David H. Hubel (1926–2013)

Abstract

The humble epithet ‘Inventor of the tungsten microelectrode’ should be enough to secure David Hubel’s place in the neuroscience pantheon: his invention has been a ubiquitous tool for over half a century. One only needs to read a few key papers, however, to discover that not only was David Hubel that rarity in neuroscience — a wordsmith — but, in tandem with Torsten Wiesel, with whom he shared the Nobel Prize in 1981, he shaped an experimental and conceptual landscape we still traverse.