4 pp 335–346. * Eliot C. Bush, John M. Allman (2004).
Three-dimensional structure and evolution of primate primary visual cortex
, ''Anatomical Record'', No 281A, pp 1088–1094. * John Allman (2007).
Moral intuition: Its neural substrates and normative significance
, ''J Physiol Paris'', 101 (4-6), pp 179–202. * John Allman (1999).
Evolving Brains
(132MB)''. New York: Scientific American Library.

References

External links

Caltech.edu
- Allman Lab Homepage

- 'Humanity? Maybe It's in the Wiring',

Sandra Blakeslee Sandra Blakeslee (born 1943) is an American science correspondent of over four decades for ''The New York Times'' and science writer, specializing in neuroscience. Together with neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, she authored the 1998 popular sc ...

, ''New York Times'' (December 9, 2003)
NewScientistJobs.com
- 'Why are treatments for spinal injuries and diseases like Alzheimer's trailing so far behind our knowledge of the brain and nervous system?' Helen Philips, ''NewScientist'', (October 16, 2004) {{DEFAULTSORT:Allman, John American neuroscientists Autism researchers California Institute of Technology people Living people Scientists from Pasadena, California University of Chicago alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American anthropologists

Life

Grants

Works

See also

References

External links