He was educated atWestminster School and studied Natural Sciences atTrinity College, Cambridge, graduating in 1911. In 1913 he was elected to a fellowship of Trinity College on account of his research into the "all or none" law of nerves.
After completing a medical degree (MB BCh) in 1915, he undertook clinical work atSt Bartholomew's Hospital London duringWorld War I, treating soldiers with nerve damage and nervous disorders such asshell shock. Adrian returned to Cambridge as a lecturer gaining his doctorate (MD) in 1919 and in 1925 began research on the human sensory organs by electrical methods.
Continuing earlier studies ofKeith Lucas, he used acapillary electrometer andcathode-ray tube to amplify the signals produced by thenervous system and was able to record the electrical discharge of single nerve fibres under physical stimulus. (It seems he used frogs in his experiments[6]) An accidental discovery by Adrian in 1928 proved the presence of electricity within nerve cells. Adrian said,
I had arranged electrodes on the optic nerve of a toad in connection with some experiments on the retina. The room was nearly dark and I was puzzled to hear repeated noises in the loudspeaker attached to the amplifier, noises indicating that a great deal of impulse activity was going on. It was not until I compared the noises with my own movements around the room that I realised I was in the field of vision of the toad's eye and that it was signalling what I was doing.
A key result, published in 1928, stated that the excitation of the skin under constant stimulus is initially strong but gradually decreases over time, whereas the sensory impulses passing along the nerves from the point of contact are constant in strength, yet are reduced in frequency over time, and the sensation in the brain diminishes as a result.
Extending these results to the study of pain causes by the stimulus of the nervous system, he made discoveries about the reception of such signals in the brain and spatial distribution of the sensory areas of thecerebral cortex in different animals. These conclusions lead to the idea of a sensory map, called thehomunculus, in thesomatosensory system.
Later, Adrian used theelectroencephalogram to study the electrical activity of thebrain in humans. His work on the abnormalities of theBerger rhythm paved the way for subsequent investigation inepilepsy and other cerebral pathologies. He spent the last portion of his research career investigatingolfaction.
On 14 June 1923 Edgar Adrian marriedHester Agnes Pinsent, who was the daughter ofEllen Pinsent and sister ofDavid Pinsent.Together they had three children, first a daughter and then twins:
Anne Pinsent Adrian, who married the physiologistRichard Keynes, who was the great-grandson ofCharles Darwin. The couple had four children.
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