Peter Schwartze is a neurophysiologist, systems scientist and cyberneticist well known in the ex- German Democratic Republic

German Democratic Republic

The German Democratic Republic , informally called East Germany by West Germany and other countries, was a socialist state established in 1949 in the Soviet zone of occupied Germany, including East Berlin of the Allied-occupied capital city...

.
Schwartze studied medicine and specialized in Neurophysiology. He studied and worked at the universities of Rostock, Greifswald and Leipzig. He became Professor of Pathophysiology in 1978 and served as the Director of the Carl Ludwig Institute of Physiology

Carl Ludwig Institute of Physiology

The Carl Ludwig Institute of Physiology was established by Carl Ludwig in 1865. This Physiological Institute is part of the University of Leipzig and is designated today after him.- Heads and earlier teachers of physiology:...

 between 1980 and 1992 as successor of Hans Drischel. He also served as member of the East German Parliament, in the Culture Fraction.

Scientific contributions

Schwartze studied the vestibular apparatus, the air-righting reflex

Cat righting reflex

The cat righting reflex is a cat's innate ability to orient itself as it falls in order to land on its feet. The righting reflex begins to appear at 3-4 weeks of age, and is perfected at 7 weeks. They are able to do this as they have an unusually flexible backbone and no functional clavicle...

  and related spinal reflexes for over 30 years. He published hundreds of scientific reports (mostly in German journals) and a number of scientific and text books on issues of brain development, vestibulo-ocular reflexes

Vestibulo-ocular reflex

The vestibulo-ocular reflex is a reflex eye movement that stabilizes images on the retina during head movement by producing an eye movement in the direction opposite to head movement, thus preserving the image on the center of the visual field. For example, when the head moves to the right, the...

 and cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

 (see for example ).

External links

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Peter_Schwartze Peter Schwartze, Local Newspaper, 1986.
• http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13497865.html Peter Schwartze, Interview by Spiegel magazine
• http://www.archiv.uni-leipzig.de/archivportal/recherche/startseite/bestand/kategorie/nachlaesse Archiv Leipzig University