Laborit, Henri

Of special interest is the contribution made by Henri Laborit, who had worked as an army surgeon during the Second World War and who, under the influence of his war experiences, devoted himself in subsequent years primarily to the problem of shock. 

Chlorpromazine s (CPZ) efficacy was discovered primarily by chance in exploratory clinical trials after it had been initially synthesized as an antihistamine. Its discovery, however, was not entirely fortuitous, because it was chosen for human investigation since it was mildly sedating. The concept of an antipsychotic, however, was unknown. CPZ s sedative properties then led the French anesthesiologist and surgeon Henri Laborit to use it in a lytic cocktail to reduce autonomic response with surgical stress (1). He also persuaded many clinicians to try it for the treatment of a wide variety of other disorders. In this context, he encouraged John Delay and Pierre Deniker (1952), who then administered CPZ to schizophrenic patients. The rest is history ( 2, 3). 

Like many of his contemporaries, Claude Rifat was drawn to experimentation with psychoactive drugs, but he soon learned that he could accomplish the effects he sought without them. Through his contact with the French psychobiologist Henri Laborit, he was inspired to elaborate models of these transformations that involve the natural neuromodulator serotonin, just as I will do in chapter 7. Claude Rifat s life has led him back to the east, but now it is the extreme orient that he calls home. There he has felt freer to pursue his self-observation based scientific inquiries and develop his personal, social, and ecological ideals. 

In 1952 a French surgeon, Henri Laborit, used chlorpromazine to aid anaesthesia in surgical operations. His description of its effects led French psychiatrists Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker to wonder about its... 

Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry at the Facnlty of Pharmacy, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbonrg, France from 1969 to 2002. He became interested in Medicinal Chemistry during his two years of military service in the French Navy at the Centre d Etudes Physio biologiques Appliquees a la Marine in Tonlon. During this time he worked under the snpervision of Dr Henri Laborit, the scientist who invented artificial hibernation and discovered chlorpromazine. 

Psychiatrists have been using agents that are active in the central nervous system for hundreds of years. Stimulants and depressants were used to modify the mood and mental states of psychiatric patients. Amphetamine, sedatives, and hypnotics were used to stimulate or depress the mental states of patients. The synthesis of chlorpromazine by Charpentier ultimately caused a revolution in the treatment of schizophrenia, but who really discovered chlorpromazine Charpentier, who first synthesized the molecule in 1950 at Rhone-Poulenc s research laboratory Simon Courvoisier, who reported distinctive effects on animal behavior Henri Laborit, a French military surgeon who first noticed distinctive psychotropic effects in man or Pierre Deniker and Jean Delay, French psychiatrists who clearly outlined what has... 

Among its first applications was the study of reserpine. Reserpine was isolated in 1952 from Rauwolfia serpentina (Indian snakeroot), which was used for centuries to treat insanity. Reserpine acts by blocking the reuptake NE back into presynaptic vesicles. The same year, Henri Laborit, a surgeon in Paris, administered reserpine to prepare his patients for surgery, because it maden them less anxious. Subsequently, it was widely used to treat patients with severe psychiatry diseases with impressive results. 

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