Glenn Hatton

Glenn Hatton; photo courtesy of William Hatton

Glenn Hatton (1934-2009) was a neuroscientist, born in Chicago, Illinois, on December 12, 1934, who is known for his pioneering work on the interactions between neurons and glial cells.

Career

Glenn Hatton received his BS from North Central College, Naperville, Illinois in 1960 in Psychology, and MA and PhD in Psychology and Physiology, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962 and 1964. In 1965 he joined Michigan State University as an Assistant Professor, rose to become Professor of Psychology and Physiology, and was Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program from 1978 to 1991. In 1992 he joined the University of California, Riverside as founding Chair of the Department of Neuroscience, which later became the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience. He was pivotal in the founding of the Center for Glial-Neuronal Interactions at UC Riverside. He attained the rank of Distinguished Professor twice, at Michigan State University in 1986 and at UC Riverside in 1997

Scientific contributions

"Commonly accepted estimates of the numbers of neurons in the human brain run in the area of 10¹², a number that seems to grow with each successive attempt to count the brain's granule cells. To this one must add that there are nine or ten glial cells for every neuron. While these astronomical numbers are dazzlingly difficult to comprehend, they are highly consistent with the emerging concepts of the multitude of functions that are being attributed to this non-neuronal cell class...."

Until the 1980's, it was widely assumed that the structure of the brain is fixed once the process of development is completed in early life, and that glial cells do little more than provide passive structural and metabolic support for the neurons. In studies first published in 1976, Hatton helped to transform this thinking by showing that brain structure is dynamic.

His work was focussed on studies of the supraoptic nucleus in the hypothalamus - an important 'model system' in neuroscience generally and neuroendocrinology in particular. The neurons of the supraoptic nucleus are magnocellular neurosecretory neurons - large neuroendocrine neurons which secrete their products, the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin into the circulation from their nerve endings in the posterior pituitary gland. Much of Hatton's work was aimed at understanding the electrical behaviour of these neurones - the basic mechanisms of cell excitability that produced characteristic patterns of electrical activity that were important for hormone release, and especially in how these properties adapted in different physiologiocal conditions. This led him to an early awareness of the dynamic nature of the interrelationship between glial cells in the supraoptic nucleus and the neurones, and between the glial cells (pituicytes) in the posterior pituitary and the neurosecretory nerve endings there; two classic papers published with Charles Tweedle in in 1976 and 1977, showed clearly using electron microscopy that the anatomical relationships of these elements was not fixed but dynamically regulated in different physiological states These papers were the foundations of what became an important theme in neuroscience for the following decades.

In 1981, he came with his family to the Babraham Institute in Cambridge UK to spend a sabbatical year, learning from Bill Mason the then new technique of intracellular recording from supraoptic neurones in the hypothalamic slice preparation. He became an enthusiastic convert to this approach, which he continued to exploit and develop throughout his life.

He published more than 190 articles in books and scientific journals, amongst these were several important and widely cited review articles. Hatton maintained a vast collection of reprints throughout his life, and his scholarship made him an outstanding reviewer of the literature. As a speaker and writer of original research papers he was consistently provocative; as a reviewer he was meticulously balanced.

Glenn Hatton died on January 16, 2009, in Riverside after a brief illness from cancer; he was survived by Patricia, his wife of 54 years, and his children James, William, Christopher, Jennifer, and Tracey Silla. A son, Trent, died in 1988.

Afterwords

Gareth Leng, a friend of Glenn's for nearly thirty years adds, "Glenn loved his family first, followed, in no particular order, by good wine, good cheese, good beer, the supraoptic nucleus, his many friends, and argument. He hated Oliver Cromwell."