The evolution of physiology of hearing and vision: On the centenary of Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33910/2687-1270-2025-6-4-355-366

Keywords:

sensory system physiology, physiology of vision, physiology of hearing, Leon A. Orbeli, Sergey I. Vavilov

Abstract

Focusing on vision and hearing, this paper provides an overview of the development of sensory system physiology in Russia during the 20th and early 21st centuries. Sensory system physiology occupies a prominent place in both Russian and international biological science and has deep historical roots in Russia. Among the pioneers in this field are M. V. Lomonosov, M. M. Voinov, I. M. Sechenov, and N. I. Bakst. Sechenov, in particular, made a significant contribution to the popularization of sensory physiology. The foundations of the physiology of vision and hearing in the early 20th century were laid by the physiologist L. A. Orbeli and the physicist S. I. Vavilov. The development of physiological optics (physiology of vision) at the State Optical Institute is closely associated with the name of S. I. Vavilov. The establishment and successful advancement of sensory physiology during the 1930s at the Pavlov Institute of Physiology and the Military Medical Academy, and from the late 1950s at the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology in Leningrad as well as, indirectly, at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity in Moscow are linked to the name of L. A. Orbeli. Important works in the field of sensory physiology were conducted at a number of the Academy of Sciences institutes like the Emanuel Institute of Chemical and, then, Biochemical Physics, the Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems, the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the Institute of Biological Physics, the Institute of Cell Biophysics, the Shemyakin and Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, the Academician Andreev Acoustics Institute, and the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

References

ЛИТЕРАТУРА

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Островский, М. А., Сакина, Н. Л., Федорович, И. Б., Чеснов, В. М. (2002) История становления и развития физиологии органов чувств в России (XVIII в. — 1917 г.). Вопросы истории естествознания и техники, т. 23, № 3, с. 448–471.

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REFERENCES

Orbeli, L. A. (ed.). (1936) Trudy Pervoj konferentsii po fiziologicheskoj optike 25–29 dekabrya 1934 g., sozvannoj Gosudarstvennym opticheskim institutom i Vsesoyuznym institutom eksperimental’noj meditsiny [Proceedings of the 1st Conference on physiological optics, December 25–29, 1934, convened by the State Optical Institute and the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine]. Moscow; Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR Publ., 479 p. (In Russian)

Ostrovsky, М. А. (2011) Istoriya razvitiya fiziologii zreniya v Rossijskoj Akademii nauk [History of the development of physiology of vision in the Russian Academy of Sciences]. Vestnik Rossijskoj Akademii nauk, vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 215–222. (In Russian)

Ostrovsky, М. А., Sakina, N. L., Chesnov, V. M. (2011) Razvitie fiziologii zreniya v Rossii v pervye desyatiletiya Sovetskoj vlasti (1917–1950) [The development of vision physiology in Russia in the first decades of Soviet power (1917–1950)]. Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki — Studies in the History of Science and Technology, vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 22–35. (In Russian)

Ostrovsky, М. А., Sakina, N. L., Fedorovich, I. B., Chesnov, V. M. (2001) Fiziki i svetovaya chuvstvitel’nost glaza [Physicists and the light sensitivity of the eye]. Priroda, no. 6 (1030), pp. 70–77. (In Russian)

Ostrovsky, М. А., Sakina, N. L., Fedorovich, I. B., Chesnov, V. M. (2002) Istoriya stanovleniya i razvitiya fiziologii organov chuvstv v Rossii (XVIII v. — 1917 g.) [The emergence and development of sensory physiology in Russia (18th c. — 1917)]. Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki — Studies in the History of Science and Technology, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 448–471. (In Russian)

Published

2025-12-22

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