Kupalov, Petr Stepanovich

Born Oct. 1 (13), 1888, in what is now Vitebsk Oblast; died Mar. 17, 1964, in Leningrad. Soviet physiologist; academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1946); Honored Scientist of the RSFSR (1943).

Kupalov graduated from the Military Medical Academy in 1915. He was a student of I. P. Pavlov. In 1925 he began to work in the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (in 1937 he became head of a department); from 1931 to 1952 he was head of the subdepartment of normal physiology of the First Leningrad Medical Institute. His principal works were on the physiology and pathology of higher nervous activity, the functional cortical mosaic, and the systemic activity of the cerebral cortex. He developed methods for studying situational conditioned reflexes, which facilitated investigation of the mechanisms of voluntary movements. He was chairman of the I. P. Pavlov All-Union Physiological Society of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1959 to 1964. He received the I. P. Pavlov Gold Medal in 1957. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.