Some contributions of Rafael Lorente de Nó to neuroscience: a reminiscence.

Rafael Lorente de Nó is one of the towering neuroscientists of the 20th century. He was born in Zaragoza, Spain, in 1902. In 1920, he moved to Madrid where he became the youngest, and eventually the best known, of Ramón y Cajal's disciples. In his youth, Lorente de Nó worked with Oskar and Cécile Vogt in Germany and with Robert Bárány in Sweden. In 1934, he moved to the United States, where he first worked at the Central Institute for the Deaf (CID); in 1936, he was invited by Herbert S. Gasser to work at the Rockefeller Institute. After his formal retirement from this institute in 1972, Lorente de Nó spent 5 years at the Head and Neck Surgery Department and Brain Research Institute of the University of California at Los Angeles. He died in Tucson, Arizona, in 1990. Lorente de Nó was a gifted person: a polyglot with a remarkable memory and a versatile intellect, which together with his strong, almost belligerent character, made him a rather controversial human. The strength of his scientific contributions is evident by their current impact. Among these are: the modular (i.e., columnar) organization of the cerebral cortex, the synaptic delay, nerve volume conduction, synaptic summation, and the cybernetic (feed-back) neuron circuit. The present article provides a comment upon some of his neurohistological studies (including the cerebral isocortex, Ammon's horn, brainstem, and spinal cord), highlighted by transcripts from taped conversations with him, and illustrated by reproductions of some of his original figures. Copyright 2002 Elsevier Science Inc.