Vladimir bekhterev biography

Among many Russian neuroscientists (who included Vladimir Betz, Konstantin Tretiakoff, and Alexander Luria) was Vladimir Mikhaylovich Bekhterev, (1857-1927) (Figure 1). Neurologist, morphologist and experimental psychologist, he was a most industrious, inventive and inexhaustible physician.

Born in Sorali, a remote village between the Volga and the foothills of the Ural mountains, he became a distinguished neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who advanced the functional anatomy of the brain, experimental psychology, clinical neurology, and conditioned reflexes [1].

Paradoxically, Bekhterev’s disease (ankylosing spondylitis) is better known than his neurological works where he described: the acromial reflex, Bekhterev’s superior vestibular nucleus, labyrinthine nystagmus, the pectoralis reflex, a paradoxical reflex: pupillary dilatation to light, and several arcane reflexes in the limbs.

As a child, Bekhterev spent much of his time reading the natural sciences.

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