BENDER, MORRIS BORIS

BENDER, MORRIS BORIS (1905–1983), U.S. neurologist. Bender, who was born in Russia, was taken to the United States in 1914. After graduating in medicine he trained in neurology and psychiatry in several New York hospitals. He was research fellow in neurophysiology at Yale University (1936–38) and New York's Mount Sinai Hospital (1938–42). He then served as head of the laboratory of experimental neurology at New York University (1942–50). He joined the faculty of neurology at the New York University College of Medicine in 1938, becoming professor of clinical neurology in 1953. In 1966 he was appointed professor and chairman of the department of neurology of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He was also clinical professor of neurology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1953 to 1967. Bender's major research interests were the physiology of the visual and oculomotor systems and behavioral neurology, especially consciousness and perception. His major works are Disorders in Perception (1952) and Visual Field Defects after Penetrating Missile Wounds of the Brain (in collaboration with others, 1960); he also edited The Oculomotor System (1964) and The Approach to Diagnosis in Modern Neurology (1967). (Fred Rosner)