Lafora y el origen de la neuropsiquiatría biológica española

The development of biological neuropsychiatry in Spain began at the beginning of the 20th century, following European somaticist tendencies and under the strong influence of Cajal, around whom a school of disciples was developed, characterized by its Germanic orientation, its mixed neuropsychiatric component, and its affinity toward neuropathology. One of the most prestigious representatives of this school was Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora. After training in the fields of neuropathology and psychiatry in Germany alongside Alzheimer, Kraepelin, Rothmann and Minkowski, in 1910, Lafora took charge of the Histopathology Laboratory of the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, where he made some of the most important discoveries of his scientific career. These discoveries included the histopathological description of two of the first 10 American cases of Alzheimer's disease, and of a type of myoclonic epilepsy, well-known from then onwards as “Lafora's disease”. In this field, Lafora also studied the histopathology of the senile plaque, cerebral malaria, neurosyphilis, and paralysis agitans, etc., while in the field of neurology he studied the functions of the corpus callosum, chorea and athetosis, sleep physiopathology, encephalitis and meningitis, etc. Finally, within a strictly psychiatric framework, he studied paranoid psychoses, auditory hallucinations, pathological jealousy, obsessive syndromes, ereuthophobia and, above all, the morphologic bases of schizophrenia, even postulating a hypothesis on its endocrine origin. The importance of Lafora's work in these fields went far beyond the borders of Spain, and he can be considered as the great pioneer of Spanish biological neuropsychiatry.