Peter Sterling (neuroscientist)

For the rugby league commentator, see Peter Sterling (rugby league).
Peter Sterling
Born (1940-06-28) June 28, 1940 (age 84)[3]
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materNew York University Medical School, Cornell University, Western Reserve University (Ph.D.)
Known forallostasis
AwardsProctor Medal (2012), American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Award) in Biological & Life Sciences (2016)[1][2]
Scientific career
Fieldsneuroscience, biological psychiatry, endocrinology
InstitutionsUniversity of Pennsylvania
Doctoral advisorHans Kuypers
Other academic advisorsHoward Allen Schneiderman, David H. Hubel, Torsten Wiesel
Doctoral studentsGillian Einstein
Other notable studentsPeter Strick
Websitehttps://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g275/p7333

Peter Sterling (born June 28, 1940) is an American anatomist, physiologist and neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is the author of What Is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (2020), and with Simon Laughlin, is an author of Principles of Neural Design.

Early life

Peter Sterling was born in 1940 in New York city to Phillip and Dorothy Sterling, writers and advocates for progressive causes.[4] His sister is the noted researcher and professor Anne Fausto-Sterling. At the age of twenty, while a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, he was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for participating in a Freedom Ride.[5][6] He was set free after paying a fine[4] and/or by mediation by Howard Allen Schneiderman, who recruited him to experimental biology.[7]

Career

Peter Sterling attended New York University Medical School for two years, but voluntarily dropped out in order to study neuroanatomy.[4] He received his PhD from Western Reserve University, where he worked on the anatomical organisation of the spinal cord.[8][4]

Later he provided significant contributions to the knowledge about three-dimensional retinal microanatomy.[4]

In 1980 he was appointed professor of neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.[4]

Together with Joseph Eyer, Peter Sterling coined the term allostasis for "stability through change",[9] which is now enjoying growing scientific attention, especially in the context of allostatic load.

References

  1. ^ "Peter Sterling". The MIT Press. Retrieved 26 October 2019.
  2. ^ "2016 Award Winners". PROSE Awards. Retrieved 27 October 2019.
  3. ^ "LOC Entry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Masland, Richard H. (28 March 2013). "Introducing Peter Sterling, the 2012 Recipient of the Proctor Medal". Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. 54 (3): 2266. doi:10.1167/iovs.12-10693. PMID 23539165.
  5. ^ The Civil Rights Digital Library. "Sterling, Peter". crdl.usg.edu. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  6. ^ Relyea, Alison Cupp (12 March 2019). "Peter Sterling Reflects on the 1960s and Rye". Medium. Retrieved 29 October 2019.
  7. ^ Sterling P. Principles of Allostasis: Optimal Design, Predictive Regulation, Pathophysiology, and Rational Therapeutics. In: Schulkin J. Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 2004. ISBN 0521811414
  8. ^ Sterling, P; Kuypers, HG (February 1967). "Anatomical organization of the brachial spinal cord of the cat. I. The distribution of dorsal root fibers". Brain Research. 4 (1): 1–15. doi:10.1016/0006-8993(67)90144-8. PMID 4166091.
  9. ^ Sterling P; Eyer J (1988) Allostasis: a new paradigm to explain arousal pathology. In: Handbook of Life Stress, Cogintion and Health (Fisher S; Reason J, eds), pp 629-649. New York, NY: J. Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0471912697

Selected works

  1. Stevens JK, Davis TL, Friedman N, Sterling P. A systematic approach to reconstructing microcircuitry by electron microscopy of serial sections. Brain Res. 1980 Dec;2(3):265-93. PMID 6258704.
  2. Sterling P, Eyer J. Biological basis of stress-related mortality. Soc Sci Med E. 1981 Feb;15(1):3-42. PMID 7020084.
  3. Sterling P. Deciphering the retina's wiring diagram. Nat Neurosci. 1999 Oct;2(10):851-3. PMID 10491597.
  4. Sterling P. Principles of Allostasis: Optimal Design, Predictive Regulation, Pathophysiology, and Rational Therapeutics. In: Schulkin J. Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 2004. ISBN 0521811414
  5. Sterling P. Allostasis: a model of predictive regulation. Physiol Behav. 2012 Apr 12;106(1):5-15. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.004. Epub 2011 Jun 12. PMID 21684297.
  6. Sterling P, Laughlin S. Principles of Neural Design. MIT Press 2015. ISBN 9780262028707
  7. Sterling P. Predictive regulation and human design. Elife. 2018 Jun 29;7. pii: e36133. doi: 10.7554/eLife.36133. PMID 29957178
  8. Schulkin J, Sterling P. Allostasis: A Brain-Centered, Predictive Mode of Physiological Regulation. Trends Neurosci. 2019 Oct;42(10):740-752. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2019.07.010. PMID 31488322.