(Denver,
CO and Philadelphia, PA) - Anjan Chatterjee, MD, has
been awarded the Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral
Neurology today by the American Academy of Neurology
at their 54th annual meeting. Chatterjee is an associate
professor in the Department of Neurology of the University
of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
Chatterjee receives the award on the basis
of his research directed at understanding the architecture
and neural basis for human cognition. The major emphasis
of Chatterjee's lab is on the study of the human experience
of attention, perception, and language. Chatterjee and
his associates study normal people using functional
neuroimaging and patients with selective deficits following
brain damage to investigate mechanisms underlying human
cognition.
"How we are able to experience our physical
surroundings is a fascinating question that is rooted
in the fundamental mechanisms of what we call consciousness,"
said Francisco Gonzalez-Scarano, MD, chair of the Department
of Neurology. "This award is in recognition of Dr. Chatterjee's
approach to expanding the scientific basis of neurobiological
research."
Founded in 1999, the Norman Geschwind
Prize is awarded to an individual for outstanding research
in the field of behavioral neurology. The award honors
the late Dr. Norman Geschwind, the Harvard Medical School
and Boston University School of Medicine researcher
who was pivotal in establishing the field of behavioral
neurology in the United States. The prize is endowed
by Geschwind's family, friends, colleagues, Parke-Davis
Company and the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive
Neurology. Chatterjee's lab is based at Penn's Center
for Cognitive Neuroscience, a multidisciplinary group
of researchers whose shared goal is to understand the
neural basis of human thought. The center, formed in
1999, encompasses a wide range of research topics from
vision and attention to semantic memory and executive
functions.
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