A leading figure in the field of neuroscience, BruceMcEwen, died on January 2 after a brief illness.

Beginning in the1960s,McEwenexploredhow stress hormonescould alter the way genes are expressed in the brain, having a consequent impact on memory,mood and decision-making. This work contradicted the accepted academic dogma of the time that the brain does not change during adulthood.

One noted example of the Rockefeller University professors work was the finding that chronic stress could lead to loss of neurons in the brain'shippocampalarea, a locus for memory formation.

McEwen, 81, head of RockefellersHarold and MargaretMillikenHatch Laboratory ofNeuroendocrinology, worked with hiswife KarenBulloch, also a Rockefellerprofessor, to examine brain immune cellsin inflammation andneurodegenerativedisease.

In 1976, he wrote an article forScientific Americanentitled "Interactions between Hormones and Nerve Tissue" in which he observed in the formal language of the day:

During his career, he coined the term allostaticload to convey how lingering stress affectsbody and brainand much of his recent research was devotedto the impact on the brain of nutrition, physical activity, early-life trauma and other factors.

One of McEwens well-known former graduate students, RobertSapolsky, remarked in aprepared statement from Rockefeller:Hiswork became increasingly more expansive and integrativein later years he called himself a molecular sociologist. He made the most seminal findings regarding how steroid hormones affect the brain. Sapolsky is aprofessor of biological sciences at Stanford University.

McEwen'sresearchhas been cited more than 130,000 times in the scientific literature, and he was co-author ofThe End of Stress as We Know It (Joseph Henry Press, 2002).

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Bruce McEwen, Pioneer in Study of Stress's Impact on the Brain, Dies at 81 - Scientific American