Filimonov, Ivan

Born Dec. 11 (23), 1890, in Moscow; died there Feb. 12, 1966. Soviet neurologist. Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1960).

Filimonov graduated from the medical faculty of Moscow University in 1914. From 1927 to 1966 he was chief of the morphological section of the Brain Institute of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR; during the same period, he was head of the subdepartments of nervous diseases at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkov from 1932 to 1936 and at the Third, and then the Second, Moscow Medical institutes from 1936 to 1941.

Filimonov was one of the founders of evolutionary neuromorphology in the USSR. He did comparative studies of the structure and development of various parts of the cerebral cortex in animals and man and was concerned with the characteristics of embryonic development of the brain and with the architectonic of its cortex. Filimonov developed a classification of the structure of the cerebral cortex and the concept of multiple functions of cortical structures and their variability in man and animals. He made significant contributions to the study of localization of functions and to clinical-morphological and clinical-physiological research of the central nervous system.

Filimonov was awarded the Order of Lenin and several medals.