Bekhtereva, Natalia Petrova

Bekhtereva, Natal’ia Petrova 

Born July 7, 1924, in Leningrad. Soviet physiologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1970); academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1975). Member of the CPSU since 1960.

Bekhtereva, a granddaughter of V. M. Bekhterev, graduated from the I. P. Pavlov First Leningrad Medical Institute in 1947. She worked at the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR from 1950 to 1954 and at the A. L. Polenov Neurosurgical Institute of the Ministry of Health of the USSR from 1954 to 1962. In 1962 she became head of the neurophysiology department at the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, becoming director in 1970.

Bekhtereva’s main works examine the principles of cerebral activity in normal and pathological states, in particular the physiological basis of psychic activity. She was the first in the USSR to apply the method whereby electrodes are implanted in the human brain on a long-term basis for diagnostic and medicinal purposes.

Bekhtereva has been awarded two orders and several medals.

WORKS

Biopotentsialy bol’shikh polusharii golovnogo mozga pri supratentorial’nykh opukholiakh. Leningrad, 1960.
Fiziologiia i patofiziologiia glubokikh struktur mozga cheloveka. Moscow-Leningrad-Berlin, 1967 (With others.)
Neirofiziologicheskie aspekty psikhicheskoi deiatel’nosti cheloveka, 2nd ed. Leningrad, 1974.
Mozgovye kody psikhicheskoi deiatel’nosti. Leningrad, 1977. (In collaboration with P. V. Bundzen and Iu. L. Gogolitsyn.)