Richard Cytowic

Richard E. Cytowic
Born	(1952-12-16) December 16, 1952 Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.
Residence	Washington, D.C.
Nationality	American
Fields	Neuroscience
Institutions	George Washington University Medical Center
Alma mater	Duke University, Wake Forest
Known for	Synesthesia, Neuropsychology
Influences	Paul D. MacLean, Norman Geschwind

Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author ^[1] who rekindled interest in studying synesthesia ^[2][3][4][5] in the 1980s. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times Magazine cover story^[6] about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks^[7] and music reviews, to his Metro Weekly "Love Doctor" essays^[8] and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov^[9] and Maurice Ravel.^[10] His work is the subject of several documentaries.^[11]

In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks writes:

In the 1980, Richard Cytowic made the first neurophysiological studies of synesthetic subjects... In 1989, he published a pioneering text, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses, and this was followed by a popular exploration of the subject in 1993, The Man Who Tasted Shapes. Current techniques of functional brain imaging now give unequivocal evidence for the simultaneous activation or coactivation of two or more sensory areas of the cerebral cortex in synesthetes, just as Cytowic’s work predicted.^[12]

Cytowic is a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at George Washington University Medical Center, a Mentor at the Point Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board for Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Biography

Cytowic was born on December 16, 1952 in Trenton, New Jersey to a physician father and artist mother, and grew up with an extended family of scientists and artists. His mother is ESPN's "Super Nana Marge", Tim Tebow's No. 1 fan.^[13] As a child, Cytowic liked taking things apart and putting them back together to figure out how they worked.

He attended Hun School of Princeton (class of 1970),^[14] graduated cum laude from Duke University, and received his M.D. from Wake Forest's Bowman Gray School of Medicine. He studied further at London's Queen Square (Institute of Neurology), and George Washington University Medical Center before founding a private clinic, Capitol Neurology.

Retired from clinical practice, Cytowic now mentors medical students at George Washington, writes and lectures. While in North Carolina, he served as music critic for the Winston-Salem Journal. He is enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing in the College of Arts and Sciences at American University.^[15]

Works

Books

• Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia (with David Eagleman), Foreword by Dmitri Nabokov (2009). Cambridge:MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-01279-9
• The Man Who Tasted Shapes (2003). Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-53255-6
• Synesthesia: A Union of The Senses, 2nd edition (2002). Cambridge: MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-03296-4
• The Neurological Side of Neuropsychology (1996). Cambridge:MIT Press ISBN 978-0-262-03231-5
• Nerve Block For Common Pain (1990). New York:Springer Verlag ISBN 0-387-97147-5

Reviews and essays

• Selected book reviews available here
• Selected Love Doctor essays available here.
• Chekhov and Ravel articles available here

Lectures

• A filmed gallery talk on synesthesia at Washington's Hirshhorn Museum, given as part of its visual music exhibit.
• Conversation between Dr. Cytowic and Dr. Richard Frakowiak (London).

Artistic fellowships

• Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences,^[16] Rabun Gap, Georgia. Founded on the estate of Jay Hambidge, the architect and mathematician who conceived of "Dynamic Symmetry".
• Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Fellow, Virginia Center for Creative Arts^[17]

References

Notes

External links

• Official website
• Symposium on Synesthesia in Psyche: an interdisciplinary journal of research on consciousness