Brooks, Vernon B.

Vernon Brooks was a pioneer in studies of the neural basis of motor control. He studied the organization of the motor cortex, demonstrated how the cerebellum modulates the cortical control of movement, and was among the first to study the neural basis of motor learning.

Vernon Brooks was sent from Berlin to Britain in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport refugee program. He lived and worked with the Tompsett family in Kent England until 1949 when all German nationals were interned and sent to the Isle of Man. Brooks’ journey continued in the same year with the fall of France forcing the transfer of the camp residents to Canada. It was in Camp “A” at Farnham Quebec that Brooks first encountered McGill University as a source of secondary and pre-university education and exams. Brooks passed his exams in 1941 and was released in 1942 by Order-in-Council of the Governor General to the care of a sponsor in Toronto. He went on to pass Ontario University entrance exams and begin his academic career.

Brooks returned to McGill University as Senior Demonstrator in Physiology (1950), Lecturer in Physiology (1951-1952), and Assistant Professor of Physiology (1953-1955). He is the author of the Neural Basis of Motor Control 1986 and is Professor Emeritus at the University of Western Ontario.