Professor Teitelbaum’s findings in the behavioral study of hypothalamic functions have had a major influence in the area for more than thirty years. He opened up another important area of hypothalamic research, that of sensory neglect. His application of an Israeli movement-notation system to the analysis of movement disorders has led to new psychological and pharmacological insights into Parkinson’s disease and related neurological disorders. He is currently applying this system to the early diagnosis of Autism. With it, he can diagnose Autism as early as six months of age—two years earlier than the age at which Autism is usually diagnosed. He has recently applied movement notation to the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome. He can diagnose Asperger’s syndrome (as a form of Autism) at six months, in comparison to the ordinary age of diagnosis at six years of age. Currently he is a graduate research professor in psychology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, working on a book titled Hierarchical Physiological Psychology. 

With psychologist Evelyn Satinoff, he coedited Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology: Motivation (1983). He received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He served as president of the Division of Comparative and Physiological Psychology of the American Psychological Association (1975). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

In Memoriam