Henri Laborit was a French physician, writer and philosopher.

Laborit was born in Hanoi

Hanoi

Hanoi , is the capital of Vietnam and the country's second largest city. Its population in 2009 was estimated at 2.6 million for urban districts, 6.5 million for the metropolitan jurisdiction. From 1010 until 1802, it was the most important political centre of Vietnam...

, Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 and started his career as a neurosurgeon

Neurosurgery

Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spine, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system.-In the United States:In...

 in the Marines and then moved on to fundamental research. He won the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research

Lasker Award

The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary...

 in 1957. Laborit later became a research head at Boucicault Hospital in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

.

His interests included psychotropic drugs, eutonology

Eutonology

Eutonology is a word that Henri Laborit used for referring to his study of the state of tension or responsiveness of the organs or tissues of the body under a condition of stress. "Laboratoire d'eutonologie" what the name of Laborit's laboratory at the Boucicault Hospital in Paris in the late 1950s....

, and memory

Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....

. He pioneered the use of dopamine antagonists to reduce shock in injured soldiers.