Sir Charles Sherrington

Facts

Sir Charles Scott Sherrington

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Sir Charles Scott Sherrington
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1932

Born: 27 November 1857, London, United Kingdom

Died: 4 March 1952, Eastbourne, United Kingdom

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Prize motivation: “for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons”

Prize share: 1/2

Work

Our bodily functions are governed by our nervous system, which consists of many nerve cells with extensions, or nerve fibers, which form a system of connections between the brain and spinal cord and the rest of the body. Certain stimuli of nerve cells give rise to unconscious muscular movements, or reflexes. In the 1890s Charles Sherrington showed how muscular contractions are followed by relaxation and how different reflexes are part of a complicated interplay in which the spinal cord and brain process nerve impulses and turn them into new impulses to muscles and organs.

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MLA style: Sir Charles Sherrington – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Sat. 2 Dec 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1932/sherrington/facts/>

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