Aristides Leão

Aristides de Azevedo Pacheco Leão (August 3, 1914 – December 14, 1993, Rio de Janeiro) was one of the most noted Brazilian biologists and scientists, one of the founders of the Biophysics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the discoverer of cortical spreading depression, an electrophysiological phenomenon of the central nervous system, which received his name. Leão was born to an intellectual family in Rio de Janeiro. He started to study medicine at the University of São Paulo, but had to interrupt it, due to a bout with tuberculosis. Under the influence of his uncle, Antonio Pacheco Leão, who was the director of the Botanical Gardens of Rio de Janeiro, he decided instead to follow a research career and went to...