Robert Ader (February 20, 1932 – December 20, 2011) was an American

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

who co-founded

psychoneuroimmunology Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), also referred to as psychoendoneuroimmunology (PENI) or psychoneuroendocrinoimmunology (PNEI), is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body. It is ...

, a field of study which explores the links connecting the

brain A brain is an organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It is located in the head, usually close to the sensory organs for senses such as vision. It is the most complex organ in a v ...

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

, and the

immune system The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as cancer cells and objects such as wood splinte ...

. Ader was a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

at the

University of Rochester Medical Center The University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), now known as UR Medicine, is located in Rochester, New York, is one of the main campuses of the University of Rochester and comprises the university's primary medical education, research and pat ...

Early life

Robert Ader was born on February 20, 1932, in the Bronx, New York City. He was the older of two sons of Nathan and Mae Ader. After graduating from the

Horace Mann School , motto_translation = Great is the truth and it prevails , address = 231 West 246th Street , city = The Bronx , state = New York , zipcode = 10471 , count ...

in New York City, he attended Tulane University in New Orleans. He graduated from Tulane University with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1953. Ader then went on to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1957. After earning his Ph.D., he became a part-time instructor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester and a part-time instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry. He spent his time at the University of Rochester conducting psychobiological research on animals.

Academic career

Robert Ader spent his entire career at the University of Rochester, where he held many teaching and research positions. He was appointed the director of the Division of Behavioral and Psychosocial Medicine in the University of Rochester’s department of psychology and director of the Center for Psychoneuroimmunology Research. He retired in July 2011 as professor emeritus of psychosocial medicine. During his career, he authored and helped coauthor over two hundred journal articles and chapters in books. He also founded the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, which he served as editor-in-chief for many years. He also served on editorial boards for various psychobiological and behavioral journals. In addition, he served as president of the American Psychosomatic Society from 1979 to 1982, president of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology from 1981 to 1982, president of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research from 1984 to 1985, and president and founder of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society. He also received an honorary M.D. degree from the

University of Trondheim A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

in Norway.

Research in psychoneuroimmunology

On beginning his career as a part-time instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, Robert Ader focused his research on behavioral conditioning and emotional responsiveness in rats. In 1974, he and a fellow researcher Nicholas Cohen were studying taste aversion in rats. The researchers gave the rats water sweetened with

saccharin Saccharin (''aka'' saccharine, Sodium sacchari) is an artificial sweetener with effectively no nutritional value. It is about 550 times as sweet as sucrose but has a bitter or metallic aftertaste, especially at high concentrations. Saccharin is u ...

followed by an injection of

cyclophosphamide Cyclophosphamide (CP), also known as cytophosphane among other names, is a medication used as chemotherapy and to suppress the immune system. As chemotherapy it is used to treat lymphoma, multiple myeloma, leukemia, ovarian cancer, breast cancer ...

, an immunosuppressant which caused nausea. Through classical conditioning, the rats learned to avoid water that contained saccharin. When Ader and Cohen began to force feed the rats the saccharin solution, they noticed that the rats began to die. They also found that the rate of death was directly related to how much saccharin solution the rats consumed. From these findings, they proposed a theory that the rats died because the taste of saccharin by itself was enough to elicit neural signals in the rats' brain that suppressed their immune systems as if they had been overdosed with cyclophosphamide. Due to weakened immune systems, the rats contracted bacterial and viral infections that they were unable to fight off. This finding led to the belief that there are connections between the brain and the immune system which contradicted with the previous belief that the immune system was autonomous. This serendipitous discovery led Robert Ader to continue research in and develop the field of

, a term that he created and first used in his 1980 presidential speech to the American Psychosomatic Society. A year later, he also used the newly created term as the title for his collection of essays that described the beginning of a new field of research.

Later life

Robert Ader spent 54 years at the University of Rochester until his retirement in 2011. Ader died at the Highlands at Pittsford, New York, on December 20, 2011, at the age of 79. His death was caused by a long illness and complications due to a fracture he obtained from a fall. He was married to his wife of 54 years, Gayle Ader and they had four daughters.

Selected readings

Publications and articles

*1980 Psychosomatic and Psychoimmunologic Research *1981 Animal Models in the Study of Brain, Behavior and Bodily Disease *1991 Conditioning of the Immune System *1995 Psychoneuroimmunology: Interactions between the Nervous System and the Immune System *2001 Psychoneuroimmunology

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ader, Robert 1932 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American psychologists Cornell University alumni University of Rochester faculty