biology

Larry Squire

Larry Squire is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Larry Squire rather than just read about it. In short: Larry Ryan Squire (born May 4, 1941) is an American neuroscientist. He is a professor of psychiatry, neurosciences, and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Diego.

Key takeaways

Larry Squire belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Larry Squire to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Larry Squire from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Larry Ryan Squire (born May 4, 1941) is an American neuroscientist. He is a professor of psychiatry, neurosciences, and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Diego. He is an investigator of the neurological bases of memory, which he studies using animal models and human patients with memory impairment.

Education Squire received a B.A. from Oberlin College, where he studied with Celeste McCollough, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied under the mentorship of Peter Schiller and Hans-Lukas Teuber. He subsequently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Career Next Squire accepted a position as a faculty member at the University of California San Diego, where he has remained since. His publications include more than 480 research articles and two books: Memory and Brain (Oxford Press, 1987) and Memory: From Mind to Molecules with Eric Kandel (Roberts & Co., 2nd Ed, 2009). He is also senior editor of the textbook, Fundamental Neuroscience, now in its 4th Edition and editor-in-chief of The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography (now in eight volumes). Larry Squire illuminated the anatomy and phenotype of human memory impairment, identified the anatomical components of the medial temporal lobe memory system (with Stuart Zola), pioneered the biological distinction between declarative and nondeclarative memory, explored the conscious and unconscious memory systems of the mammalian brain, and helped establish the standard account of memory consolidation.

Honors and awards In 1993–1994, Squire served as president of the Society for Neuroscience. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences as of 1993, and served on the governing Council from 2009 to 2012. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society as of 1996, and National Academy of Medicine (formerly The Institute of Medicine) as of 2000. He received the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health in 1993, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association in 1993, the William James Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science in 1994, the William Middleton Award from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs in 1994, the Metlife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer's Disease in 1999, the Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society in 1995, "for his seminal contribution to the delineation of implicit and explicit memory systems in the brain", the McGovern Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2004, the Herbert Crosby Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists in 2007, the Award for Scientific Reviewing from the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, and the Goldman-Rakic Prize from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in 2012. He received an honorary degree from the University of Basel.

Selected publications Memory and Brain New York; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1987. XII, 315 p. ISBN 0-19-504208-5 Memory: from Mind to Molecules, 2nd Edition, with Eric Kandel. Greenwood Village: Roberts & Co. ISBN 0981519415 Fundamental Neuroscience. 4th ed. San Diego, CA : Academic Press, 2012. (Issued in 1998, 2003 and 2008.) 1426 p. avec CD ISBN 9780123858702 Squire, L. R. (2009). "Memory and Brain Systems: 1969-2009." The Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 12711–12716. Wixted, J. T. & Squire, L. R. (2011). "The Medial Temporal Lobe and the Attributes of Memory." Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 15, 210–217. Squire, L. R. & Wixted, J. (2011). "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Human Memory since H.M.", Annual Review of Neuroscience, 34, 259–288. Insausti, R., Annese, J. Amaral, D. G., Squire, L. R. (2013). "Human Amnesia and the Medial Temporal Lobe Illuminated by Neuropsychological and Neurohistological Findings for Patient E.P.", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, US, 110, E1953-E1962.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Larry Squire

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Larry Squire claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Larry Squire before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Larry Squire ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Larry Squire

In research: Larry Squire appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Larry Squire in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Larry Squire is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 births, 20th-century American psychologists, 21st-century American psychologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Larry Squire outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Larry Squire in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Larry Squire means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Larry Squire out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Larry Squire in simple terms?

Why does Larry Squire matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Larry Squire?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Larry Squire.