Rodolfo R. Llinás is a Colombian neuroscientist and currently the Thomas and Suzanne Murphy Professor of Neuroscience and Chairman of the Department of Physiology & Neuroscience at the NYU School of Medicine. He attended the Gimnasio Moderno school and received his MD from the Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá and his PhD from the Australian National University working under Sir John Eccles. Llinás has published over 500 scientific articles.
Llinás has studied the electrophysiology of single neurons in the cerebellum, the thalamus, the cerebral cortex, the entorhinal cortex, the hippocampus, the vestibular system, the inferior olive and the spinal cord. He has studied synaptic transmitter release in the squid giant synapse. He has studied human brain function using magnetoencephalography (MEG) on the basis of which he introduced the concept of Thalamocortical dysrhythmia.
Llinás is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Real Academia Nacional de Medicina in Spain and the French Academy of Science. Dr. Llinás has received numerous honorary degrees from Universidad de Salamanca and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, and Universidad Complutense in Spain, the Universidad de los Andes and the National University of Colombia, Toyama University in Japan and the University of Pavia in Italy. He was also the chairman of NASA/Neurolab Science Working Group.
