About Jean-Pierre Changeux
Jean-Pierre Changeux is a French neuroscientist known for his research in several fields of biology, from the structure and function of 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, the theory of epigenesis by synapse selection and the global neuronal workspace theory for conscious processing 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. Changeux then left France for postdoctoral studies first at the University of California Berkeley (1965–1966) then at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York (1967). In addition to the allosteric modulation of the channel gating by the agonists, many other regulations of the ligand-gated ion channels activity have since been discovered. The group of Changeux was among the firsts to elucidate the primary structure of the subunits of the receptor, in parallel with the group of Shosaku Numa and Stephen Heinemann.
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