Fernando Nottebohm

Dr Fernando Nottebohm is a neuroscientist and is the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor at Rockefeller University as well as being head of the Laboratory of Animal Behavior and director of the Field Research Center for Ecology and Ethology.

While his contributions to neuroscience are substantial, he is most famous for providing definitive proof that neurogenesis occurs in the adult vertebrate brain, a notion that was considered impossible by most scientists beforehand. As quoted from the citation of his 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in life Science:

The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science is awarded to Fernando Nottebohm for his discovery of neuronal replacement in the adult vertebrate brain, and the elaboration of the mechanism and choreography of this phenomenon; and also for showing that neuronal stem cells are the responsible agents, thereby generating a completely new approach to the quest for cures for brain injury and degenerative disease.

He was born in Argentina and received his PhD in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 while working with Peter Marler. Afterwards, he worked on some pioneering studies of the song of the Rufous-collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis).