Society For Neuroscience - Cajal Mural

Located in the central staircase of the Society's Washington, DC headquarters, the mural honors the legacy of Santiago Ramón y Cajal on the 100th anniversary of his winning the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1906 for his work on the structure of the nervous system. He shared the prize with Camillo Golgi, who invented the method of silver staining that Cajal used to observe and draw neurons. These drawings provided the foundation of modern neuroanatomy.

The mural is based on the drawing that appeared on page 1,090 as figure 844 in volume two, part two of Cajal's "Textura del Sistema Nervisos del Hombre y de los Vetebrados," published in Madrid in 1904. That drawing of the six layers of the mouse neocortex was converted into a 3D surface using modeling software and cut from MDF panels using a computer numeric controlled (CNC) milling machine. Each of the 16 panels took an average of 15 hours to mill, followed by many hours of sanding and painting, creating a final artwork standing 12 feet wide by 32 feet high.

Dr. Cajal's grandson and great-granddaughter dedicated the mural on May 5, 2006.

Architect: Envision Design
Mural Designer/Fabricator: Catholic University Design Collaborative (CUAdc)