I. P. Pavlov and the development of neuroscience.
Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov significantly changed and developed our knowledge of the brain functions and of the behaviour by his fundamental experimental and theoretical work on the physiology and pathophysiology of the higher nervous activity. He was one of the scientists who prepared the development of neuroscience in our century. During the Pavlovian Conference, 1950 in Moscow Stalin and the Communist Party tried to dogmatize his and his pupil's fundamental theories. But his pupils continued to develop Pavlovian ideas in open discussions with representatives of other schools in a very creative way, opening the doors for a system approach to understand the integrative functional systems of brain and behavior. Pavlov emphasized the high plasticity of the central nervous system. He investigated the complex functional systems within the brain and between the organism and its environment, and the designed models for pathology of the higher nervous activity. During his last years, Pavlov freed himself from the strong deterministic view and characterized the organism and its environment as a self-organizing system.
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D000818:Animals; D006613:Higher Nervous Activity / Q000502:physiology; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000266:history; D012425:Russia (Pre-1917); D014586:USSR