Paris (AFP)
The neurobiologist Jacques Glowinski, professor at the College de France and specialist in the pharmacology of the brain and the functioning of psychotropic drugs, has died at the age of 84, the institution announced on Friday.
Jacques Glowinski was "an exceptional scientist who left his mark on generations of researchers", salutes the Collège de France, of which he was honorary administrator from 2000 to 2006. The institution pays homage to "a builder to whom we owe the renovation and modernization of the Collège de France, whose originality and generous openness to all audiences he embodied ".
Holder of the chair of neuropharmacology within the institution (1982-2006), and author of the "Brain-architect", Jacques Glowinski is considered to be one of the initiators in France of biochemical neuropharmacology, a scientific discipline which studies the whose drugs act on the central nervous system.
"We are inventing a new brain chemistry", he explained in an interview with the Express in 2002.
"For several years, we have better understood brain function, we have identified substances that play a role in mental states and we are treating mental illnesses with more effective drugs", the researcher developed.
His work thus made it possible to join the two disciplines of the study of the brain and pharmacology, and thus to understand how certain psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, anxiolitics ...), previously used "blind", acted on the brain , by playing in particular on the concentration of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine.
Jacques Glowinski was also director of research at Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research), member of the Academy of Sciences and Commander in the National Order of the Legion of Honor.
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