Spanish neurophysiologist born in Zaraguza and naturalized North American (1944), who stood out in the study doctor in several areas, especially in neurophysiology problems, becoming the first neurophysiologist Spanish. Son of Francisco Lorente and Maria de Nó, he enrolled at the medical school in Zaragoza at age 15, the same year he published his first paper, a mathematical treatment of thermodynamics (1917).
In Zaragoza he became a nervous system researcher under the supervision of Pedro Ramón, professor of obstetrics and gynecology. At 18 he transferred to the University of Madrid, where he received his diploma (1923). He was an assistant at the Institute of Cajal (1921-1929) and did postdoctoral work in Uppsala (1924-1927) with a visit to Berlin (1925). He returned to Madrid (1927) where he dedicated himself to otolaryngology and then to Santander (1929-1931). He quickly returned to Madrid (1931) to marry Hede Birfeld, daughter of a German professor at the University of Madrid.
He then went to the U.S.A., where he became head of the Neuro-Anatomical Laboratory at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis (1932), and one of the nation's first neurophysiologists. He was appointed lecturer at the Washington University School of Medicine (1935) and moved to the Rockefeller Institute (1936) where he became a member (1941) and professor (1953). He retired (1970) and was appointed professor emeritus in the department of surgery and anatomy at the Brain Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (1972).
Sick of progressive emphysema and other illnesses, he moved to Tucson where his daughter Edith took care of him until he died of cancer the week he would turn 88 years old. He was a member of the American Physiological Society and the American Association of Anatomists, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1950) and later to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received honorary degrees from Uppsala, Clark and Rockefeller Universities. He was awarded the Karl Spencer Lushly Award from the American Philosophical Society (1959) and the Award of Merit (1986).
Source: http://www.dec.ufcg.edu.br/biografias/
Order R - Biography - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/biografia/rafael-lorente.htm
