Vladimir Mikhailovich Pokrovskii
Vladimir Mikhailovich Pokrovskii, Doctor of Medicine, professor, Head of Department for Hominal Physiology of the Kuban State Medical University.
Having graduated from the Kuban State Medical University with honors in 1951, he started to work for the Department for Hominal Psyciology that saw all of his career developments. Since 1973 he has been the Head of the Department. Initially, Pokrosvkii’s activity as an ideologist and science organizer was aimed at the deepening and development of the scientific field created at the Department by his mentor, professor Starkov P.M. Pokrovskii’s attention at the time was concentrated on studying the impact of hypothermia on activity of the heart. Pokrovskiy did not limit himself to the description of changes in heart activity under the influence of a temperature decrease. He found ways to use temperature exposure to analyze realization mechanisms of certain characteristics and functions of the heart. At this time, together with his students Sheikh-Zade Yu.R. and Vovereidt V.V. he issued a study “The heart at hypothermia”. Conducting researches on impact of hypothermia on activity of the heart, Vladimir noticed a series of facts not corresponding to set ideas about mechanisms of heart rate formation in a holistic organism. This became the instigation point for creation of a new original scientific field. At the present time, researches carried out by Pokrovskiy and his numerous students are dedicated to determining the mechanisms of heart rate formation in an organism. This collection of unique works is absolutely new according to the manner in which the issue is regarded and the logic of experimental problems formation. This field is reflected in Pokrovskiy’s study “Heart rate formation in the organism of humans and animals” published in 2007. In this book the author formulated fundamentally new ideas about heart rate formation in an intact organism. He postulated that the heart rate is formed by a hierarchic system of mechanisms and structures located in the brain and the heart. In the natural conditions of existence of the human and animal organism, heart rate formation is a result of interaction of discrete signals coming from the brain via vagus nerves with rhythomgenic structures in the heart – sinoatrial knot. Whereupon the final outcome is the heart’s reproduction of a signals rhythm from the brain. Research of the rhythmogenesis required working out of special non-traditional approaches and methods during the creation of which the researcher’s talent and scientific foreknowledge came through.
Pokrovskii justly thinks that integration of two hierarchic levels of rhythmogenesis provides for reliability and functional perfection of the heart rate generation system in an intact organism. The intracardiac generator is a life-supporting factor that supports the pumping ability of the heart when the central nervous system is in a state of profound inhibition. The central generator provides for adaptive reactions of the heart in natural conditions.
In the process of studying the heart rate formation in the organism a new method came through that allows to establish a role of signals coming to the heart from the brain via vagus nerves. In order to accomplish that, a person was offered to breathe with the rate of the light or sound signal. The rate of the signal setting the breathing rhythm surpassed the heartbeat rate. This led to the development of cardiacrespiratory synchronism (CRS). Brain structures from the cortex to the medulla oblongata are involved in CRS formation and at the final stage, CRS formation provides for interaction of rhythmogenesis of two prime vegetative functions – respiration and heartbeat. Quantitative evaluation of CRS parameters offers a unique opportunity to objectively assess the interaction of these mechanisms and therefore to give integral characteristics to regulatory adaptive capacities of the organism. A summary stage of this research field is presented in a collective study under the general editorship of Pokrovskiy “Cardiacrespiratory synchronism in the evaluation of regulatory adaptive capacities of the organism” published in 2010.
Pokrovskii published more than 520 works based on scientific findings including 350 articles in national and foreign indexed press. Pokrovskiy is the creator of a scientific school successfully carrying out preparation of academic and teaching staff: he mentored 13 Doctors of Medicine and 93 Candidates of Medical Science.
A significant place in the career of Pokrovskii belongs to his educational work. Deep insight into the process of teaching allowed Pokrovskii together with Korotko G.F. to lead a writing team and create a textbook “Human Physiology ” for students of medical universities that was reprinted 4 times 1997 to 2002. In 2003, 2007 a new second edition and in 2011, 2013 a new third edition of the textbook was published by "Medicine" publishing house. The textbook is undoubtedly a modern guide compliant with all standards of higher education. The textbook was prized by the Government of Russia in 2005.
Pokrovskii V.M. constantly conduts scientific and organizational work: he is a member of the Central Council of the Russian Physiological Society named after Pavlov I.P., chairman of the Krasnodar Division of the Russian Physiological Society, chief editor of Kubanskiy Nauchniy Medicinskiy Vestnik (Kuban Scientific Medical Herald) Journal, editor of Journal of Integrative Neuroscience (JIN), Reviewsin Cardiovascular Medicine (RCM), chairman of the Doctoral Dissertation Council.
Pokrovskiy V.M. enjoys well-deserved recognition and authority as an academic and educationalist. He was awarded titles of an Honored Worker of Science of Russia, Kuban and the Republic of Adygeya, Honorary Citizen of Krasnodar, Kuban Hero of Labor. He is a Government of Russia award winner in the field of education.
*A publication in Rossiyskiy Fisiologischeskiy Zhurnal im. Sechenova I.M (Russian Physiological Journal named after Sechenov I.M) from 2008, 94, №11 was used in the writing of this article, updated with new data as of December 2016.