William Oldendorf; Leader in Brain Scan Studies at UCLA

William Oldendorf, a neuroscientist known internationally for much of the research that led to the development of the CAT and MRI diagnostic machines in which brain disease and other organ afflictions can be visually imaged to aid treatment, is dead.

Dr. Oldendorf, a UCLA School of Medicine professor, was 67 when he died Dec. 14, a UCLA spokeswoman said this week. His family said he died in Los Angeles of the complications of heart disease.

Oldendorf won the 1975 Lasker Award, considered second only to the Nobel Prize as a tribute to a scientist. His work “has profoundly impacted our ability to study the brain and other organs,” said Dr. Jack Barchas, dean for research, development and neuroscience at the UCLA Medical School. “His accomplishments are a lasting memorial to him,” Barchas added.

Besides his teaching and research at UCLA, where he was a professor of neurology, psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, Oldendorf was a medical investigator at the West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1956 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991.

Beyond his efforts on behalf of the computer-assisted tomography (CAT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) non-invasive diagnostic machines, Oldendorf was widely recognized for his studies on cerebral circulation and the blood-brain barrier that prevents most drugs from reaching the brain.

He also identified large numbers of mitochondria in cerebrovascular endothelium cells which provided some of the first proof of the work involved in maintaining the blood-brain barrier.

He was a graduate of Albany (N.Y.) Medical College. After many years of clinical practice as a neurologist and psychiatrist he concluded his career as a full-time scientific researcher.

His survivors include his wife, Stella, and three sons, Eric, Mark and William Jr.