Alexander Luria, biography of the pioneer of neuropsychology

Alexander Luria was perhaps the first neuropsychologist in the strict sense of the word. This branch of knowledge unites the knowledge of neurology with that of psychology, something that seems obvious today, but that less than a century ago was exotic.

Alexander Luria’s great inspiration was Lev Vygotsky, whom he met in Moscow when he was just beginning his career. The influence that he exerted on Luria was such that it is often said that the works of these two men are inseparable and that one was an unprecedented development of the other.

The truth is that Alexander Luria is considered by many to be the first researcher who gave full coherence to the findings on the nervous system and its link with behavior. His contributions were definitive in giving depth to a field of knowledge that was barely born in the 20th century.

The training of Alexander Luria

Alexander Luria was born on July 16, 1902 in Kazan, Russia. His mother was Eugenia Victorovna Haskin, a dentist, and his father Roman Albertovich Luriya, a doctor. They were both Jewish and gave their son a good education. Alexander spoke several languages ​​and inherited his parents’ love of science.

Luria started school at the age of 7, but had to interrupt it due to the Russian Revolution. Years later he trained as a doctor at the University of Kazan, where he entered when he was 16 years old. He later received his doctorate in psychology from the Moscow Medical Institute in 1921.

In 1922, Alexander Luria helped create the Kazan Psychoanalytic Society. At that time, his readings were focused on the works of Freud and Jung. He later began his career as a professor at the Academy of Psychological Sciences of the then Soviet Union.

He met Vygotsky at a psychoneurology congress in 1924. Afterwards, the two worked at the Moscow Psychological Institute, of which Luria was secretary. Vygotsky became his mentor and they soon began to bear the fruits of that fortunate encounter.

neuropsychology

Alexander Luria spoke out critically against Pavlov’s theories in 1925. This caused him to be removed from the scientific elite of the Soviet Union until after Stalin’s death. Luria understood that his positions regarding society and culture had no place in the dictatorial regime and that is why he dedicated himself to the study of the brain.

At that time, the so-called “localizationism” prevailed, a position in which the central interest was discovering which area of ​​the brain did what. Luria had a different vision. He proposed the correct idea that it was not the fragments of the brain that performed the functions, but rather that these were the fruits of complex functional systems.

Luria focused much of his attention on the study of language. Specifically, he was interested in unraveling what happened in cases of aphasia. This is a language disorder characterized by difficulty or inability to communicate. Alexander Luria sought to establish the relationship between this disorder and thinking.

A pioneering work

During World War II, Alexander Luria was sent to a front military hospital in Kisegach. There he had the opportunity to observe, first-hand, the effects of brain injuries on abilities and behavior. Many of the soldiers came to him with head injuries and, in the midst of those atrocious circumstances, he was able to advance his plans.

Luria developed tests to demonstrate the effects of injuries on cognition. From these he identified cognitive disorders and indicated their location so that they could be intervened by neurosurgeons. He was also able to further explore the effects of lesions on language.

After the War, Alexander Luria continued researching the relationship between language and thought, but now he focused on children with intellectual disabilities. In 1968, his name became part of the United States Academy of Sciences. He lived in Moscow until his death from a heart attack in 1977, aged 75.

Alexander Luria’s findings were captured in books such as Sensation and Perception (1975); The role of language in the development of behavior (1979); Language and behavior (1984); Historical development of cognitive processes (1987); Verbal behavior (1988) and The brain in action (1988).

His work has been fundamental for the understanding of the brain and the design of techniques for rehabilitation.

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