Who was Santiago Ramón y Cajal? Featured at the USC Brain Health Center is a new art exhibition about Santiago Ramón y Cajal (May 1, 1852 – October 17, 1934). Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish scientist and the first person to demonstrate that the nervous system was made up of individual units (neurons) that were independent of one another but linked together at points of functional contact called synapses. Ramón y Cajal illustrated the results of his studies with elegant drawings of neurons that he proposed work independently or collectively, and that each individual unit can participate simultaneously in individual or multiple neuron functions. Ramón y Cajal was a 1906 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine that was awarded jointly to another neuroscientist, Camillo Golgi "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system,” however, their research was mutually exclusive and embraced opposing theses. Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered by many to be the father o...