Bryan Kolb was the first to demonstrate how the regrowth of brain cells accompanies restoration of brain function and the first to show, with Terry Robinson, that psychoactive drugs change neuronal structures and networks permanently and in a manner such that later neuroplasticity is altered.
24 Facts About Bryan Kolb
1.
2.
Bryan Kolb has contributed extensively to the literature of neuroplasticity during development and in response to experience, drugs, hormones and injury; including how these changes influence behavior.
3.
Bryan Kolb has published over 400 articles and chapters including co-authoring popular textbooks in neuropsychology and behavioral neuroscience.
4.
Bryan Kolb is a professor of Neuroscience and holds a Board of Governors' Research Chair in Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge.
5.
Bryan Kolb is a primary investigator at the Canadian Centre for Behavioral Neuroscience which he was key in establishing.
6.
In 2016 Bryan Kolb was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada.
7.
Bryan Edward Kolb was born in 1947 in Calgary, Canada.
8.
Bryan Kolb's father Jack Bryan Kolb was actively pursuing success in the Calgary's burgeoning oil industry in the 1950s, and his mother Virginia was a professional dancer turned stay-at-home mother.
9.
From a very early age Bryan Kolb gravitated to precision measurements.
10.
Bryan Kolb later attended the University of Calgary planning to enter law school after obtaining an undergraduate in Psychology.
11.
However Bryan Kolb became fascinated by the work of eminent human brain researchers such as fellow Canadians Brenda Milner and Wilder Penfield who performed lesion studies.
12.
Bryan Kolb completed his studies in Calgary with both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Psychology.
13.
Bryan Kolb completed his PhD in psychology in 1973 at Pennsylvania State University, under the supervision of John Michael Warren.
14.
Bryan Kolb returned to Canada to do postdoctoral work in electrophysiology with Cornelius Vanderwolf from 1973 to 1975, followed by additional postdoctoral work at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University studying brain-injured patients with Brenda Milner.
15.
Bryan Kolb was offered a research position at the MNI from Milner but chose instead to accept a professorship at the University of Lethbridge where he could pursue his own research focusing on the comparative physiology of the rat and human diseases including Parkinson's Disease, Stroke and developmental disorders.
16.
Bryan Kolb is likely best known for his textbook, Fundamentals of Neuropsychology, as of 2019 in its seventh edition and in multiple languages, which he wrote with his longtime colleague, Ian Whishaw.
17.
Bryan Kolb was influential in transforming the originally 5170 m Life Sciences Building on the campus of the University of Lethbridge into the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience.
18.
Bryan Kolb is a theme leader for the Canadian Stroke Network and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia and University of Calgary, as well as the Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Calgary, Alberta.
19.
In parallel, Bryan Kolb began to study the role of age in understanding the effects of early brain injury and he published seminal papers showing that the effects of early brain injury varied exquisitely with the precise age and that at certain ages there was remarkable neuronal plasticity leading to functional restitution whereas at other ages the outcome was abysmal,.
20.
Bryan Kolb was the first to show that some treatments stimulate neurogenesis in the neocortex, which underlies some of the recovery.
21.
Bryan Kolb has been given four honorary degrees and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
22.
Bryan Kolb is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Canadian Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science.
23.
Bryan Kolb is a recipient of the Killam Fellowship a from the Canada Council along with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.
24.
Bryan Kolb has been a senior Fellow with Canadian Institutes for Advanced Research since 2003.