APS offices and the library reading room are closed December 23–January 1 for the holidays. Regular hours resume January 2. The APS museum is open December 26–29, 10 am–5 pm. 

Prizes

Karl Spencer Lashley Award

The Karl Spencer Lashley Award was established in 1957 by a gift from Dr. Lashley, a Member of the Society and a distinguished neuroscientist and neuropsychologist. The award is to be made in recognition of work on the integrative neuroscience of behavior. At the time of his death, he was Emeritus Research Professor of Neuropsychology at Harvard University and Emeritus Director of the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Florida. Lashley's contemporaries considered his experimental work as daring and original. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis, or as he phrased it: "the discovery of principles of nervous integration which are as yet completely unknown". His famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience.

Prize Recipients

2024
Margaret Livingstone in recognition of “fundamental discoveries concerning the organization and development of functionally specific processing pathways in the primate visual system.”

2023
Silvia Arber in recognition of her elegant elucidation of brainstem mechanisms that control movement of the body.  

2022
Nicholas Spitzer in recognition of his discovery of neurotransmitter switching in single neurons of adult mammals, and his demonstration of causal links between neurotransmitter switching and behavioral state.

2021
Patricia K. Kuhl in recognition of her fundamental discoveries concerning how human infants acquire language, and how brain structure and activity changes during language learning in both monolingual and bilingual children.

2020
Winrich Freiwald and Doris Tsao in recognition of their ground-breaking discoveries of primate cortical areas that selectively encode visual information about faces, the computational principles underlying face encoding in these areas, and the implications of these discoveries for social cognition.

2019
Wolfram Schultz in recognition of his discovery of reward-predicting signals carried by dopamine cells in the midbrain and the their critical role in reinforcement learning.

2018
Catherine Dulac in recognition of her incisive studies of the molecular and circuit basis of instinctive behaviors mediated through olfactory systems in the mammalian brain.

2017
Michael N. Shadlen in recognition of his pioneering experimental and theoretical studies of decision-making, identifying neural mechanisms that accumulate and convert sensory information toward behavioral choices.

2016
Charles G. Gross “in recognition of his pioneering studies of the neurophysiology of higher visual functions and the neural basis of face recognition and object perception.”

2015
David W. Tank in recognition of his pioneering application of intracellular recording and two-photon microscopy in awake animals, which has revealed new insights into the neural circuits underlying cognition.

2014
Edvard and May-Britt Moser "in recognition of their discovery of grid cells in entorhinal cortex, and their pioneering physiological studies of hippocampus, which have transformed understanding of the neural computations underlying spatial memory."

2013
J. Anthony Movshon“in recognition of his studies of how neurons in the cerebral cortex process visual information and how cortical information processing enables seeing.”

2012
Eve Marder "in recognition of her comprehensive work with a small nervous system, demonstrating general principles by which neuromodulatory substances reconfigure the operation of neuronal networks."  

2011
Joseph E. LeDoux “in recognition of his seminal studies of the neural mechanisms of emotional learning, particularly fear learning and fear memory.”

2010
William T. Newsome “in recognition of his pioneering studies of the primate visual system demonstrating the relation between perception and the activity of individual neurons.”

2009
James L. McGaugh “in recognition of his comprehensive study of the biological processes that modulate the formation and consolidation of memory.”

2008
Eric Knudsen “in recognition of his comprehensive study of visual and auditory perception in the owl and for his elucidation of how the auditory map is calibrated by the visual system during development.”

2007
Richard F. Thompson in recognition of his distinguished contributions to understanding the brain substrates of learning and memory.

2006
Jon H. Kaas. "In recognition of his comprehensive analyses of the primate cerebral cortex, its evolution, functional organization, and plastic response to injury."

2005
Bruce McEwen. "In recognition of his extensive demonstrations of the role of circulating steroid hormones as regulators of neuroplasticity and behavioral adaption."

2004
Masakazu Konishi and Fernando Nottebohm. "In recognition of their fundamental contributions in identifying the organization and function of the avian brain systems for learning and executing birdsong."

2003
Horace B. Barlow. "In recognition of his fundamental contributions to understanding how the eye and brain accomplish vision."

2002
Jean-Pierre Changeux. "In recognition of his pioneering, comprehensive studies into the fundamental molecular mechanisms underlying interneuronal communication and their role in network formation, learning, and reward."

2001
Edward G. Jones. "In recognition of his comprehensive determination of the organization of the thalamus and the basis for the dynamic regulation of cortical excitability."

2000
Charles Stevens. "In recognition of his penetrating contributions to synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity."

1999
Michael Merzenich. "In recognition of his original contributions to cortical plasticity."

1998
Michael I. Posner and Marcus E. Raichle. "Jointly, for their pioneering contributions to brain imaging."

1996
Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic. "For seminal contributions to the current understanding of prefrontal cortex and its role in working memory and for effectively applying insights from basic biological sciences to mental health."

Mortimer Mishkin. "For his pioneering analysis of the memory and the perceptual systems of the brain, and his seminal contributions to the understanding of the higher nervous system function."

1995
Larry R. Squire. "For his seminal contribution to the delineation of implicit and explicit memory systems in the brain."

1994
Robert H. Wurtz. "For brilliant technical innovations in recording the activity of single visual neurons of alert, behaviorally-trained monkeys that made possible salient scientific discoveries relating individual nerve cells to visual perception and to the generation of eye movement."

1993
Paul Greengard. "For his pioneering work on the molecular basis of signal transduction and vesicle mobilization in nerve cells."

1992
Seymour Kety. "For major contributions to understanding the genetics of schizophrenia and depression, and for developing reliable methods for studying cerebral blood flow which paved the way for PET imaging of brain activity."

1991
Sanford L. Palay. "For pioneering the study of the nervous system on the ultrastructural level, for revolutionizing understanding, and especially for his seminal contribution - characterization of the chemical synapse in the central nervous system."

1990
Viktor Hamburger. "For pioneering the study of neuroembryology, and especially the landmark contributions to understanding neural cell death, nerve growth factor, and the developmental program for motor behavior."

1989
Bela Julesz. "For his illuminating discoveries concerning the human visual capacity, particularly for stereoscopic vision, depth perception, and pattern recognition."

Gian Franco Poggio. "For discoveries of visual cortical mechanisms in stereopsis and depth perception which have significantly influenced modern studies of the brain mechanisms in vision."

1988
Seymour Benzer. "A pioneer in using genetic techniques to study the genetic code and the transfer of information from DNA to proteins. By a brilliant selection of suitable experimental systems, he has succeeded over the last twenty years in advancing these techniques and applying them to the analysis of development and behavior. These contributions have greatly expanded the power of the genetic approach in neurobiology and fostered a merger between molecular biology and neurobiology that is having profound consequences on every aspect of the field."

1987
Louis Sokoloff. "For his elucidation of the physiological and biochemical processes involved in the metabolism of the brain and the application of these discoveries to the measurement of functional activity within that organ."

1986
Pasko Rakic. "For his seminal contributions to the field of developmental neurobiology through research on the development of the central nervous system."

1985
David Bodian. "In recognition of his fundamental neurobiological studies studies that laid the foundation for the successful development of a vaccine against polio myetitis. He has continued to make important discoveries in the development and structure of the nervous system."

1984
W. Maxwell Cowan. "For his long record of important contributions to understanding the embryological development of the brain."

1983
Edward V. Evarts

1982
Herbert H. Jasper

1981
Eric R. Kandel

1980
Curt P. Richter

1979
Brenda Milner

1978
Victor Percy Whittaker

1977
Torsten Nils Wiesel and David Hunter Hubel

1976
Roger Wolcott Sperry

1975
Paul Weiss

1974
Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle

1973
Janos Szentagothai

1972
Paul D. MacLean

1971
Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark

1970
Horace Winchell Magoun

1969
Elizabeth C. Crosby

1968
Theodore H. Bullock

1967
George H. Bishop

1966
Hans-Lukas Teuber

1965
Giuseppe Moruzzi

1964
Walle H . J. Nauta

1963
Alexander Forbes

1962
Philip Bard

1961
Edgar Douglas Adrian

1960
Heinrich Kluver

1959
Rafael Lorente De No