Origins of molecular neurobiology: the role of the physicists.
Journal of the history of the neurosciences September 1, 2005 C U M Smith
Several prominent physicists in the early twentieth century, inspired by revolutions in their own field, moved into biology and helped launch molecular biology in the 1950s. Two decades later, some of these migrants and their followers turned to the nervous system, consciousness, and the mind-body problem. This paper reviews that "double migration" and argues that while no new physical principles were discovered in biology or neuroscience, the physicists' analytical mindset proved invaluable. The concept of the gene was transformed from a mysterious entity to a real molecular object, and similar progress has been made on neural gates and channels. Understanding at the molecular level sharpens the mind-body problem by defining the material substrate of consciousness.