Complex to Be Renamed After Scientist, Wife

UC Irvine Medical Plaza will be renamed today in honor of a famed campus neuroscientist and his late wife.

The center is to become the Louis A. and Helen C. Gottschalk Medical Plaza during a ceremony from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. A tour will follow.

In January, Gottschalk, 80, pledged a $1.5-million endowment to the university’s College of Medicine. His wife of 50 years was a professor of dermatology before she died of a ruptured artery in 1993.

Gottschalk was chosen for the name change since he has spent 30 years as a dedicated professor and researcher who did pioneering work--not just because of his gift to the college, campus officials said.

“He had a pretty remarkable tenure here, and he’s still going too,” UCI spokesman Tracy Childs said. “He puts in a full week.

Gottschalk, of Corona del Mar, is best known for developing a test showing that former President Ronald Reagan likely suffered cognitive impairment as early as 1980--14 years before his Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.

Using the Gottschalk-Gleser scales, a diagnostic tool for charting brain impairments, Gottschalk and two colleagues studied Reagan’s speech patterns during 1980 and 1984 and concluded the president suffered a decrease in ability.

To prevent the study from being publicized, Gottschalk announced the findings near the end of Reagan’s second term in 1987.

Before joining UCI’s staff in 1967, Gottschalk taught at the University of Cincinnati and was heavily recruited by UCI.

The medical complex opened in 1987.