Copyright © 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hans-Lukas Teuber (1916-1977) was born in Berlin to Dr. Eugen Teuber, a psychologist, and Rose Knopf, a teacher. His father was the founder of the primate center on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, which later became famous as the site of Wolfgang's experiments on apes. After a classical education at the French College in Berlin, he studied biology and philosophy at the University of Basel.
In 1941, Teuber came to the Department of Psychology at Harvard University as a graduate student, and in the same year married Marianne Liepe, an art historian. She came to play a central and crucial role in the extended families that later made up his laboratory at New York University and his department at MIT.
Teuber's most important educational experiences in graduate school were probably the two years he spent away from Harvard in the U.S. Navy. In that period he began to work with the neurologist Morris B. Bender at the San Diego Naval Hospital on the effects of human brain lesions. This collaboration lasted more than fifteen years and produced a series of important neuropsychological articles, particularly on the effects of penetrating head wounds on visual and haptic function.
After returning to Harvard, he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1947 on a study of the effects of psychotherapy on teenagers at risk for delinquency. Teuber found that the experimental and control groups did not differ. This experience probably contributed to his lifelong skepticism of psychotherapists, as well as most other types of clinicians. In spite of this attitude, throughout his life Teuber spent an enormous amount of time counseling his colleagues, students, and research subjects with their personal problems.
In 1947, Teuber established his Psychophysiological Laboratory at the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center. Neuropsychological research on head-injured war veterans and other patients flourished there, as well as new lines of research on children and infrahuman animals. The work of Teuber and his colleagues in this period played a major role in the transformation of the study of human brain function from collecting case studies of florid neurological curios to a systematic experimental neuropsychology (e.g., Semmes et al. 1960; Teuber, Battersby, and Bender 1960). Among their major innovations were the use of matched control groups; the study of patients chosen on the basis of their brain damage and not their symptoms; follow up of patients beyond the stage of acute symptoms; use of nonverbal tests (he called them "monkified," as they were often derived from the animal laboratory); and, above all, the introduction of modern psychophysical methods with their rigor of instrumentation and statistical analysis.
Teuber came to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall of 1961 to organize a new department of psychology. Over the next decade this became a world center for the neuro- and cognitive sciences. Uniquely at the time, it brought together neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, linguistics, COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE, and philosophy into an interacting community and became a model for the establishment of similar neuroscience centers abound the world. Today the department continues to flourish as the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Teuber was a charismatic teacher at every level. For a number of years he taught the introductory psychology course (twice a term for both terms) and it was taken by virtually every undergraduate at MIT. He was a brilliant speaker and particularly skilled at summing up conference proceedings. His theoretical and review papers helped to set the foundation for contemporary neuroscience (e.g. Teuber 1955, 1960, 1978).
Teuber's contributions extended far beyond the institutions he founded and the experimental and theoretical papers he wrote. He was a consummate organizer, synthesizer, and sponsor of research on the brain, as well as the mentor of many of today's leading brain researchers. His concern for others went beyond counseling and support. He resigned in protest as chair of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the U. S. Army over the use of psychedelic drugs on human subjects, he was instrumental in establishing the first MIT Review Committee on Human Subjects, and he was supportive of anti-Vietnam War activity at MIT. As he put it in a posthumously published address to the 21st International Psychology Congress (Teuber 1978), "our particular science is as central as physics, and ultimately more so. But it is also capable of as much abuse . . . All of us here will have to abide by a new kind of Hippocratic oath, never to do harm, always to heal rather than hinder, to make life richer, and to make it free."
Gross, C. (1994). Hans-Lukas Teuber: A tribute. Cereb. Cor. 5:451-454.
Hecaen, H. (1979). H.-L. Teuber et la foundation de la neurologie experimentale. Neuropsychologia 17:199-124.
Hurvich, L. M., D. Jameson, and W. A. Rosenblith. (1987). Hans-Lukas Teuber: A biographical memoir. Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences 57:461-490.
Semmes, J., S. Weinstein, L. Ghent, and H.-L. Teuber. (1960). Somatosensory Changes After Penetrating Brain Wounds in Man. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Teuber, H.-L. (1955). Physiological psychology. Annual Review of Psychology 6:267-296.
Teuber, H.-L. (1960). Perception. In J. Field, H. W. Magain, and V. E. Hall, Eds., Handbook of Physiology, vol. 3. Washington, DC: American Physiological Society, pp. 1595-1688.
Teuber, H.-L. (1978). The brain and human behavior. In R. Held, H. W. Leibowitz, and H.-L. Teuber, Eds., Handbook of Sensory Physiology, vol. 7. New York: Springer, pp. 879-920.
Teuber, H.-L., W. S. Battersby, and M. Bender. (1960). Visual Field Defects After Penetrating Missile Wounds of the Brain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .
Copyright © 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology