Background
Heimer was born in Östersund, Sweden.
neurosurgeon university professor neuroscientist
Heimer was born in Östersund, Sweden.
He completed his medical training at the University of Gothenburg.
He was most noted for mapping circuits of the brain in the limbic lobe and basal ganglia, structures that play central roles in emotion processing and movement. In 1965, Heimer was recruited to join the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Psychology and Brain Science. With this technique, he made his most well known contribution: a new structural framework for the striatum.
Heimer identified the nucleus accumbens and the olfactory tubercle as striatal structures and termed them the "ventral striatum." The traditional striatal structures, the caudate nucleus and putamen are, strictly speaking, now termed the "dorsal" striatum, though in practice the term "striatum" without qualification generally refers just to the dorsal striatum.
Heimer is also known for helping to elaborate the anatomical concept of the extended amygdala, first proposed by his collaborator, Jose de Olmos.