Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit

This is an historical archive of the activities of the MRC Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit (MRC ANU) that operated at the University of Oxford from 1985 until March 2015. The MRC ANU established a reputation for world-leading research on the brain, for training new generations of scientists, and for engaging the general public in neuroscience. The successes of the MRC ANU are now built upon at the MRC Brain Network Dynamics Unit at the University of Oxford.

News- A warm welcome to Ray

8 Jun 2010
Professor Ray GuilleryProfessor Ray Guillery

We are delighted to announce that Professor Ray Guillery has joined the Unit as Honorary Emeritus Research Fellow. Ray Guillery is a neuroanatomist who entered University College London as a medical student in 1948 and taught there for 11 years, moving in 1964 to Madison, Wisconsin, where he helped to establish a new graduate neuroscience programme. In 1977 he moved to the University of Chicago to lead another new graduate neuroscience programme and in 1984 returned to England as Head of the Department of Human Anatomy at Oxford. He helped to continue and strengthen the interest in the CNS and encouraged developmental research. He retired in 1996 and moved back to Madison to a small research programme and some teaching. In 2006 he moved to Istanbul to do research at Marmara University and to be close to his daughter and grandchildren. He has studied the hypothalamus, the visual pathways and, most recently, the thalamus. He was a pioneering electron microscopist and clarified the synaptic organization of the lateral geniculate nucleus. His focus on the lateral geniculate nucleus led to his recognition of the mechanisms underlying the development of structural abnormalities in the visual system of albino animals. With Murray Sherman he has formulated an influential concept of thalamo-cortical communication, which he continues to develop. He was the founding editor of the European Journal of Neuroscience.