READ List of Famous Neurologists

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List of famous neurologists, with photos, bios, and other information when available. Who are the top neurologists in the world? This includes the most prominent neurologists, living and dead, both in America and abroad. While some are celebrities who majored in neuroscience, other neurologists ended up on our list of the worst doctors. This list of notable neurologists is ordered by their level of prominence, and can be sorted for various bits of information, such as where these historic neurologists were born and what their nationality is. The people on this list are from different countries, but what they all have in common is that they're all renowned neurologists.

Oliver Sacks, Eric Kandel, and Christof Koch are only the beginning of the best people in neurology on this list. Including female neurologists and the top neurosurgeons, this list has them all!

From reputable, prominent, and well known neurologists to the lesser known neurologists of today, these are some of the best professionals in the neurologist field. If you want to answer the questions, "Who are the most famous neurologists ever?" and "What are the names of famous neurologists?" then you're in the right place.

1

Oliver Sacks age 84 Oliver Sacks is a film story contributor.

2

Sigmund Freud Died at 83 (1856-1939) Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis. Freud qualified as a doctor of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1881, and then carried out research ...more

3

Roberta Bondar age 72 Roberta Bondar OC O.Ont FRCP FRSC is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. Following more than a decade as NASA's head of space medicine, Bondar became a consultant ...more

4

Ernest Jones Died at 79 (1879-1958) Alfred Ernest Jones, FRCP, MRCS was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud's official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and ...more

5

Alastair Buchan age 62 Professor Alastair Buchan is a neurologist and researcher in stroke medicine. His main research interest has always been how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. Since October 2008 ...more

6

António Egas Moniz Died at 81 (1874-1955) António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, known as Egas Moniz, was a Portuguese neurologist and the developer of cerebral angiography. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ...more

7

Steven Novella age 53 Steven Paul Novella is an American clinical neurologist and assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the skeptical movement.

8

Susan Hockfield age 67 Susan Hockfield has served as the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since December 2004. A strong advocate of the vital role that science, technology, and the ...more

9

William Benjamin Carpenter Died at 72 (1813-1885) William Benjamin Carpenter CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.

10

Louann Brizendine age 66 Louann Brizendine M.D. is an American scientist, a neuropsychiatrist who is both a researcher and a clinician. She is the author of two books: The Female Brain, and The Male Brain. Brizendine's ...more

11

Mayim Bialik age 42 Mayim Hoya Bialik is an American actress and neuroscientist. From early January 1991 to May 1995, she played the title character of NBC's Blossom. Since May 2010, she has played Dr. Amy Farrah ...more

12

Christof Koch age 61 Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He is the Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. ...more

13

Alois Alzheimer Died at 51 (1864-1915) Dr. Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer was a Bavarian-born German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first ...more

14

Paul Broca Died at 56 (1824-1880) Pierre Paul Broca was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the ...more

15

Herbert Jasper Died at 93 (1906-1999) Herbert Henri Jasper, OC GOQ FRSC was a Canadian psychologist, physiologist, anatomist, chemist and neurologist. Born in La Grande, Oregon, he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and ...more

16

Dr. Kiki Sanford age 43 Kirsten "Kiki" Sanford is an American science communicator. After working at the University of California, Davis as a research scientist in neurophysiology, she left research work to ...more

17

Alfonso Vallejo age 75 Alfonso Vallejo is a Spanish playwright, poet, painter and neurologist. He has published 34 plays and 25 poetry books. Vallejo was awarded the Lope de Vega prize in 1976 for his play "El ...more

18

Franz Joseph Gall Died at 70 (1758-1828) Franz Josef Gall was a neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain. Claimed as the founder of phrenology, Gall was an early and ...more

19

Louis R. Caplan age 81 Louis R. Caplan is an American physician who is a senior member of the Division of Cerebrovascular Disease at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. He is a Professor of Neurology at ...more

20

Erwin Straus Died at 84 (1891-1975) Erwin Straus was a German-American phenomenologist and neurologist who helped to pioneer anthropological medicine and psychiatry, a holistic approach to medicine that is critical of mechanistic ...more

21

Richard W. Aldrich Richard Warren Aldrich is an American neuroscientist who is currently the Karl Folkers Chair of Interdisciplinary Medical Research and Professor of Neurobiology in the School of Biological ...more

22

Ayad Allawi age 73 Ayad Allawi is an Iraqi politician who was the interim Prime Minister of Iraq from 2004 to 2005. He has been Vice President of Iraq since 2014. A prominent Iraqi political activist who lived in ...more

23

Korbinian Brodmann Died at 50 (1868-1918) Korbinian Brodmann was a German neurologist who became famous for his definition of the cerebral cortex into 52 distinct regions from their cytoarchitectonic characteristics, known as Brodmann

24

Morris Bender Died at 78 (1905-1983) Morris Bender was an American neuroscientist and professor of neurology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He joined the faculty of Mount Sinai in 1933 and became chairman of the neurology ...more

25

Eric Kandel age 88 Eric Richard Kandel is an American neuropsychiatrist. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in ...more

26

Ralph Northam age 58 Ralph Shearer Northam, MD is an American physician and politician, currently serving as the 40th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. On November 5, 2013, Northam became the first Democrat since Tim ...more

27

Robert Sapolsky age 61 Robert Maurice Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist, professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University, researcher and author. He is currently a Professor of ...more

28

Aafia Siddiqui age 46 Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani who studied neuroscience in the United States. She immigrated to the US in 1990 and obtained a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 2001. In early 2003, during the ...more

29

David Eagleman age 46 David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist and writer at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is ...more

30

Daniel Levitin age 60 Daniel Joseph Levitin, PhD, FRSC, is an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, best-selling author, musician and record producer. He is James McGill Professor of psychology and ...more

31

Antonio Damasio age 74 Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist/neurobiologist. He is a University Professor and David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, an ...more

32

James Parkinson Died at 69 (1755-1824) James Parkinson FGS was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the ...more

33

Sam Harris age 50 Samuel B. "Sam" Harris is an American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit that promotes science and secularism. ...more

34

Michael Gazzaniga age 78 Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading ...more

35

Paul Greengard age 92 Paul Greengard is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel ...more

36

Henry Markram age 56 Henry Markram is an israeli Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and director of both the Blue Brain Project and the Human Brain

37

Chuck Benedict age 71 Charles P. "Chuck" Benedict was a Democratic Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 45th Assembly District from 2004 to 2010. In April 2010, Benedict announced ...more

38

Elsdon Storey Elsdon Storey is an Australian neurologist, former Rhodes Scholar & Professor of Neurology at Monash University. His clinical and research interests are in neurogenetics and behavioural ...more

39

Karl Stern Died at 69 (1906-1975) Karl Stern was a German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Jewish convert to the Catholic Church. Stern is best known for his account of his conversion in Pillar of Fire.

40

Michael F. Land age 76 Michael Francis Land FRS is a British neurobiologist. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Neurobiology in the Sussex Vision laboratory at the Sussex Centre for Neuroscience, University of ...more

41

John O'Bannon age 70 John M. O'Bannon III is an American politician of the Republican Party as well as a practicing physician. Since 2001 he has been a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He currently ...more

42

Nicholas Schiff Nicholas D. Schiff, MD is a neurologist, physician and researcher in the area of neurological disorders of consciousness, whose research in using deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat the ...more

43

John Hughlings Jackson Died at 76 (1835-1911) John Hughlings Jackson, FRS, was an English neurologist.

44

Frederic Lewy Died at 65 (1885-1950) Frederic Henry Lewey was a prominent Jewish German-born American neurologist. He is best known for the discovery of Lewy bodies, which are a characteristic indicator of Parkinson's disease and ...more

45

Robert Wartenberg Died at 69 (1887-1956) Robert Wartenberg was an American neurologist. Wartenberg was born in 1886 in Grodno, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. He graduated from the University of Rostock, Germany in 1919. He worked ...more

46

Kári Stefánsson age 69 Dr. Kári Stefánsson, is an Icelandic neurologist, who is the President, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of deCODE Genetics. He has pioneered the monitoring of the DNA of a large ...more

47

S. Murray Sherman age 74 S. Murray Sherman is a 2000 Guggenheim Fellow in Natural Sciences.

48

Ludwig Guttmann Died at 81 (1899-1980) Professor Sir Ludwig "Poppa" Guttmann, CBE, FRS was a German-born British neurologist who established the Paralympic Games in England. The Jewish doctor, who had fled Nazi Germany just ...more

49

David Chang David Chang is a neurologist and an alumnus of the University of Queensland.

50

Argye Hillis-Trupe

1 Oliver Sacks age 84 Oliver Sacks is a film story contributor.

2 Sigmund Freud Died at 83 (1856-1939) Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis. Freud qualified as a doctor of medicine at the University of Vienna in 1881, and then carried out research ...more

3 Roberta Bondar age 72 Roberta Bondar OC O.Ont FRCP FRSC is Canada's first female astronaut and the first neurologist in space. Following more than a decade as NASA's head of space medicine, Bondar became a consultant ...more

4 Ernest Jones Died at 79 (1879-1958) Alfred Ernest Jones, FRCP, MRCS was a British neurologist and psychoanalyst, and Sigmund Freud's official biographer. Jones was the first English-speaking practitioner of psychoanalysis and ...more

5 Alastair Buchan age 62 Professor Alastair Buchan is a neurologist and researcher in stroke medicine. His main research interest has always been how to make neuroprotection a reality in the clinic. Since October 2008 ...more

6 António Egas Moniz Died at 81 (1874-1955) António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, known as Egas Moniz, was a Portuguese neurologist and the developer of cerebral angiography. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ...more

7 Steven Novella age 53 Steven Paul Novella is an American clinical neurologist and assistant professor at Yale University School of Medicine. Novella is best known for his involvement in the skeptical movement.

8 Susan Hockfield age 67 Susan Hockfield has served as the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since December 2004. A strong advocate of the vital role that science, technology, and the ...more

9 William Benjamin Carpenter Died at 72 (1813-1885) William Benjamin Carpenter CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.

10 Louann Brizendine age 66 Louann Brizendine M.D. is an American scientist, a neuropsychiatrist who is both a researcher and a clinician. She is the author of two books: The Female Brain, and The Male Brain. Brizendine's ...more

11 Mayim Bialik age 42 Mayim Hoya Bialik is an American actress and neuroscientist. From early January 1991 to May 1995, she played the title character of NBC's Blossom. Since May 2010, she has played Dr. Amy Farrah ...more

12 Christof Koch age 61 Christof Koch is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural bases of consciousness. He is the Chief Scientific Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle. ...more

13 Alois Alzheimer Died at 51 (1864-1915) Dr. Aloysius "Alois" Alzheimer was a Bavarian-born German psychiatrist and neuropathologist and a colleague of Emil Kraepelin. Alzheimer is credited with identifying the first ...more

14 Paul Broca Died at 56 (1824-1880) Pierre Paul Broca was a French physician, surgeon, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the ...more

15 Herbert Jasper Died at 93 (1906-1999) Herbert Henri Jasper, OC GOQ FRSC was a Canadian psychologist, physiologist, anatomist, chemist and neurologist. Born in La Grande, Oregon, he attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and ...more

16 Dr. Kiki Sanford age 43 Kirsten "Kiki" Sanford is an American science communicator. After working at the University of California, Davis as a research scientist in neurophysiology, she left research work to ...more

17 Alfonso Vallejo age 75 Alfonso Vallejo is a Spanish playwright, poet, painter and neurologist. He has published 34 plays and 25 poetry books. Vallejo was awarded the Lope de Vega prize in 1976 for his play "El ...more

18 Franz Joseph Gall Died at 70 (1758-1828) Franz Josef Gall was a neuroanatomist, physiologist, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain. Claimed as the founder of phrenology, Gall was an early and ...more

19 Louis R. Caplan age 81 Louis R. Caplan is an American physician who is a senior member of the Division of Cerebrovascular Disease at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. He is a Professor of Neurology at ...more

20 Erwin Straus Died at 84 (1891-1975) Erwin Straus was a German-American phenomenologist and neurologist who helped to pioneer anthropological medicine and psychiatry, a holistic approach to medicine that is critical of mechanistic ...more

21 Richard W. Aldrich Richard Warren Aldrich is an American neuroscientist who is currently the Karl Folkers Chair of Interdisciplinary Medical Research and Professor of Neurobiology in the School of Biological ...more

22 Ayad Allawi age 73 Ayad Allawi is an Iraqi politician who was the interim Prime Minister of Iraq from 2004 to 2005. He has been Vice President of Iraq since 2014. A prominent Iraqi political activist who lived in ...more

23 Korbinian Brodmann Died at 50 (1868-1918) Korbinian Brodmann was a German neurologist who became famous for his definition of the cerebral cortex into 52 distinct regions from their cytoarchitectonic characteristics, known as Brodmann

24 Morris Bender Died at 78 (1905-1983) Morris Bender was an American neuroscientist and professor of neurology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He joined the faculty of Mount Sinai in 1933 and became chairman of the neurology ...more

25 Eric Kandel age 88 Eric Richard Kandel is an American neuropsychiatrist. He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in ...more

26 Ralph Northam age 58 Ralph Shearer Northam, MD is an American physician and politician, currently serving as the 40th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. On November 5, 2013, Northam became the first Democrat since Tim ...more

27 Robert Sapolsky age 61 Robert Maurice Sapolsky is an American neuroendocrinologist, professor of biology, neuroscience, and neurosurgery at Stanford University, researcher and author. He is currently a Professor of ...more

28 Aafia Siddiqui age 46 Aafia Siddiqui is a Pakistani who studied neuroscience in the United States. She immigrated to the US in 1990 and obtained a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 2001. In early 2003, during the ...more

29 David Eagleman age 46 David Eagleman is an American neuroscientist and writer at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is ...more

30 Daniel Levitin age 60 Daniel Joseph Levitin, PhD, FRSC, is an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, best-selling author, musician and record producer. He is James McGill Professor of psychology and ...more

31 Antonio Damasio age 74 Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese-American neuroscientist/neurobiologist. He is a University Professor and David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, an ...more

32 James Parkinson Died at 69 (1755-1824) James Parkinson FGS was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the ...more

33 Sam Harris age 50 Samuel B. "Sam" Harris is an American author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and the co-founder and chief executive of Project Reason, a non-profit that promotes science and secularism. ...more

34 Michael Gazzaniga age 78 Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading ...more

35 Paul Greengard age 92 Paul Greengard is an American neuroscientist best known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons. In 2000, Greengard, Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel were awarded the Nobel ...more

36 Henry Markram age 56 Henry Markram is an israeli Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and director of both the Blue Brain Project and the Human Brain

37 Chuck Benedict age 71 Charles P. "Chuck" Benedict was a Democratic Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, representing the 45th Assembly District from 2004 to 2010. In April 2010, Benedict announced ...more

38 Elsdon Storey Elsdon Storey is an Australian neurologist, former Rhodes Scholar & Professor of Neurology at Monash University. His clinical and research interests are in neurogenetics and behavioural ...more

39 Karl Stern Died at 69 (1906-1975) Karl Stern was a German-Canadian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Jewish convert to the Catholic Church. Stern is best known for his account of his conversion in Pillar of Fire.

40 Michael F. Land age 76 Michael Francis Land FRS is a British neurobiologist. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Neurobiology in the Sussex Vision laboratory at the Sussex Centre for Neuroscience, University of ...more

41 John O'Bannon age 70 John M. O'Bannon III is an American politician of the Republican Party as well as a practicing physician. Since 2001 he has been a member of the Virginia House of Delegates. He currently ...more

42 Nicholas Schiff Nicholas D. Schiff, MD is a neurologist, physician and researcher in the area of neurological disorders of consciousness, whose research in using deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat the ...more

43 John Hughlings Jackson Died at 76 (1835-1911) John Hughlings Jackson, FRS, was an English neurologist.

44 Frederic Lewy Died at 65 (1885-1950) Frederic Henry Lewey was a prominent Jewish German-born American neurologist. He is best known for the discovery of Lewy bodies, which are a characteristic indicator of Parkinson's disease and ...more

45 Robert Wartenberg Died at 69 (1887-1956) Robert Wartenberg was an American neurologist. Wartenberg was born in 1886 in Grodno, Belarus, then in the Russian Empire. He graduated from the University of Rostock, Germany in 1919. He worked ...more

46 Kári Stefánsson age 69 Dr. Kári Stefánsson, is an Icelandic neurologist, who is the President, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of deCODE Genetics. He has pioneered the monitoring of the DNA of a large ...more

47 S. Murray Sherman age 74 S. Murray Sherman is a 2000 Guggenheim Fellow in Natural Sciences.

48 Ludwig Guttmann Died at 81 (1899-1980) Professor Sir Ludwig "Poppa" Guttmann, CBE, FRS was a German-born British neurologist who established the Paralympic Games in England. The Jewish doctor, who had fled Nazi Germany just ...more

49 David Chang David Chang is a neurologist and an alumnus of the University of Queensland.

50 Argye Hillis-Trupe