Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora
(Madrid, 1886 - 1971)

Gonzalo Rodríguez Lafora obtained a grant from the Junta para Ampliación de Estudios (JAE) in 1907 to study the anatomy of the nervous system in Germany, first with Theodor Zihen in the Psychiatric Clinic of La Charité, in Berlin, and later with Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer, in Munich. Lafora also visited prestigious French psychiatric clinics, such as Valentin Magnan’s, and Pierre Marie’s.  In late 1909,
he received an offer from his friend and mentor, Nicholas Achúcarro, who wanted to return to Spain, to replace him as a pathologist at the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington D.C., an offer which he accepted despite not being fluent in English.

Lafora's stay in Washington, from May 1910 until September 1912 was particularly significant for his scientific career. In 1911, he made his first and most important contribution: the description of some intracytoplasmic bodies composed of abnormal glycogen called polyglucisans within neurons and ganglion cells of the nervous system of patients with myoclonic epilepsy. These starch-like bodies are insolubre and hence precipitate inside cells. After some discussion about the legitimacy and priority of his discovery, the scientific community recognized it and coined the term Lafora’s disease in the international medical literature. In October 1912, he returned to Madrid, where he joined the Laboratory of Experimental Physiology of the Nervous System, a laboratory that Cajal created for Lafora in his institute. In 1914, he was appointed deputy secretary of the Patronato Nacional de Subnormales (National Trust for the Mentally Disabled), and in 1916 he took charge of the Cerebral Physiology Laboratory attached to the Residencia de Estudiantes.

His research in both laboratories, created in the institutional framework of the JAE, resulted in a major scientific production. Between 1912 and 1922, he published nearly a hundred works, of which at least 35 were original research on histopathology (encephalitic hemorrhage, progressive paralysis, Alzheimer's disease, Lafora’s disease, and senile and pre-senile brain disorders), and on experimental physiology of the nervous system (physiology and pathology of the corpus callosum).

In 1920, with the support of Ortega y Gasset and Cajal, Lafora founded the Archives of Neurobiology. He was also one of the scientists behind the psychiatric reform started during the Second Republic. In 1933,
he became head of the Ward 2 For Insane Women in the Provincial Hospital of Madrid. He was elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, but he resigned a year later in protest because Pío del Río-Hortega’s was denied membership into the Academy. In 1935, Lafora was elected president of the Spanish Association of Neuropsychiatry.

After a brief exile in Mexico, he returned to Spain in 1947 and joined the Cajal Institute of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC). He was not pardoned or restored to his position at the Provincial Hospital of Madrid until 1950. After his retirement in 1955, he maintained his private practice and continued to attend conferences and scientific meetings. In 1961, he became honorary president of the Congress of Neuropathology in Munich in recognition for a lifetime dedicated to the neurosciences.