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Masao Ito

medical neuroscientist in Japan

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ1660659 ↗
Source-derived summary

Masao Ito (伊藤 正男, Itō Masao; December 4, 1928 – December 18, 2018) was a Japanese neuroscientist, and director of the Riken Brain Science Institute.

Overviews

Masao Ito was the main force behind Japanese neuroscience and its international recognition for many years. He was very active in the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO) and went on to establish the Federation of Asian-Oceanian Neuroscience Societies (FAONS) in an effort to join together East Asian neuroscientists and facilitate interactions without dependence on American/European influences. This organisation is still active and acts in concert with IBRO's own Asia-Pacific Regional Committee which was set up in 1999. His roles in international scientific diplomacy, raising funds for neuroscience in the region and establishing the Riken Brain Science Institute were pivotal in promoting neuroscience throughout the East Asian countries.

He won the 2006 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience and the 1996 Japan Prize. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1992.

Life

Ito graduated from the University of Tokyo with an M.D. in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1959. He was a research fellow at Australian National University from 1959 to 1962. He taught at the University of Tokyo from 1963.

Editorial summary

“Masao Ito” enters the record as medical neuroscientist in Japan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Masao, medical and neuroscientist can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1928, 2018, 1999, 2006—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1928-01-01, 1928-12-04—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Masao, medical and neuroscientist.
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“Masao Ito” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Masao, medical and neuroscientist provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1660659. VIAF identifies the subject as 84502424. The Library of Congress control number is n79018621. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1928, 2018, 1999 and 2006.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Masao Ito” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.