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- Page navigation anchor for RE: Bruce McEwen passingRE: Bruce McEwen passing
Driving to work early this morning in LA, after receiving the news from Michael Meaney regarding the death of Bruce McEwen, I was numb. My mind wandered, realizing how much we take for granted, in science and medicine, being touched by greatness. Maybe we know at the time, but we don’t take a deep breath and appreciate the profoundness of our colleagues and friends – the impact that they have on our values, the very high bar that they help set for us – and the acknowledgement that we are all in this to make a difference, no matter how small, no matter how large. Bruce was all of that and more to the field of neuroscience and biomedicine, to the Academies that he loved so much, to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, whose members he adored and who adored him, and to me personally, for being so supportive of whatever crazy ideas I expressed to him regarding the biological impact of early life stress on children and the enduring effects across their lifespan; no one was more encyclopedic and no one was more caring about children and families who he hoped would benefit from the research in which we engage.
I will miss him deeply.
Competing Interests: None declared. - Page navigation anchor for In Memory of Bruce McEwenIn Memory of Bruce McEwen
On January 2, 2020, on the same day that this Viewpoint paper was published, Bruce McEwen passed away. His death marks the end of an era in affective neuroscience. Fifty-two years ago, Bruce brought the brain to the study of stress biology by demonstrating the existence of glucocorticoid binding sites in the hippocampus. This was but the start of a breathtaking sequence of foundational discoveries that Bruce and his colleagues have made over the decades, entirely re-framing our thinking about this most basic of functions- coping with our environment.
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Many of the concepts we currently take for granted arose from his work, including the effects of steroid hormones on neural structure and neuroplasticity, the concept of allostatic load, the differentiation between “good” and “bad” stress, and the impact of general health on stress vulnerability and resilience. Bruce also thought deeply about the importance of social context on stress biology and brain health. His vision ranged from the molecular and mechanistic to the societal and humanistic. This review gives a flavor of that thinking but barely touches on the breadth and depth of his influence.
Beyond being an intellectual giant, Bruce was a remarkable human. A love of knowledge, a passion for science, a prodigious memory blended miraculously with unassailable integrity, a generous and generative spirit, exemplary mentorship and the capacity for limitless kindness and friendship. I have never met a more civilize...Competing Interests: None declared.