“Golgi, brain architect”

1906 – 2006: a cento anni dal primo nobel italiano

Pavia, 9 september– 19 december 2006

Nuovi Istituti Universitari, Via Ferrata, Località Cravino

 

In 1873, Camillo Golgi successfully perfected a histological procedure, the black reaction, which, for the first time, made it possible to stain a nerve cell, including its extensions, in its entirety.

In 1906, this discovery led to Golgi becoming the first Italian ever to receive a Nobel prize.

After Golgi neurology and neuroscience underwent an exciting cultural change. Consciousness, perception, learning, memory are all phenomena whose study has entered the scientific realm. This would have been unthinkable few decades ago.

All of this has been made possible by extraordinary technological advances in the last century which have allowed exploration of the brain from all viewpoints. We need only think of the spectacular results of new visualisation techniques that map brain activity pinpointing the physical correlation of psychic function at the exact moment it takes place, creating almost an anatomy of the mind.

A key instigator of these exciting developments in neuroscience was a lone doctor who worked in a silent and eloquent soliloquy with a microscope.

This doctor - Camillo Golgi - is a true protagonist of science in the last two centuries.

Reliving the scientific adventure of the creator of the black reaction means immersing ourselves in one of the greatest Italian intellectual enterprises of the last two centuries.