Raffaello Furlan

Raffaello Furlan was born in 1954. He graduated in medicine from the University of Milan, Milan, Italy. Presently, he is Senior Registrar in Internal Medicine and Nontenure Professor of the postgraduate course in clinical psychology at University of Milan, since 1991. From 1977 to 1984, he took part in animal studies aimed at evaluating the role of cardiac and vascular sympathetic excitatory reflexes regulating systemic arterial pressure. Since 1982, he is involved in clinical studies aimed at assessing the changes in the neural mechanisms controlling the cardiovascular system in different physiological and pathophysiological conditions including the gravitational stimulus, physical exercise, athletic training, shift-work, syncope, dysautonomia, active ulcerative colitis, and others. During a sabbatical at the Clinical Research Center of the Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, in 1995, he was External Advisor for a program project grant aimed at clarifying the pathophysiology of chronic orthostatic intolerance, which was funded the following year. He is in charge of the “Syncope and Orthostatic Intolerance Unit “ which is part of an international web, organized by the National Dysautonomia Research Foundation (NDRF), linking centers with recognized expertise in the different forms of dysautonomia.