Daniel Bovet and his role in the development of psychobiology

One hundred years since his birth, fifty years after his Nobel achievement, Daniel Bovet still emerges as one of the key figures of both pharmacology and psychobiology, the biological and evolutionary roots of behaviour. The life and scientific activities of Daniel Bovet (1907-1992) are closely linked to the 'golden years' of pharmacology, the exceptional development of this science from the end of the 1930s to the 1960s. Later on, from the 1960s to the end of his scientific career, Bovet entered a new field, psychobiology, through the study of the effects of drugs active on the nervous system and their effects on behaviour. This approach led him to explore different aspects of the biology of behaviour, namely the role of individual differences, the genetic determinants of behaviour and their implications on learning and memory. It is therefore evident that the range of his scientific activity has been very broad, a fact difficultly conceivable in years of extreme specialization.