Livanov, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Born Oct. 7 (20), 1907, in Kazan. Soviet physiologist. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1970; corresponding member, 1962). Member of the CPSU since 1940.

Livanov graduated from Kazan State University in 1931. He was chief of the laboratories at the Moscow Institute of Brain Research from 1933 to 1947, the Institute of the Pathology and Therapy of Intoxications of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR from 1947 to 1949, and the Institute of Biophysics of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR from 1949 to 1961. He has worked at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1961.

Livanov’s principal works deal with bioelectric phenomena in the cerebral cortex under normal and pathological conditions. Livanov was the first to apply methods of mathematical analysis to the bioelectric fluctuations in the cerebral cortex. One of the founders of electroencephalography in the USSR, he demonstrated the functional significance of certain frequency components of the electroencephalogram and the role played by their spatial distribution through the cerebral cortex. The theoretical investigations and methodological devices developed by Livanov are used in space and aviation medicine and in the diagnosis of diseases in clinical neuropsychiatry. Livanov has been awarded four orders and several medals.