Max Bennett (scientist)
| Max Bennett (neuroscientist) | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | February 19, 1939 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Fields | Neuroscience of synapses |
| Known for | NANC synapses; Calcium impulses; Synapse formation & regression; Synapse loss & grey matter changes; Energetics of synapse function. |
| Influences | Charles Sherrington, Bernard Katz, Ludwig Wittgenstein |
Maxwell Richard Bennett (born February 19, 1939) is an Australian neuroscientist specializing in the function of synapses.
Max Bennett was a student at Christian Brothers College, St Kilda and did his undergraduate work in electrical engineering and physics at Melbourne University in 1959, where he founded the Athenian Society dedicated to understanding Plato, Aristotle and Wittgenstein. His interest in brain and mind led to postgraduate research in biology on synapses (1963 – 1966). In 1968 he took up a position as lecturer in physiology at Sydney University, where he was later awarded in 1980 the first and largest Centre of Research Excellence of the 10 established by the Australian Government over all disciplines within Australian universities. He was then appointed Personal Chair, the second in the University’s history, subsequently being made Professor of Neuroscience. In 2000 he was elected to the first University Chair (‘for research recognized internationally as of exceptional distinction’), and in 2003 he was made Founding Director of the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Sydney, a position he still holds in 2014 at 75.
Following his graduation in electrical engineering in 1963, and the beginning of his postgraduate research in biology, Bennett discovered that the accepted paradigm of nearly 50 years, that there are only two transmitters, noradrenaline and acetylcholine, was incorrect there being at least two other transmitters. These non-adrenergic and non-cholinergic (NANC) transmitters act on smooth muscle cells, they generate action potentials due to the influx of calcium ions, the first to be identified. In the succeeding years Bennett and his colleagues elucidated how NANC transmission, involving purines, neuropeptides and nitric oxide, is affected. In 1972 he discovered that lesioned nerve terminals are precisely reconstituted at the same site on a striated muscle cell, indicating the existence of synapse formation molecules on muscle cells. In 2001 Bennett and colleagues showed that once a nerve terminal is established the glial ensheathing cells can guide the formation of new synapses on mature muscle cells in a matter of minutes. In 2007 he observed that microglial cells of the brain can conduct calcium waves that are mediated by the release of NANC transmitters (purines), opening up the study of the interaction of the immune and nervous systems at the level of the synapse.
...
Wikipedia