Mishkin and Raichle Receive $25,000 Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience
For immediate release.
MISHKIN AND RAICHLE RECEIVE $25,000 RALPH W. GERARD PRIZE IN NEUROSCIENCE
Award honors outstanding contributions to neuroscience
Washington, DC — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) today awarded the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience to Mortimer Mishkin, PhD, of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Marcus Raichle, MD, of Washington University in St. Louis. Supported by Eli Lilly and Co., the prize, which includes $25,000 to be split between the recipients, recognizes outstanding neuroscience research. SfN awards the prize during Neuroscience 2008, the SfN annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news on brain science and health.
The Gerard Prize holds great prestige in the field of neuroscience and allows colleagues to recognize peer research. The prize is named after Ralph W. Gerard, who was instrumental in founding the Society for Neuroscience and served as Honorary President from 1970 until his death in 1974.
“Recognizing these leaders in the field pays homage to and highlights their significant contributions to the field of neuroscience,” said Eve Marder, PhD, president of SfN.
With his colleagues, Mishkin helped identify areas in the cerebral cortex that are essential for perception and memory. His work showed that knowing the presence and location of a stimulus depends on the activity of separate sensory “pathways” or “streams,” each made up of many cortical areas arranged in a hierarchy. He received an AB from Dartmouth College and an MA and PhD from McGill University. In 1955, after completing his postdoctoral research, he moved to the NIMH as an Investigator. Mishkin is currently a Senior Investigator and his laboratory explores the neurobiological mechanisms of perception and memory.
Raichle and his colleagues have made outstanding contributions to the study of human brain function through the development and use of positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Their landmark study, published in Nature in 1988, described the first integrated strategy for the design, execution, and interpretation of functional brain images. The Raichle group has helped lead the field in defining the frontiers of cognitive neuroscience through the development and use of functional brain imaging techniques. Raichle is currently a Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.
The Society for Neuroscience is an organization of more than 38,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
