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 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.

6 April 1936

Born on the same birth date (6 April 1936): Helen Berman

Born on the same birth day (6 April): Arvid Horn • Black Francis • David Woodard • Felix-Raymond-Marie Rouleau • Ian MacRae • Ian Paisley • Jeff Faine • Mir Osman Ali Khan • Moritz Seider • Nadar • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine • Pasquale Paoli • Rafael Correa • Shannon Boyd-Bailey McCune • Tommi Evilä • Will Crooks

Born in the same month (April 1936): Abdul Qadeer Khan • Arlene Martel • David A. Hardy • Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild • John Howell (athlete) • John Madden • Pat Roberts • Pauli Ellefsen • Peter Collinson (film director) • Raymond Poulidor • Roy Orbison • Wilfried Martens • Zubin Mehta