Sir Colin Blakemore
© David Hartley / Rex Features
- Born
- 1 June 1944
Sir Colin Blakemore is a one of Britain’s leading neuroscientists. He has made ground-breaking research in vision and the development of the brain. In 2014 he was knighted, in recognition of his research and contribution to scientific policy and outreach.
Blakemore grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon and won a scholarship to study medical sciences at the University of Cambridge. He went on to gain a PhD in physiological optics from the University of California, Berkeley in the United States, but returned to England afterwards where he has been working since.
Blakemore’s main interests lie in the early stages of development of the forebrain – the cerebral cortex – and how it functions in the adult human. He has been a pioneer of neural plasticity, the ability of the brain to change its connections to adapt to new information or stimulation. Until the 1970s most scientists believed that the brain, once formed, stayed that way forever. Thanks to Blakemore’s work, it is now thought that neural plasticity is important in forming a memory or learning a task. Moreover, in the future this knowledge could help in therapies to aid recovery from events like strokes.
This research has also led Blakemore to investigate the visual cortex. He has shown that vision helps the brain to match what it sees to the other senses and as such has shown how the sensory systems work and communicate with each other.
Within the neuroscience field there is a lot of testing on ‘model organisms’ like mice, flies and zebrafish. As a result, Blakemore has been a ‘hate figure’ for the animal rights movement. His support of testing on animals has seen him endure assaults by masked terrorists, bombs sent to his children and letters laced with razor blades. In 2003 he was denied a knighthood due to his high-profile association with animal experiments, at which point he threatened to resign from his post as chief executive of the Medical Research Council.
Blakemore refused to give in to the threats, saying that “giving in would have made that kind of campaign more effective”. He has done a lot of projects on the radio and television, communicating science to the public, and ‘never doubted the principle of public engagement’ even when receiving threats from animal rights activists. Blakemore continued his work, and much to his surprise in 2014 he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Blakemore’s list of professional achievements is vast. He is currently a Professor of Neuroscience and Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study at University of London and Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. His previous posts include executive chair of the Medical Research Council, council chairman of the British Science Association and commissioner of the UK Drug Policy Commission. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1992 and chaired the Society’s recent Brain Waves project.