14 Facts About Jerzy Konorski

Jerzy Konorski was a Polish neurophysiologist who further developed the work of Ivan Pavlov by discovering secondary conditioned reflexes and operant conditioning.

Jerzy Konorski proposed the idea of gnostic neurons, a concept similar to the grandmother cell.

Jerzy Konorski coined the term neural plasticity, and he developed theoretical ideas regarding it that are similar to those proposed soon after by Donald Hebb.

Jerzy Konorski spent two years at Pavlov's laboratory as the result of a letter that he sent to Pavlov describing this work.

Skinner and Jerzy Konorski occurred over the two types of learning.

Jerzy Konorski married the neurophysiologist Liliana Lubinska, who obtained her doctorate with Louis Lapicque.

Jerzy Konorski asked how pre-existing connections between neurons in the brain could be changed by conditioning.

Jerzy Konorski suggested an idea similar to Hebb in which coincidental activation in time causes the potential connections to be transformed into actual excitatory connections.

Jerzy Konorski first proposed two key concepts in neuroscience.

Jerzy Konorski was the author of two important books on learning, Conditioned Reflexes and Neuron Organization, and Integrative Activity of the Brain.

Jerzy Konorski failed to get to England to join his brother who lived there.

Jerzy Konorski managed to escape to the Soviet Union where he was appointed the head of the primate laboratory at Sukhumi on the Black Sea in Georgia.

Jerzy Konorski spent much of World War II at Sukhumi treating traumatic injuries of the central nervous system.

Later Jerzy Konorski became a foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences.