Overview

Henri Begleiter (September 11, 1935 in Nimes, France - April 6, 2006 in Long Island, NY) was a neurophysiologist and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry
and Neuroscience at SUNY Downstate Medical Center

SUNY Downstate Medical Center

The State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, better known as SUNY Downstate Medical Center, is a public university and medical center located in central Brooklyn, New York and the only academic center for health education, research, and patient care serving Brooklyn’s 2.5...

 in Brooklyn

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

. He was a leader in the nascent field of biomedical alcohol research in the
1970s, postulating alcoholism as a brain disorder. He founded and headed the world-renowned Neurodynamics Laboratory at SUNY Downstate Medical
Center, Brooklyn, which has been renamed in 2007 into the 'Henri Begleiter Neurodynamics Laboratory'.

The highlights of Begleiter’s career include the ground breaking finding published in Science that some neurophysiological anomalies in alcoholics were
already present in their young offspring before any exposure to alcohol and drugs. These seminal findings led Henri to propose a model that changed
the thinking in the field: namely, that rather than being a consequence of alcoholism, this underlying neural hyperexcitability was a predisposing
factor leading to the development of alcoholism and related disorders. This innovative study was replicated throughout the world and launched him on
a systematic search to elucidate the genetic vulnerability underlying a predisposition toward alcoholism and related disorders.

In 1990, with his foresight and charismatic leadership, Henri Begleiter was instrumental in assembling scientists in various domains to organize the
large Collaborative Studies on Genetics of Alcoholism — COGA, which he has led since its inception. Under his leadership, with a strong
emphasis on novel approaches such as using brain oscillations as endophenotypes, COGA has successfully identified several genes involved in the
predisposition to develop alcoholism and related disorders, and this approach is still state-of-the-art today.

Books

• The Biology of Alcoholism, edited by Kissin and Begleiter, Volumes 1-7. 1971-1983
• Alcohol and Alcoholism, edited by Begleiter and Kissin, Volumes 1-2. 1995-1996
• Evoked Brain Potentials and Behavior (The Downstate Series of Research in Psychiatry and Psychology, Volume 2), edited by Begleiter, 1979.
• Biological Effects of Alcohol, 1980.

External links

• Henri Begleiter biography at SUNY Downstate