Rate My Professor Max Bennett

Bennett's research pioneered understandings of synaptic transmission, particularly identifying ATP as a cotransmitter at autonomic neuromuscular junctions in a 1963 Nature paper. He described synapse pruning and naturally occurring neuronal death during development, mechanisms of transmitter release from heterogeneous nerve terminals, and synaptic plasticity relevant to memory. Collaborating with P.M.S. Hacker, he critiqued cognitive neuroscience in books such as Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003, cited over 3300 times), History of Cognitive Neuroscience (2008), and History of the Synapse (2001). Other key publications include The formation of synapses in striated muscle during development (1974, Journal of Physiology) and The loss of ganglion cells in the developing retina of the rat (1982, Developmental Brain Research). Bennett has authored 15 books and hundreds of papers. His honours include Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1981), Officer of the Order of Australia (2001), Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture (1999), and Distinguished Achievement Medal from the Australian Neuroscience Society (2001). He delivered invited lectures at the Royal Society, Yale University, and the United Nations.