Irwin Feinberg

1928 - 2022

Irwin Feinberg
June 11, 1928 - August 25, 2022
Feinberg, Irwin MD passed away on August 25, 2022, at the age of 94. Irwin was a distinguished neuroscientist who dedicated his professional life to studying brain activity and the fundamental nature of sleep and why they were important to understanding mental illness, especially schizophrenia. He graduated from Brooklyn College, received a Master's degree in experimental psychology from Swarthmore College, and received his medical degree from the NYU School of Medicine. Irwin began his research career at NIH and later was a professor and researcher at several medical schools and the VA. At his death, Irwin was an emeritus professor of psychiatry at UC Davis School of Medicine where his sleep laboratory was still active. Irwin made many important contributions to neuroscience through approximately 200 peer-reviewed publications during a career spanning six decades. His landmark theory that schizophrenia might be related to an abnormality in the pruning of brain synapses during adolescence was published in 1982. This theory received direct genetic/molecular support in a study published in 2016. (Search "Doctor Feinberg and the Pruning Hypothesis" on YouTube.) The role of efference copy and corollary discharge in normal and abnormal thinking, the subject of Irwin's 1978 theoretical paper, updated in 1997 and 1999, is the subject of much current research. Irwin was a founding member of the Sleep Research Society and in 1996 received its Distinguished Scientist Award. Throughout his years of research, teaching, and mentoring, Irwin influenced countless students, residents, sleep lab employees, post-doctoral fellows, and visiting scholars. Irwin also had a broad range of other interests, including a lifelong interest in current affairs. He served on the national board of the ACLU from 1971 to 1981 and participated in its special report on "Civil Liberties and the Mentally Ill." Irwin loved learning and life - adventure and the outdoors, literature (he was never far from a book), cooking and eating, and sports. Those who knew Irwin will miss his intelligence, charm, wit, kindness, and generosity. Irwin is survived by his wife Janet, his sons Noah (Linda) and Gabriel (Mary Voinov), and his brothers Saul (Leah) and Elliot (Sandy Parker). He was predeceased by his parents Fannie and Harry, brother Samuel and sister Beatrice Rennick.