Yakov Altman Russian neurophysiologist, neuropathologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences Date of Birth: 15.07.1930 Country: Moldova

Biography of Yakov Altman

Yakov Altman is a Russian neurophysiologist, neurologist, and doctor of medical sciences. He is also a professor and corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as the head of the Laboratory of Hearing Physiology and the Department of Sensory Systems Physiology at the I.P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg.

Born in Kishinev into a family of an engineer-mechanic, Yakov Altman's father, Buma Altman (1898-1962), was a graduate of Ghent University in Belgium, and his mother, Khai (Khausi) Idelevna Berman (1900-1962), was a homemaker. Altman studied at Secondary School No. 3 in Kishinev, where he was in the same class as physicist V.A. Kovarsky. He graduated from the Medical Faculty of the North Ossetian Medical Institute (Ordzhonikidze) in 1954 and completed his postgraduate studies at the I.P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad in 1960.

From 1954 to 1957, Altman worked as a resident and head of the department at the Kostroma Psychoneurological Hospital. In 1960, he became a junior research fellow, and in 1964, a senior research fellow at the I.P. Pavlov Institute of Physiology of the USSR Academy of Sciences (later the Russian Academy of Sciences). He is a recipient of the I.M. Sechenov Gold Medal from the Russian Academy of Sciences and has authored more than 250 scientific papers, including 5 monographs. His main works focus on psychoacoustics and the study of neurophysiological mechanisms of perceiving moving sound sources. He is also the project leader for the development of electronic hearing devices for individuals with hearing impairments, including the deaf and hard of hearing, based on the sound arc principle.

Altman's wife, Elena Altman (born 1932), is a doctor of biological sciences.