F.H. Lopes da Silva received the M.D. degree from the University of Lisbon, Portugal. After a short period as assistant in the department of Psychiatry of Lisbon Medical Faculty, he was granted a fellowship of the Gulbenkian Foundation and went to the UK, where he got training in neurophysiology at the Medical Research Institute (Mill Hill), on the Division led by Professor W. Feldberg, and followed a post-graduate course on “Engineering and Physics for physiologists” at the Imperial College of the University of London, U.K, completed in 1964. He joined the research staff of the Institute of Medical Physics (TNO) in Utrecht, The Netherlands, in 1965, and received the Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in 1970.
He was appointed full professor of General Physiology at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Amsterdam in 1980. He was part-time professor of Neurophysiology (from 1975 to 1985) at Twente University (THT), Enschede, The Netherlands, as part of the program on biomedical engineering.
In 1985, he was elected member of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1993, he was appointed Scientific Director of the newly created Institute of Neurobiology, and member of the Scientific Directorate of the Graduate School of Neurosciences Amsterdam. Since 1995 until his retirement, he was Scientific Director of the Institute for Epilepsy “Meer en Bosch” in Heemstede, on part-time basis.
After having reached the official retirement age he became Emeritus Professor of the University of Amsterdam, and scientific coordinator of the Biomedical Engineering program of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. He was awarded 3 Honorary Doctors titles, a knighthood from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and a honorary title of the Portuguese Republic.
His research interests are mainly the study of the basic electrophysiology of the brain, in particular the generation and function of brain rhythms, the origin of epileptic phenomena, and brain–computer interfaces, but also general themes, particularly concerning education and polemology.
Five representative publications:
Pfurtscheller G, Lopes da Silva FH.1999. Event-related EEG/MEG synchronization and desynchronization: basic principles. Clin Neurophysiol.,110(11):1842- 1857. – (3853 citations).
Meeren HKM; Pijn JPM; Van Luijtelaar ELJ; Coenen, AM, Lopes da Silva, FH. 2002.Cortical focus drives widespread corticothalamic networks during spontaneous absence seizures in rats. Journal of Neuroscience, 22 (4): 1480-1495.- (653 citations).
Lopes da Silva FH, 1991. Neural mechanisms underlying brain waves: from neural membranes to networks. Electroencephalog. Clin Neurophysiology. 79(2):81-93. (926 citations).
Schomer D and Lopes da Silva FH, eds. 2017. Niedermeyer’s Electroencephalography. Basic Principles, clinical applications, and related fields. 7th Ed. Oxford University Press, 1256 pp. – (previous editions: 3865 citations).
Lopes da Silva FH. 2013. EEG/MEG in Neuroscience, Neuron 80(5): 1112-1128 (112 citations).