Torsten N Wiesel

Wiesel, Torsten N. (Nils)

(1924–  ) neurobiologist; born in Uppsala, Sweden. He taught in Stockholm (1954–55), then came to the U.S.A. to join Johns Hopkins (1955–59). He relocated to Harvard (1959–83), where he performed pioneering research on the visual cortex of the brain. He and collaborator David Hubel shared half the 1981 Nobel Prize in physiology for their discovery of how the brain interprets the messages it receives from the eyes. After retiring from Harvard, Wiesel joined Rockefeller University (1983).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.