Follow the Scientist: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, Nobel Laureate, Pavlov's Dog's

Born 27 Sep 1849; died 27 Feb 1936 at age 86.

Russian physiologist, who was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He pioneered the investigation that he named the “conditioned reflex.” In the experiment which made him famous, he trained a hungry dog to associate the sound of a bell with receiving food. Thereafter, the dog would salivate on hearing the bell alone. This work began as merely a study in digestion, with a series of experiments on dogs to investigate how digestive secretions are regulated. He identified three stimuli that caused dogs to begin to salivate: seeing, smelling, or tasting food. He realized, digestion is partly controlled by sensory stimuli. In 1903, Pavlov published his results on this learned— “conditioned reflex,” (as opposed to an innate reflex, like a reaction to pain). He worked actively in the lab until his death at age 87.