Peter Sterling (neuroscientist)
{{short description|American anatomist, physiologist, and neuroscientist}}
{{for|the rugby league commentator|Peter Sterling (rugby league)}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Peter Sterling
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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1940|06|28}}{{cite web | url = http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2014187478.html | title = LOC Entry| publisher = Library of Congress | accessdate = 28 October 2019}}
| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.
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| fields = neuroscience, biological psychiatry, endocrinology
| workplaces = University of Pennsylvania
| alma_mater = New York University Medical School, Cornell University, Western Reserve University (Ph.D.)
| doctoral_advisor = Hans Kuypers
| academic_advisors = Howard Allen Schneiderman, David H. Hubel, Torsten Wiesel
| doctoral_students = Gillian Einstein
| notable_students = Peter Strick
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| known_for = allostasis
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| awards = Proctor Medal (2012), American Publishers Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE Award) in Biological & Life Sciences (2016){{cite web |title=Peter Sterling |url=https://mitpress.mit.edu/contributors/peter-sterling |website=The MIT Press |accessdate=26 October 2019 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=2016 Award Winners |url=https://proseawards.com/winners/2016-award-winners/ |website=PROSE Awards |accessdate=27 October 2019}}
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| website = https://www.med.upenn.edu/apps/faculty/index.php/g275/p7333
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Peter Sterling (born June 28, 1940) is an American anatomist, physiologist and neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is the author of What Is Health? Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (2020), and with Simon Laughlin, is an author of Principles of Neural Design.
Early life
Peter Sterling was born in 1940 in New York city to Phillip and Dorothy Sterling, writers and advocates for progressive causes.{{cite journal |last1=Masland |first1=Richard H. |title=Introducing Peter Sterling, the 2012 Recipient of the Proctor Medal |journal=Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science |date=28 March 2013 |volume=54 |issue=3 |pages=2266 |doi=10.1167/iovs.12-10693|pmid=23539165 |doi-access=free }} His sister is the noted researcher and professor Anne Fausto-Sterling. At the age of twenty, while a student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, he was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi for participating in a Freedom Ride.{{cite web |last1=The Civil Rights Digital Library |title=Sterling, Peter |url=http://crdl.usg.edu/people/s/sterling_peter/ |website=crdl.usg.edu |accessdate=29 October 2019}}{{cite web |last1=Relyea |first1=Alison Cupp |title=Peter Sterling Reflects on the 1960s and Rye |url=https://medium.com/@alisoncupprelyea/peter-sterling-reflects-on-the-1960s-and-rye-8b14cc25d4c1 |website=Medium |accessdate=29 October 2019 |language=en |date=12 March 2019}} He was set free after paying a fine and/or by mediation by Howard Allen Schneiderman, who recruited him to experimental biology.Sterling P. Principles of Allostasis: Optimal Design, Predictive Regulation, Pathophysiology, and Rational Therapeutics. In: Schulkin J. Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 2004. {{ISBN|0521811414}}
Career
Peter Sterling attended New York University Medical School for two years, but voluntarily dropped out in order to study neuroanatomy. He received his PhD from Western Reserve University, where he worked on the anatomical organisation of the spinal cord.{{cite journal |last1=Sterling |first1=P |last2=Kuypers |first2=HG |title=Anatomical organization of the brachial spinal cord of the cat. I. The distribution of dorsal root fibers. |journal=Brain Research |date=February 1967 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1016/0006-8993(67)90144-8 |pmid=4166091}}
Later he provided significant contributions to the knowledge about three-dimensional retinal microanatomy.
In 1980 he was appointed professor of neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Together with Joseph Eyer, Peter Sterling coined the term allostasis for "stability through change",Sterling P; Eyer J (1988) Allostasis: a new paradigm to explain arousal pathology. In: Handbook of Life Stress, Cogintion and Health (Fisher S; Reason J, eds), pp 629-649. New York, NY: J. Wiley & Sons. {{ISBN|0471912697}} which is now enjoying growing scientific attention, especially in the context of allostatic load.
References
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Selected works
- Stevens JK, Davis TL, Friedman N, Sterling P. A systematic approach to reconstructing microcircuitry by electron microscopy of serial sections. Brain Res. 1980 Dec;2(3):265-93. {{PMID|6258704}}.
- Sterling P, Eyer J. Biological basis of stress-related mortality. Soc Sci Med E. 1981 Feb;15(1):3-42. {{PMID|7020084}}.
- Sterling P. Deciphering the retina's wiring diagram. Nat Neurosci. 1999 Oct;2(10):851-3. {{PMID|10491597}}.
- Sterling P. Principles of Allostasis: Optimal Design, Predictive Regulation, Pathophysiology, and Rational Therapeutics. In: Schulkin J. Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York 2004. {{ISBN|0521811414}}
- Sterling P. Allostasis: a model of predictive regulation. Physiol Behav. 2012 Apr 12;106(1):5-15. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.06.004. Epub 2011 Jun 12. {{PMID|21684297}}.
- Sterling P, Laughlin S. Principles of Neural Design. MIT Press 2015. {{ISBN|9780262028707}}
- Sterling P. Predictive regulation and human design. Elife. 2018 Jun 29;7. pii: e36133. doi: 10.7554/eLife.36133. {{PMID|29957178}}
- Schulkin J, Sterling P. Allostasis: A Brain-Centered, Predictive Mode of Physiological Regulation. Trends Neurosci. 2019 Oct;42(10):740-752. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2019.07.010. {{PMID|31488322}}.
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Category:American neuroscientists