Eccles in his laboratory, 1963. John Carew Eccles (January 27, 1903 - May 2, 1997) was an Australian neurophysiologist. In the early 1950s, Eccles and his colleagues studied synapses in the peripheral nervous system, using the stretch reflex as a model. When he passed a current into the sensory neuron, the motor neuron innervating the quadriceps produced a small excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP). When he passed the same current through the hamstring, he saw an inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP) in the quadriceps motor neuron. He won the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse and was key to a number of important developments in neuroscience. He died in 1997 at the age of 94.