V. S. Ramachandran | |
|---|---|
 Ramachandran at the 2011 Time 100 gala | |
| Born | Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran 10 August 1951 |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Research in neurology, visual perception, phantom limbs, synesthesia, autism, body integrity identity disorder, mirror therapy |
| Awards | Henry Dale Medal (2005), Padma Bhushan (2007), Scientist of the Year (ARCS Foundation) (2014) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | University of California, San Diego |
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a distinguished professor in UCSD's Department of Psychology, where he is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition.
After earning a medical degree in India, Ramachandran studied experimental neuroscience at Cambridge, obtaining his PhD there in 1978.[1] Most of his research has been in the fields of behavioral neurology and visual psychophysics. After early work on human vision, Ramachandran turned to work on wider aspects of neurology including phantom limbs and phantom pain. Ramachandran also performed the world's first "phantom limb amputation" surgeries by inventing the mirror therapy, which is now widely used for reducing phantom pains (and eliminating phantom sensations altogether in long term), and also for helping to restore motor control in stroke victims with weakened limbs.
Ramachandran's popular books Phantoms in the Brain (1998), The Tell-Tale Brain (2010), and others describe neurological and clinical studies of people with synesthesia, Capgras syndrome, and a wide range of other unusual conditions. Ramachandran has also described his work in many public lectures, including lectures for the BBC, and two official TED talks. Both his scientific research and his popularization of science have been recognized with multiple awards.
- ^ Ramachandran, Vilayanur (1978). Studies on binocular vision. Cambridge University. Retrieved 25 January 2022.