UCLA has acquired the papers of Rafael Lorente de No (1902–90), a Spanish-American physiologist whose pioneering work on mechanisms of nerve cell communication and the anatomy and physiology of the cerebral cortex earned him international acclaim. He concluded his distinguished career at UCLA, where he was professor emeritus in the departments of Surgery and Anatomy and in the Brain Research Institute from 1972 to 1983.

The collection was acquired by the Neuroscience History Archives of the Brain Research Institute and will be housed in the History and Special Collections Division of the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. Its contents include manuscripts, neuroanatomical drawings, photographs, correspondence and other papers on the history of neuroscience. It is a gift of Dr. Vicente Honrubia, one of Lorente de No’s last students, and of William de Rham, Lorente de No’s grandson. Honrubia currently is a professor in the UCLA Division of Head and Neck Surgery and director of the Victor Goodhill Ear Center.

Lorente de No was born April 8, 1902, in Zaragoza, Spain. He began his medical studies in Zaragoza at age 14; published his first paper, on thermodynamics, at age 15; and received his M.D. from the University of Madrid at age 21.

During his early career Lorente de No studied under one Nobel laureate, Santiago Ramon y Cajal, at the University of Madrid, and trained in the laboratory of another, Robert Barany, at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. His postdoctoral research focused on the anatomy and physiology of the vestibular and auditory systems, but because funding for research was limited, he turned to clinical practice and became head of the Department of Otolaryngology at Valdecilla Hospital in Santander, Spain, in 1929.

Lorente de No returned to research full time in 1931, when he immigrated to the United States to become head of the neuroanatomical laboratory at the Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis. He moved to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York in 1936 as an associate in physiology. When the institute became a graduate university in 1954, his appointment changed to professor. He became professor emeritus upon his retirement in 1970.

Among Lorente de No’s many accomplishments are studies of the anatomical organization of the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and vestibular and auditory systems and the physiology of peripheral nerves; the synthesis of tetraethylammonium, which he used in investigations of the conduction of nerve impulses; and the investigation of integrative properties of the nervous system that contributed to the formulation of cybernetics.

The overall objective of his pioneering research was to understand the processes of nerve cell communication.

In addition to numerous journal articles, his major monographs are the two-volume opus, “A Study of Nerve Physiology� (1947) and “The Primary Acoustic Nuclei� (1981).

Selections from the collection will be featured in an exhibit organized by the UCLA Neuroscience History Archives and the Biomedical Library and presented as part of an international conference organized by Honrubia celebrating the centenary of Lorente de No’s birth, to be held in October in Zaragoza, Spain. The government of Aragon, Spain, is sponsoring the conference.