Cajal Club In the pursuit of Brain Structure and Function    The Cajal Club was founded on April 3, 1947 at a meeting of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA). The founding members were notable neuroanatomists of their day and included W.J. Krieg (the moving force behind the Cajal Club), E.H. Craigie (a former student of Cajal and translator of Cajal’s Recollections), P.J. Harman, C.A. Fox, R. F. Becker, G.C. Clark, J.H. Graves, D.S. Jones, A.A. Pearson, D.C. Hetherington, A.V. Jensen, G.L. Rasmussen, C.M. Berry and T.L. Peele. It is reported in the Proceedings of the Cajal Club that Wendell J.S. Krieg (President for the first 5 years of the Cajal Club’s existence) went to this AAA meeting with the desire and intention of initiating an organization of neuroanatomists. It is significant to note that the original covenant of the Cajal Club specified that one of its main aims was to revere Cajal. Furthermore, the Cajal Club promoted friendly scientific discussions between neuroanatomists and continues to do so to this day with its annual scientific and social agendas. From this small group of founders sprang many important scientific contributions and the Cajal Club has grown to over 500 members throughout the world. Since its inception in 1947 to 2003, the Cajal Club met continuously with the AAA; in 2004 the Cajal Club switched its venue to the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. In May 2001, the Cajal Club held its First International Meeting at the Cajal Institute in Madrid, Spain. This meeting was the first time the club met outside North America and it should be noted that the title of the meeting was “Changing Views of Cajal’s Neuron.” A book based on the proceedings of this meeting was published to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Cajal’s birth. The chapters in this book emphasize the importance of Cajal’s contributions and how current research indicates that his ideas are still relevant and essential for understanding brain function. Two subsequent International Meetings were held in Stockholm, Sweden in 2006 and Juriquilla, Queretaro, Mexico in 2007. The Cajal Club is unique in many other ways. All of the officers are named after parts of the neuron. For example, the president-elect is referred to as the Nissl Body, the president is the Nucleolus, and the past-president is the lipofuscin granule. Another notable feature of the Cajal Club is its link to Spain and Cajal’s life. Several of the club’s banquet speakers provided lectures over the years on topics ranging from “A Visit to Cajal’s Spain” to “The Zaragosa Period: An Early Portfolio.” It should be noted that the son of Cajal received an honorary lifetime membership certificate from the Cajal Club and this certificate was observed in Cajal’s home in Madrid by several club officers who toured it in 2001. A final example of the Cajal Club’s unique character is the fact that in May, 2001, the Cajal Club presented the King of Spain Don Juan Carlos I with a Cajal Medal (Krieg Achievement Award) and certificate for his enduring support for Cajal’s legacy by supporting the Cajal Institute (http://www.cajal.csic.es). It is indeed rare for any scientific organization to award royalty with medals. Thus, through its various activities the Cajal Club will certainly continue to show its respect for the profoundly important contributions of Santiago Ramón y Cajal well into this new century. PREVIOUS KRIEG CORTICAL DISCOVERER WINNERS Gyorgy Buzsaki Javier DeFelipe Irving T. Diamond David Fitzpatrick Tamas Freund Apostolos Georgopoulos Charles D. Gilbert Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic Edward G. Jones Jon Kaas Harvey Karten Herbert P. Killackey Jennifer S. Lund Miguel Marin-Padilla Michael M. Merzenich Vernon B. Mountcastle Dennis D.M. O'Leary Deepak N. Pandya Alan Peters Pasko Rakic John Rubenstein Wolf Singer Peter Somogyi Leslie G. Ungerleider David Van Essen Edward White Thomas Woolsey Pinckney J. Harman Memorial Lecturers 2001-2007 2001 - Fred H Gage, Regulation and function of neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus 2002 - Carla J Shatz, Neural activity, immune genes and synaptic remodeling in brain development 2003 - Oswald Steward, Protein synthesis at the synapse: Mechanisms and role in synapse function 2005 - Mark D'Esposito, Where bottom-up meets top-down: Neural mechanisms of cognitive control 2006 - Bert Sakmann, Cortical microcircuits and maps: Structure and function 2007 - Ranulfo Romo, Neural codes for perceptual decisions