Vladimir Nikolaevich Chernigovskii

Born Feb. 16 (Mar. 1), 1907, in Ekaterinburg, now Sverdlovsk. Soviet physiologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1960; corresponding member 1953) and the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1950).

In 1930, Chernigovskii graduated from the medical school of the University of Perm’, where he studied under V. V. Parin and K. M. Bykov. He worked at the Medical Institute in Sverdlovsk (1932–37), the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad (from 1937; laboratory head, from 1946), and the Naval Medical Academy in Leningrad (1941–52; professor, from 1944). Chernigovskii was director of the Institute of Normal and Pathological Physiology of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR from 1952 to 1959 and the I. P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1959 to 1977. He was academician-secretary of the physiology division of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR from 1963 to 1967.

Chernigovskii’s main research has been on the functional interrelationships between the cerebral cortex and the internal organs, interoception, and space physiology and medicine. He discovered and studied several interoceptors and their sites and mechanism of excitation. He elucidated the role of signaling from the visceral receptors in several forms of behavior of higher animals. Chernigovskii also studied reflex regulation of the circulatory system, identified the cortical projection zones of several internal organs, and, with his colleagues, created a model of hypertension.

Chernigovskii was a deputy to the sixth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He has been awarded four orders, several medals, the I. P. Pavlov Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1944), the I. M. Sechenov Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1974, jointly with S. S. Musiashchikova), and the I. P. Pavlov Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1964). Chernigovskii is a foreign corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Socialist Republic of Rumania (1965) and a member of the International Astronautics Federation (1965).