College mourns loss of Vernon Mountcastle '38, father of neuroscience

For his foundational work in neuroscience, Mountcastle was among the most decorated scientists of our time.

Dr. Vernon Mountcastle '38, who devoted his career to neuroscience and was universally considered the father of that discipline, died Jan. 11 at his home in Baltimore, Md. He was 96.

Mountcastle was best known for his discoveries on how nerve cells in the cerebral cortex are arranged in vertical columns, and that this arrangement directly relates to their collective function in processing sensory information. Published in a classic 1957 paper, this discovery is acclaimed as being foundational in the field of neuroscience.

"Dr. Mountcastle was an exemplar in taking what Roanoke offered and using it to change the world through science," said Michael C. Maxey, president of Roanoke College. "He was a giant in his field."
Dr. Darwin Jorgensen, Thornhill Professor of Biology at Roanoke, described Mountcastle as "one of the most remarkable, important and respected scientists of the 20th century. As researcher, mentor, author and visionary, his influence on the field of neuroscience has been profound. His discoveries served as the foundation for the work of others aimed at understanding how the human brain works."

Mountcastle entered Roanoke College in 1935, earning a baccalaureate degree in chemistry in three years. As a student at Roanoke, he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity and was characterized by his undergraduate colleagues as being "really smart," with a fondness for the poetry of Lord Byron.

Mountcastle graduated Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1942. During World War II, he served as physician-in-charge of an orthopedic ward at a field hospital in the Atlas Mountains and later served aboard several landing ship tanks.

In 1948, Mountcastle joined the Johns Hopkins faculty. He served as director of the Department of Physiology and as head of the Philip Bard Laboratories of Neurophysiology at Hopkins from 1963 to 1980.

Mountcastle chaired the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins for many years and was central to the establishment of Hopkins' Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, where he continued to work until his retirement at age 87.

A prolific author, Mountcastle wrote several books, sat on editorial boards of the most prestigious journals and served as a reviewer for research grant proposals submitted to the National Institutes of Health. He was among the most decorated scientists of our time. The only major award he did not receive was the Nobel Prize.

Mountcastle, who said in 2012: "I've always felt that I was lucky to have gone to Roanoke and have admired the institution my whole life," established a scholarship with his wife, Nancy Pierpont Mountcastle, in memory of their son, George Earle Pierpont Mountcastle. The scholarship is for students who have graduated from a public high school in Roanoke, Salem and Roanoke County and who meet the requirements for admission to Roanoke College's Honors Program. The Mountcastles' intent, according to the scholarship description, "is to support the most talented young people who attend Roanoke College." 

Read more about Dr. Mountcastle in this article, which was featured in a 2012 issue of the Roanoke College magazine.

Published Jan. 14, 2015