acad.Dmitry A.Biryukov
(head 1950-1969)

Nikolay N.Vasilevsky
(head 1969-1996)

Head of the Department:
Genrikh A.Sofronov
Academician of  RAMS

Phone : (812) - 234-3747,  (812) - 234-0925
Fax: (812) - 234-9489
e-mail: ecophys@iemrams.ru

In 1950 the Department of comparative physiology and pathology of nervous activity was organized by academician of the USSR Academy of medical sciences (AMS) D.A.Biryukov. In 1970 the department was transformed into the department of ecological physiology. D.A.Biryukov headed the Department up to 1969. From 1969 to 1996 the Department was headed by a corresponding member of AMS N.N.Vasilevsky, from 1996 to 2000 by doctor of biological sciences,  prof. N.B.Suvorov. Since 2000 the Department of ecological physiology has been headed by academician of RAMS, Honored science worker of RF G.A.Sofronov.

D. A. Biryukov went down in history of the national physiological science as a creator of a new original branch — ecological physiology of nervous activity. Being an outstanding researcher of the questions of evolutionary physiology he also became one of the founders of the ecological physiology of man. D. A. Biryukov has formulated the ecological approach to an analysis of physiological functions which remains the methodological basis of fundamental works in the fields of ecological physiology in our country and abroad. As early as by the early 1960ies of the last century the Department became an essentially scientific center of studying the problems of evolutionary and ecological physiology. One of the largest national physiological schools has grown up in the department which gave more than 30 doctors of sciences and exerted a strong influence on the development of a number of scientific directions — ecology of man, ecological and evolutionary physiology, immunophysiology, cellular neurophysiology, neuroecology and neurocybernetics.

There are two laboratories:

•  laboratory of the ecology of man headed by academician of RAMS G. A. Sofronov.

•  laboratory of neuroecology headed by doctor of biological sciences, prof. N. B. Suvorov;

The following fundamental scientific results have been obtained in the department for the last 10 years:
— Experimental substantiation of the biological significance of the ecological factors of environment in the process of formation of physiological functions. The ecological factors of the environment of animals of a concrete type play the paramount role in the formation of the regulatory systems of organism in the process of evolution. The evolutionary selection consolidates the ecologically conditioned and thus biologically expedient specific features of realization of the functions responsible for the survival of the concrete type in the concretely formed ecological conditions.

Development of the theory of risk for health under chronic exposure of organism to harmful factors of different nature (physical, chemical, biological) of less intensity. It has been found that biological activity of the risk factors is variable and depends on the current functional state and the level of adaptational abilities of organism. The individual prognosis with the available risk factors depends on the individual adaptive ability and sensitiveness, functional reserves, state of the homeostasis regulatory mechanisms as well as on the age, chronic diseases and genetic load. Within the frames of this theory a conception was formulated of the thresholdless action of ecological factors and the individual risk for the prognosis of medicinal consequences of exposure to ecotoxicants for the individual and the population as a whole. The methodology of assessment of the individual risk is successfully used in our country in scientific investigations in the field of ecological and industrial toxicology.

A weighty contribution was made to the theory of adaptive self-regulation of functions in the mechanisms of adaptation of organism to the conditions of environment. It was shown that in man resistance of organism to ecologically significant factors was associated with the adaptive plasticity of the nervous system and its biorhythmological characteristics. Two individual-typological groups of adaptive and minimally adaptive subjects were selected in big contingents of the examined. High prognostic value of the assessment of individual peculiarities of adaptive ability was shown. The developed techniques of prognosis were applied for the detection of risk groups, prognosis of the man's state under extreme conditions.

The devices and software made in the department are widely used and will develop in professional selection of specialists of dangerous professions, in aviation and cosmic medicine. The detection of individual-typological features of man should be considered as a fundamental approach to the development of the methodology of the early preclinical diagnosis, organization of monitoring and effective maintenance of the health level.
The theory and technology of the biological feedback or the functional biocontrol were developed. A complex of psychophysiological procedures and the corresponding equipment were made at the department allowing the development of habits of self-regulation by training of the personal regulatory mechanisms. Strict clinical evidences were obtained that the application of the adaptive biocontrol technologies in patients with ischemic heart disease, hypertension disease, neurocirculatory dystonia, bronchial asthma improved the results of complex therapy.

Active investigation of the physiological role — at the level of the individual and the population — of risk factors is in progress: climatic-geographical peculiarities of the regions, the polluted surroundings with anthropogenic pollutants of the radiational, chemical and biological nature, cosmic factors.

A considerable cycle of researches has been carried on jointly with the specialists of the Russian-Vietnamese tropical research and technology Center in the Socialist republic Vietnam on studying long-term medical consequences in the population exposed to the action of dioxin containing ecotoxicant or living for a long time on territories polluted with dioxin. During annual expeditions to Vietnam the state of health of representative groups of adults and children exposed to dioxin was studied. A wide spectrum of epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and medico-genetic investigations was used. The unique scientific findings have no analogues in the world science. The presence of long-term medical consequences such as various symptoms of failing health was established. The whole complex of such manifestations was determined in the scientific literature as a dioxin pathology (disease). The scientific grounds and methodology of diagnosing the dioxin pathology were developed. The results of these works are of the prior significance for fundamental and prophylactic medicine since dioxin and similar compounds are referred to most widespread, Russia included, and dangerous for man ecotoxicants.
The members of the department possess the up-to-date arsenal of medico-biological investigations. The department has stable scientific relations with other subdivisions of IEM, and of a number of large national and foreign research centers. In 2003 the International ecological forum "Environment and health of man" was held on the basis of the Institute and in 2005 a symposium "Imperatives of ecology of man in the XXI century" devoted to the D. A. Biryukov's 100th birthday. They have shown that ecological physiology as a many-sided scientific branch actively creates new scientific knowledge of the influence of pathogenic factors of the surrounding natural and technogenic environment on the man's health. This knowledge makes a basis for defining the present-day strategies of ecological safety of man and nature.

Perspectives of researches in the field of ecological physiology:
The development of a general theory of the interaction of organism and environment on the basis of the notions of informational interaction.
An analysis of general methods of interdependence in the informational key for approaching the optimization of external and internal informational interactions that will best of all provide the comfort existence of human organism.
Laying the foundation of the newest technologies of the ecophysiological experiment on the principles of a one-moment fixation of many significant parameters of the biosphere components in real conditions of their functioning. Using the individual multimedia computed technologies, global telecommunications for creation of the econet for collecting the primary parameters of environment vitally important for man.
The following step is to create a working place of the man-operator adequate to the present-day conditions. This approach will allow to give up artificial modeling of the working situation in laboratory conditions and to study human organism directly in the real vital functioning. In perspective a question can be put forward of a synchronous collecting, for example, of ecotoxicological and ecophysiological information in different geographical places.
Investigation of ecologo-genetic manifestations of a dioxin pathology for prognosis of the genetic risk of acute and chronic action of ecotoxicants.
Further development of the theory of adaptive biocontrol with feedback and working out ecologically pure technologies of the diagnosis and correction of the functional state of human organism.