David H.

Hubel
David Hunter Hubel FRS (February 27, 1926 –
September 22, 2013) was an American Canadian David H. Hubel
neurophysiologist noted for his studies of the structure
and function of the visual cortex. He was co-recipient
with Torsten Wiesel of the 1981 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine (shared with Roger W.
Sperry), for their discoveries concerning information
processing in the visual system. For much of his
career, Hubel worked as the Professor of Neurobiology
at Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Medical
School. In 1978, Hubel and Wiesel were awarded the
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia
University.[4][5][6] In 1983, Hubel received the Golden
Plate Award of the American Academy of
Achievement.[7]

Hubel in 1992
Early life and education
Born David Hunter Hubel
Hubel was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, to February 27, 1926
American parents in 1926. His grandfather emigrated Windsor, Ontario, Canada
as a child to the United States from the Bavarian town Died September 22, 2013 (aged 87)
of Nördlingen. In 1929, his family moved to Montreal, Lincoln, Massachusetts, U.S.
where he spent his formative years. His father was a Nationality American-Canadian[3]
chemical engineer and Hubel developed a keen interest
Alma mater McGill University
in science right from childhood, making many
experiments in chemistry and electronics.[3] From age Known for Visual system
six to eighteen, he attended Strathcona Academy in Spouse Ruth Izzard ​(m. 1953)​
Outremont, Quebec, about which he said, "[I owe] Awards Rosenstiel Award (1971)
much to the excellent teachers there, especially to Julia
Karl Spencer Lashley Award
Bradshaw, a dedicated, vivacious history teacher with a
(1977)
memorable Irish temper, who awakened me to the
possibility of learning how to write readable Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize (1978)
English."[3] He studied mathematics and physics at Dickson Prize (1980)
McGill University, and then completed medical school Nobel Prize in Physiology or
there in 1951 and followed that with three years of Medicine (1981)
ForMemRS (1982)[1][2]
Ralph W. Gerard Prize in
Neuroscience (1993)

Scientific career
residency (a year of internship and two of residency in Fields Neurophysiologist
neurology) at the Montreal General Institutions Johns Hopkins School of
Hospital. [3][8][9][10][11][12]
Medicine
Harvard University

Career
In 1954, Hubel moved to the United States to work at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an assistant
resident in Neurology.[12] He was later drafted by the army and served at Walter Reed Army Institute of
Research (WRAIR). There, he began recording from the primary visual cortex of sleeping and awake
cats. At WRAIR, he invented the modern metal microelectrode out of Stoner-Mudge lacquer and
tungsten, and the modern hydraulic microdrive, which he had to learn basic machinist skills to produce.
In 1958, Hubel moved to Johns Hopkins and began his collaborations with Wiesel, and discovered
orientation selectivity and columnar organization in the visual cortex. One year later, he joined the faculty
of Harvard University. In 1981, Hubel became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[13]
From 1988 to 1989 he was the president of the Society for Neuroscience. He was a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the United States National Academy of Sciences, and the
American Philosophical Society.[14][15][16]

Research
The Hubel and Wiesel experiments greatly expanded the scientific
knowledge of sensory processing. The partnership lasted over twenty
years and became known as one of the most prominent research pairings
in science.[17] In one experiment, done in 1959, they inserted a
microelectrode into the primary visual cortex of an anesthetized cat. They
then projected patterns of light and dark on a screen in front of the cat.
They found that some neurons fired rapidly when presented with lines at
one angle, while others responded best to another angle. Some of these
neurons responded to light patterns and dark patterns differently. Hubel
Hubel in his lab, 1980 and Wiesel called these neurons simple cells."[18] Still other neurons,
which they termed complex cells, detected edges regardless of where they
were placed in the receptive field of the neuron and could preferentially
detect motion in certain directions.[19] These studies showed how the visual system constructs complex
representations of visual information from simple stimulus features.[20]

Hubel and Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for two major contributions: firstly, their work on the
development of the visual system, which involved a description of ocular dominance columns in the
1960s and 1970s; and secondly, their work establishing a foundation for visual neurophysiology,
describing how signals from the eye are processed by visual parcels in the neo-cortex to generate edge
detectors, motion detectors, stereoscopic depth detectors, and color detectors, building blocks of the
visual scene. By depriving kittens of using one eye, they showed that columns in the primary visual
cortex receiving inputs from the other eye took over the areas that would normally receive input from the
deprived eye. This has important implications for the understanding of deprivation amblyopia, a type of
visual loss due to unilateral visual deprivation during the so-called critical period. These kittens also did
not develop areas receiving input from both eyes, a feature needed for binocular vision. Hubel and
Wiesel's experiments showed that the ocular dominance develops irreversibly early in childhood
development. These studies opened the door for the understanding and treatment of childhood cataracts
and strabismus. They were also important in the study of cortical plasticity.[20]

Furthermore, the understanding of sensory processing in animals served as inspiration for the SIFT
descriptor (Lowe, 1999), which is a local feature used in computer vision for tasks such as object
recognition and wide-baseline matching, etc. The SIFT descriptor is arguably the most widely used
feature type for these tasks. Hubel was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in
1982.[1]

Personal life
Hubel married Ruth Izzard in 1953; she died February 17, 2013.[21] The couple had three sons and four
grandchildren.[17] He died in Lincoln, Massachusetts, from kidney failure on September 22, 2013, at the
age of 87.[22][23]

See also
Neocognitron

References
1. "Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660-2015" (https://web.archive.org/web/20151015185820/
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah128
gQR-NM/pubhtml). London: Royal Society. Archived from the original (https://docs.google.co
m/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah128gQR-NM/pubhtml) on
2015-10-15.
2. Wurtz, Robert H. (2016). "David Hunter Hubel. 27 February 1926 — 22 September 2013" (ht
tps://doi.org/10.1098%2Frsbm.2016.0022). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal
Society. 62. London: Royal Society: 233–246. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2016.0022 (https://doi.org/1
0.1098%2Frsbm.2016.0022).
3. David H. Hubel (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/423) on Nobelprize.org , accessed 11
October 2020
4. Hubel, D. H.; Wiesel, T. N. (1959). "Receptive fields of single neurones in the cat's striate
cortex" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1363130). The Journal of
Physiology. 124 (3): 574–591. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1959.sp006308 (https://doi.org/10.111
3%2Fjphysiol.1959.sp006308). PMC 1363130 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P
MC1363130). PMID 14403679 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14403679).
5. Hubel, D. H.; Wiesel, T. N. (1962). "Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional
architecture in the cat's visual cortex" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13595
23). The Journal of Physiology. 160 (45): 106–154. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1962.sp006837 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1113%2Fjphysiol.1962.sp006837). PMC 1359523 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC1359523). PMID 14449617 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1444961
7).
 6. Livingstone, M.; Hubel, D. (1988). "Segregation of form, color, movement, and depth:
Anatomy, physiology, and perception". Science. 240 (4853): 740–749.
Bibcode:1988Sci...240..740L (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988Sci...240..740L).
doi:10.1126/science.3283936 (https://doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.3283936). PMID 3283936
(https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3283936).
7. "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement" (https://achievement.or
g/our-history/golden-plate-awards/#science-exploration). www.achievement.org. American
Academy of Achievement.
8. David H. Hubel, Torsten N. Wiesel. Brain and Visual Perception: The Story of a 25-Year
Collaboration. Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN 0195176189
9. "Eye, Brain, and Vision" (https://web.archive.org/web/20201115043056/http://hubel.med.har
vard.edu/index.html). Hubel.med.harvard.edu. Archived from the original (http://hubel.med.h
arvard.edu/index.html) on 2020-11-15. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
10. "Hubel, David H., 1926- .Papers, 1953-2005 (inclusive), 1966-1991 (bulk): Finding Aid" (htt
p://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HMS.Count:med00112). Nrs.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
11. "David H. Hubel, MD" (https://cdnmedhall.ca/laureates/davidhubel). Canadian Medical Hall
of Fame. Retrieved 2021-10-17.
12. "David H. Hubel Biographical" (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1981/hubel/biogr
aphical/). The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 2021-10-17.
13. "About Us" (http://www.consejoculturalmundial.org/about-us/). World Cultural Council.
Retrieved November 8, 2016.
14. "David Hunter Hubel" (https://www.amacad.org/person/david-hunter-hubel). American
Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
15. "David H. Hubel" (http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/54354.ht
ml). www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
16. "APS Member History" (https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=David+H.+Hu
bel&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanc
ed). search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-06-06.
17. Denise Gellene (24 September 2013): David Hubel, Nobel-Winning Scientist, Dies at 87 (htt
ps://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/science/david-hubel-nobel-winning-scientist-dies-at-87.ht
ml?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hpw) The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2013
18. David H. Hubel and Torsten N. Wiesel (2005). Brain and visual perception: the story of a 25-
year collaboration (https://books.google.com/books?id=8YrxWojxUA4C&pg=PA106). Oxford
University Press US. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-19-517618-6.
19. Hubel, David (1993). "Eye, Brain and Vision" (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F362419a0).
Nature. 362 (6419): 419. Bibcode:1993Natur.362..419S (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1
993Natur.362..419S). doi:10.1038/362419a0 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F362419a0).
S2CID 35236366 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:35236366)., Chapter 4, pg 16
20. Goldstein (2001). Sensation and Perception (6th ed.). London: Wadsworth.
21. Boston Globe: Shirley Ruth (Izzard) Hubel (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bostonglobe/ob
ituary.aspx?pid=163217003#fbLoggedOut) Legacy.com. Retrieved 25 September 2013
22. Shatz, C. J. (2013). "David Hunter Hubel (1926–2013) Neuroscientist who helped to reveal
how the brain processes visual information" (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F502625a). Nature.
502 (7473): 625. doi:10.1038/502625a (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F502625a).
PMID 24172972 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24172972).
23. Botelho, Alyssa A. (2013-09-24). "David H. Hubel, Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist, dies
at 87" (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/david-h-hubel-nobel-prize-winning-
neuroscientist-dies-at-87/2013/09/23/5a227c2c-7167-11e2-ac36-3d8d9dcaa2e2_story.htm
l). The Washington Post. Retrieved 2013-09-24.
External links
David H. Hubel (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/423) on Nobelprize.org
David H. Hubel papers, 1953-2005 (inclusive), 1966-1991 (bulk) H MS c 253. Harvard
Medical Library, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass. (https://id.lib.harvar
d.edu/ead/med00112/catalog)
Robert H. Wurtz, "David H. Hubel", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of
Sciences (2014) (http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/h
ubel-david.pdf)

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