[3] He then pursued higher medical education abroad[5] and was mentored and influenced by a wide variety of prominent European scientists of his day, including Johannes Müller, Emil DuBois-Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz, Carl F. W. Ludwig, Robert W. Bunsen, and Heinrich Magnus.

From 1856–1862 Sechenov studied and worked in Europe in the laboratories of Müller, Emil du Bois-Reymond, Hermann von Helmholtz in Berlin, Felix Hoppe-Seyler in Leipzig, Ludwig in Vienna, and Claude Bernard in Paris.

In 1866, the censorship committee in Saint Petersburg attempted judicial procedures, accusing Sechenov of spreading materialism and of "debasing of Christian morality".

Sechenov's work was foundational across many fields, including physiology, reflexes, neurology, animal and human behaviour, and neuroscience.

Sechenov influenced Pavlov, many Russian physiologists and Vladimir Nikolayevich Myasishchev, when the Institute of Brain and Psychic Activity was set up in 1918.