Neil Burgess (neuroscientist) explained

Neil Burgess
Birth Date:13 July 1966
Birth Place:Oakington, Cambridgeshire, England
Fields:Neuroscience
Workplaces:University College London
Education:
Alma Mater:
Thesis Title:Neural networks, human memory and optimisation
Thesis Url:https://search.proquest.com/docview/898727392
Thesis Year:1990
Doctoral Advisor:Michael Moore[1]
Awards:Royal Society University Research Fellowship
Children:3

Neil Burgess [2] (born 13 July 1966) is a British neuroscientist. He has been a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London since 2004[3] and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow since 2011.[4] He has made important contributions to understanding memory and spatial cognition by developing computational models relating behaviour to activity in biological neural networks.

Early life and education

Neil Burgess was born on 13 July 1966 in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, to Alan and Lore Burgess . He was educated at three schools in Cambridge: Newnham Croft Primary School, Parkside Community College, and Hills Road Sixth Form College.

Burgess studied mathematics and physics as an undergraduate at University College London, graduating with first-class honours in 1987. He then completed postgraduate study in theoretical physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, supervised by Michael Moore,[1] [5] where he began working on models of memory with Graham Hitch. Burgess was awarded a PhD in 1990.[1]

Research and career

Burgess has developed models to explain how networks of neurons allow us to represent, remember and imagine our location within the surrounding environment. These models provide a quantitative understanding of how spatial memory,[6] episodic memory and autobiographical memory[7] function (and dysfunction) depend on human brain activity. With Tom Hartley at the University of York and Colin Lever at Durham University he both predicted and discovered neurons representing environmental boundaries.[8]

Awards and honours

Burgess was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2009 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2017[9] having previously held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 1993 to 2001.

Personal life

Burgess married Cathryn Jane McDowell in 1997. They have two sons and one daughter.

Notes and References

  1. PhD . Neil. Burgess . Neural networks, human memory and optimisation . University of Manchester . 1990 . . manchester.ac.uk.
  2. Web site: Neil Burgess FMedSci. acmedsci.ac.uk. Anon. 2009. 17 August 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20180719174209/https://acmedsci.ac.uk/fellows/fellows-directory/ordinary-fellows/professor-neil-burgess. 19 July 2018. dead.
  3. Web site: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Director: Professor Neil Burgess FMedSci FRS. University College London. Anon. 2017. 17 August 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20160417124642/http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/Staff-Lists/MemberDetails.php?Title=Prof&FirstName=Neil&LastName=Burgess. 17 April 2016. dead.
  4. Web site: Anon. 2017. Professor Neil Burgess. University College London. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20130410005735/http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=NBURG72. 2013-04-10. dmy-all.
  5. Burgess. Neil. Shapiro. Jonathan L.. Moore. Michael A.. Neural network models of list learning. Network: Computation in Neural Systems. 2. 4. 1991. 399–422. 0954-898X. 10.1088/0954-898X_2_4_005.
  6. Burgess. Neil. Maguire. Eleanor A. O'Keefe. John. The Human Hippocampus and Spatial and Episodic Memory. Neuron. 35. 4. 625–641. 10.1016/s0896-6273(02)00830-9. 12194864. 2002. 11989085. free.
  7. Lin. Wen-Jing. Horner. Aidan J.. Burgess. Neil. 2016. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex, adding value to autobiographical memories. Scientific Reports. 6. 1. 28630. 10.1038/srep28630. 2045-2322. 4919650. 27338616. 2016NatSR...628630L .
  8. Hartley. Tom. Lever. Colin. Burgess. Neil. O'Keefe. John. Space in the brain: how the hippocampal formation supports spatial cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 369. 1635. 2013. 20120510. 0962-8436. 10.1098/rstb.2012.0510. 24366125 . 3866435 .
  9. Web site: Professor Neil Burgess FMedSci FRS. Anon. 2017. London. royalsociety.org. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: