communiqué
http://www.mni.mcgill.ca/announce/MilnerNAS_eng.htm
en français
Dr. Brenda Milner – first foreign associate of the National Academy of
Sciences to receive Award in the Neurosciences.
Montreal, January 16, 2004. Dr. Brenda Milner will receive the 2004
Award in the Neurosciences from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
headquartered in Washington, DC. The $25,000 US prize is awarded every
three years in recognition of extraordinary contributions to progress in
the fields of neuroscience. Dr. Milner is the Dorothy J. Killam
Professor, Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), and a professor in the
department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine, McGill
University. She is the first scientist outside of the United States to
receive this award which will be presented on April 19 at a ceremony in
Washington, D.C.
“We are absolutely delighted that Dr. Milner will receive the Award in
the Neurosciences from the National Academy of Sciences in the United
States. This is a highly prestigious award with a Nobel Laureate and
Lasker Award winners amongst the previous recipients. Through her
lifetime of research and teaching here at the MNI and McGill, Brenda
Milner has had an extraordinary influence on the shape of neuroscience
and on the lives of scientists around the world,” said Dr. David Colman,
Director of the MNI. “From her seminal work in the 1950’s with Donald
Hebb, Wilder Penfield, and William Scoville to 2004, Brenda continues to
advance our knowledge and understanding of the brain and be a valued
colleague”.
“Brenda Milner is one of the giants of our time. Her delineation of
memory dysfunction after lesions of the hippocampus has provided the
basis for modern understanding of memory and for the divisions of memory
storage mechanisms into explicit and implicit forms”, said Dr. Eric
Kandel, University Professor in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior
at Columbia University (New York), Senior Investigator of the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute, Nobel laureate (Physiology or Medicine, 2000)
and MNI Advisory Board Member. “The origins of modern cognitive
neuroscience of memory can be traced directly to her rigorous and
imaginative studies.”
Dr. Milner's current research focuses on the specialization of the brain
hemispheres. She and her colleagues are using sophisticated brain
imaging technologies to examine differences between the right and left
hemispheres. Dr. Milner is particularly interested in the role of the
right hemisphere in remembering the location of objects.
Dr. Milner is a prestigious foreign associate of the NAS- one of only 14
from Canada. She was elected to the Academy in 1976. Dr. Milner is the
recipient of more than two dozen honorary degrees and professional
awards. She is a fellow of the Royal Society and holds the Order of
Canada.
The NAS Award in the Neurosciences was established by a gift from the
Fidia Research Foundation and has been presented since 1988. The award
is open to the international scientific community and past recipients
include Nobel laureate Dr. Paul Greengard and Lasker Awardees Drs.
Vernon Mountcastle, Seymour Kety, Seymour Benzer and Louis Sokoloff.
For more information on the NAS, please see
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf
The Montreal Neurological Institute (www.mni.mcgill.ca) is a McGill
University (www.mcgill.ca) research and teaching institute, dedicated to
the study of the nervous system and neurological diseases. Since its
founding in 1934 by the renowned Dr. Wilder Penfield, the MNI has helped
put Canada on the international map. It is one of the world’s largest
institutes of its kind; MNI researchers are world leaders in
biotechnology, brain imaging, cognitive neuroscience and the study and
treatment of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disorders.
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For further information or to arrange to interview with Dr. Milner,
please contact:
Dr. Sandra McPherson
Montreal Neurological Institute
Tel: (514) 398-1902
Fax: (514) 398-8072
Email: [log in to unmask]
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