Jean-Pierre Changeux
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Interactions with the environment contribute to the formation of more and more complex neural organization, despite the meagre evolution of the genetic inheritance. Each generation renews this selective shaping of the brain by the environment. It is accomplished very rapidly compared with the geological time scale of the genome’s evolution. Epigenesis by selective stabilization saves time. The Darwinism of synapses replaces the Darwinism of genes." --Changeux, cited in PD |
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Jean-Pierre Changeux (born 6 April 1936) is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of proteins (with a focus on the allosteric proteins), to the early development of the nervous system up to cognitive functions. Although being famous in biological sciences for the MWC model, the identification and purification of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and the theory of epigenesis by synapse selection are also notable scientific achievements. Changeux is known by the non-scientific public for his ideas regarding the connection between mind and physical brain. As put forth in his book, Conversations on Mind, Matter and Mathematics, Changeux strongly supports the view that the nervous system functions in a projective rather than reactive style and that interaction with the environment, rather than being instructive, results in the selection amongst a diversity of preexisting internal representations.
