★ From Academician Pavel Simonov – see above.
★ Motivation and emotion are Simonov’s lifelong themes. His interdisciplinary research—bridging psychology and neuroscience—has provided natural-science foundations for need, emotion, will and consciousness.
★ This volume explores the links between psychology and brain physiology, analysing how the brain organises and regulates behaviour through motives and needs. Consciousness, emotion, will and behaviour are examined from neurophysiological, ethological and psychophysiological perspectives.
★ Motivation is treated as a physiological mechanism that activates, in memory, the external objects and action patterns relevant to need satisfaction.
★ The book also examines the relationship between artistic creation and educational theory and practice.
★ Written from a dialectical-materialist standpoint, it is essential reading for biologists, physiologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, educators and teachers.

The book reveals the basic concepts of general psychology: need, emotion, will, behaviour, individual differences, conscious and unconscious manifestations of higher nervous activity, biological and social needs, the origin and function of emotions, reflexes and instincts, need-related behaviour, the parameters that constitute individuality and what they depend on, personality, character, consciousness and upbringing. It traces the awakening and development of human spiritual needs and analyses the factors that foster or hinder the formation of a spiritually rich personality capable of preserving and improving the surrounding world. The central purpose is to explain the driving forces of human behaviour and to uncover the connections between motives, emotions and child-rearing.
The discussion proceeds from the standpoint of dialectical materialism, integrating animal behaviour studies, neurophysiology and human psychophysiology to explain how the brain, through motives and needs, organises and regulates behaviour.

Pavel Vasilievich Simonov (1926–2002)
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Honorary Professor of Moscow State University, distinguished psychologist, biologist, neuroscientist, M.D., Chair of the RAS “Classics of Science” editorial board.

Simonov revealed the neural foundations of mental activity and provided a theoretical basis for interdisciplinary research. His death on 6 June 2002 did not halt his influence: his theories and data continue to shape the scientific community and to advance psychology, neuroscience and the behavioural sciences.

Principal achievements
• Formulated and experimentally confirmed the Need-Information Theory for analysing human and animal behaviour and higher mental functions.
• Proposed a physiological theory of emotion as the brain’s reflection of current needs and their probability of satisfaction.
• Investigated the brain’s creative activity, viewing creativity as the unconscious re-combination of experience driven by dominant needs.

Biographical milestones
Born in Leningrad as Pavel Stanislavovich Stankevich; adopted after his father, an officer, was repressed in 1937, by the sculptor Vasily Lvovich Simonov. Entered flight school in 1944; transferred for health reasons to the Leningrad Military Medical Academy, graduating in 1951. Worked at the Burdenko Central Military Hospital, then as senior researcher at the USSR Academy of Sciences. From 1962 at the Institute of Higher Nervous Activity & Neurophysiology of the RAS, becoming director in 1982. Elected corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1987, full member in 1991. Professor at Moscow State University from 1996. Member of the Russian State Prize Committee and of the RAS Commission for Combating Pseudoscience. Editor-in-chief of the journal “Pavlov Journal of Higher Nervous Activity”, member of the editorial boards of “Science & Life” and “Russian Science”, member of the IBRO Executive Committee (1985-1997), Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the US Aerospace Medical Association, honorary member of the US Pavlovian Society.

Awards
Order of the Badge of Honour (1981), Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1986), Order “For Merit to the Fatherland” IV class (1996), medals marking the 30th and 15th anniversaries of the Soviet Army, Medal “For Distinguished Labour”, Lomonosov Gold Medal of the RAS (1999), USSR State Prize (1987) for methods of diagnosing and predicting the state of the human brain, I. M. Sechenov Gold Medal of the RAS (1999), title of Honorary Professor of Moscow State University (1999).