Dental Pioneer Elliot Gale Dies At 61

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Elliot N. Gale, Ph.D., professor emeritus of behavioral science in the UB School of Dental Medicine and a pioneer in the use of biofeedback in chronic jaw muscle pain, died unexpectedly at his North Buffalo home on Jan. 14. Gale, 61, was in the process of retiring to a home in New Mexico.

Gale joined the UB dental faculty as an assistant professor in 1966, and spent more than 30 years at the university.

He recently had completed another pioneering study involving the use of Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan) to identify areas of the brain that are activated by jaw muscle pain.

In 1982, Gale received an honorary doctor of odontology degree from the University of Goteborg, Sweden, where he collaborated with colleagues for more than two decades on jaw muscle pain research and served as a consultant to the university's dental and psychology faculty.

He had been a visiting professor at Gifu College of Dentistry in Japan and a consultant with the U.S. Peace Corps.

Gale was a member of numerous professional organizations, including Sigma Xi, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Neuroscience Group of the International Association for Dental Research and the American Psychological Association.

A native of Kansas City, Mo., he earned bachelor's and doctoral degrees in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and completed post-doctoral work at Wayne State University.

He authored or co-authored numerous articles in scholarly publications and lectured extensively, both here and abroad.