Blakemore, Colin (Brian) (1944– )

English physiologist who has made advanced studies of how the brain works. In his book Mechanics of the Mind 1977 he explains the mechanics of sensation, sleep, memory, and thought, and discusses a number of philosophical questions.

Blakemore was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and studied at Cambridge and the Neurosensory Laboratory at the University of California in Berkeley. He was on the staff of Cambridge University 1967–79, when he became professor of physiology at Oxford.

In his experimental work, Blakemore has shown that cells in the visual cortex of the brain of a newborn kitten are able to detect visual outlines. But if the kitten is kept at a critical period in an environment with only, say, vertical lines, it will later prove to have in the cortex only cells that can recognize these patterns and not others. Blakemore suggests that it is possible that the inherited DNA of genes already contains the capacity to synthesize RNA, the protein that is involved in the storage of any new remembrance.