Elio García-Austt

He married two times and had five sons. He died in Montevideo in 2005.

In 1991 he was designed Professor of Neuroscience of the School of Sciences of the University of Uruguay, a position which he held until his retirement in 1999.

In 1988 he returned to Montevideo to direct the "Proyecto de Neurociencia", financed by the European Union, their first scientific grant given to Latin America. The grant provided the basis for the development of five projects in several Uruguay laboratories. This marked a revival of the neuroscience in Uruguay, thanks to the integrating and formative work of Garcia-Austt, creating a favourable scientific environment for the return of several researchers who worked in foreign countries. During this period he returned frequently to Madrid, in which he maintained his office at the Ramon y Cajal Hospital. In Uruguay, he continued in the organization of several national and international courses which formed the present structure of the "Escuela de Neurociencia" in Hispanic America.

Preliminary scientific meetings named I, II and III Spanish Neurobiologists Meetings in 1980, 1981 and 1983, organized by Garcia-Austt in collaboration with Reinoso Suarez, Salvador Lluch, and Isabel de Andres, lead to the creation, in 1985, of the Spanish Neurosciences Society, in which Garcia-Austt was the first President.

In 1973 he was invited by Jose M. Rodriguez Delgado to work in Madrid, collaborating in the development of Neurobiology at the Hospital "Ramon y Cajal" of the Social Security. He accepted it, both because of the better facilities and because of the unbearable socio-political climate in Uruguay. At that hospital he founded the Experimental Neurology Service of the Research Department. For 15 years, he worked on the generating mechanisms of brain rhythms. He was connected with the Hospital clinical area, via the collaboration with the Neurochirurgical Unit led by Dr. Obrador-Alcalde. As professor in the Department of Physiology of the School of Medicine of the Universidad Autonoma in Madrid, he taught Neuroscience, in close collaboration with Profs. Rodriguez Delgado and Reinoso Suarez.

In 1959, García-Austt created the Neurophysiology Laboratory at the "Instituto de Neurología y Neurocirugía" of the School of Medicine. He worked until 1973, when he moved to Spain. The laboratory's research included:

In 1951, he worked in the Neurophysiology Laboratory of the Pontifical Catholic University at Santiago de Chile, directed by Prof. Joaquin Luco, one of the most important neurobiology scientists. Back in Montevideo, he started the "Laboratorio de Neurofisiología" in collaboration with Drs. E. Migliaro and J.P. Segundo. This laboratory was under the joint jurisdiction of the Biophysics and Physiology Departments.

García-Austt graduated with honors as "Doctor en Medicina y Cirugía" (M.D.) at the University of the Republic of the Uruguay in 1948 and obtained a gold medal, with a doctoral thesis on "Repercussion of some metabolic alterations on the bioelectric potentials". Even before his graduation, he had started his career as a neuroscientist, developing clinical electroencephalography at the Instituto de Endocrinología using the first recording equipment that existed in Uruguay in 1942.

Elio García-Austt (1919-2005) was born in Montevideo.