When scientists talk about the brain, they often lapse into the metaphor of the day. We’re hard-wired to do certain things; electrical impulses relay information within networks. Who, then, to better understand the circuitry of the brain than an electrical engineer?
"I’ve never had a neuroscience or biology course in my life," says Mriganka Sur, head of the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite that, Sur, who came to the US in 1974 at the age of 20, is a leader in the field.
Sur, a Bengali who grew up in Allahabad, did his engineering at IIT, Kanpur and went on to Vanderbilt University where he combined his love for biology and engineering by exploring the brain using electrical engineering principles.
The big question in biology is how an organism develops. "The interaction between nature and nurture is one of the foundational questions. I am privileged to have made a contribution to this question," says Sur.
Sur is most famous for swinging the debate firmly into the nurture camp. The brain may be wired a certain way but environment and input are very important in making the brain what it is. To prove that, Sur and his team redirected visual stimuli to a part of the brain that normally deals with hearing. Subsequently, that part of the cortex developed like a visual network rather than an auditory network. The brain is, therefore, "a very dynamic entity".
Though he travels to India a few times each year—he’s affiliated with the National Centre for Biological Science in Bangalore and the National Brain Research Centre in Delhi—Sur’s visits are more work than play.
Last January, IIT Kanpur presented him the Distinguished Alumnus Award. In his career, accolades have been plenty, but "that one was very special because they laid the foundation", he says. Meanwhile, Sur continues to distinguish himself by paving the path for a better and clearer understanding of the brain. His name means the moon, but Mriganka Sur is aiming for the stars.