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Cathy Price

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Cathy Price
FRS FBA FMedSci
Born
Catherine J. Price
Alma materBirkbeck College
Scientific career
FieldsCognitive neuroscience
InstitutionsUniversity College London
Thesis (1990)
Academic advisorsKarl Friston
Notable studentsMaria Luisa Gorno-Tempini
Websitewww.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/Price/ Edit this at Wikidata

Catherine J. "Cathy" Price FRS FBA FMedSci is a British neuroscientist and academic. She is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London.[1][2]

Her overarching research goal is to provide a model of the neural basis of language[3] that predicts and explains speech and language difficulties and their recovery after brain damage (stroke or neurosurgery).[4] She is a world-leading, renowned neuroscientist.[5]

Education[edit]

Price obtained her bachelor's degree in 1984, and her PhD in 1990, both from Birkbeck College.[6]

Professor Kia Nobre, who nominated Price for the 5th Suffrage award for Life Sciences, said: "She blossomed through the trenches of a very macho world with gentle words, generous deeds, scientific commitment and rigour, genuine translation of research to clinical benefit, and humour."[7]

Price originally trained as a neuropsychologist studying reading and object recognition in patients with brain damage. In 1991, she joined the Medical Research Council (MRC) cyclotron unit at the inception of human brain mapping and used PET scanning to provide new insights into the functional anatomy of reading, speech perception, speech production and semantics.

Research and career[edit]

In 1995, Price moved to University College London using MRI scanning to show how language abilities and IQ are reflected in brain structure. For example, by combining structural and functional imaging data from healthy participants, Price has shown the remarkable effect that learning has on the structure of the brain. This is illustrated in a series of 3 Nature papers that map structural brain changes associated with (i) learning a second language,[8] (ii) learning to read in adulthood[9] and (iii) naturally occurring changes in verbal and nonverbal IQ in the teenage brain.[10]

Price has made two strong theoretical claims. Contrary to traditional views, her “cognitive ontologies” theory[11] claimed that there are no parts of the human brain that are dedicated to language processing. Instead, specialisation for all types of language processing emerge through cross-talk among unique combinations of areas that are each involved in many other non-linguistic functions. Redefining the functional components of language, in terms of the underlying neural systems would, Price proposes, allow us to generate cognitive models that are both physiologically plausible and clinically useful.[12] Her “cognitive degeneracy” theory[13] claimed that the same language task can be supported by different neural pathways, and that an understanding of when and why different neural pathways are used is essential for understanding how patients recover language after brain damage.

Since 2012, Price has turned her attention to developing a tool for predicting language outcome and recovery after stroke (the PLORAS study).[14] To this end, she is creating a database that provides easy access to multiple sources of information (behaviour, demographics, brain structure and function) from thousands of stroke survivors. Predictions for new patients are based on how others with similar brain damage and demographics were observed to recover from the same symptoms. The same data, and the theory of cognitive degeneracy, can also be used to explain recovery in terms of the degree to which patients have preserved the set of neural pathways needed to produce speech and language (Seghier and Price, 2018).[15]

In March 2020, her h-index is 86 from a total of 322 papers, with more than 24,000 citations.[16]

Awards and honours[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Professor Cathy Price". Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. University College London.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "Catherine Price | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  3. ^ Price CJ (October 2000). "The anatomy of language: contributions from functional neuroimaging". Journal of Anatomy. 197 (3): 335–59. doi:10.1046/j.1469-7580.2000.19730335.x. PMC 1468137. PMID 11117622.
  4. ^ "UCL Language Research Team". Wellcome Trust. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b "Explaining Language Outcome and Recovery After Stroke (ELORAS)". Wellcome Trust. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  6. ^ "Prof Cathy Price". UCL IRIS.
  7. ^ UCL (7 June 2018). "Leading UCL neuroscientist honoured for brain imaging research". UCL News. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
  8. ^ Mechelli, A.; Crinion, J.; Noppeney, U.; et al. (2004). "Structural plasticity in the bilingual brain". Nature. 431 (7010): 757. doi:10.1038/431757a. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0013-D79B-1. PMID 15483594. S2CID 4338340.
  9. ^ Carreiras; Seghier, M.; Baquero, S.; et al. (2009). "An anatomical signature for literacy". Nature. 461 (7266): 983–986. Bibcode:2009Natur.461..983C. doi:10.1038/nature08461. PMID 19829380. S2CID 205218359.
  10. ^ Ramsden, S.; Richardson, F.; Josse, G.; et al. (2011). "Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain". Nature. 479 (7371): 113–116. Bibcode:2011Natur.479..113R. doi:10.1038/nature10514. PMC 3672949. PMID 22012265.
  11. ^ Price, Cathy J.; Friston, Karl J. (2005). "Functional ontologies for cognition: The systematic definition of structure and function". Cognitive Neuropsychology. 22 (3–4): 262–275. doi:10.1080/02643290442000095. PMID 21038249. S2CID 1735090.
  12. ^ Price, C.J. (2018). "The evolution of cognitive models: From neuropsychology to neuroimaging and back". Cortex. 107: 37–49. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2017.12.020. PMC 5924872. PMID 29373117.
  13. ^ Price, C.J.; Friston, Karl J. (2002). "Degeneracy and cognitive anatomy". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 6 (10): P416-421. doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01976-9. PMID 12413574. S2CID 12073657.
  14. ^ "Predicting Language Outcome and Recovery After Stroke (PLORAS)". Wellcome Trust. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  15. ^ Seghier, Mohamed L.; Price, Cathy J. (June 2018). "Interpreting and Utilising Intersubject Variability in Brain Function". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 22 (6): 517–530. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.03.003. PMC 5962820. PMID 29609894.
  16. ^ "Cathy J. Price". Semantic Scholar. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  17. ^ "Record number of women elected to the British Academy". The British Academy. 22 July 2022. Retrieved 15 August 2022.
  18. ^ "Leading female scientists awarded Suffrage Science heirlooms". London Institute of Medical Sciences. 6 June 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  19. ^ "Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences 2014: Cathy Price". Academy of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  20. ^ "The 21st Jean-Louis Signoret Neuropsychology Prize of the Fondation Ipsen has been awarded to Cathy Price (University College London, London, UK)". 3 December 2012. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  21. ^ Jump up to: a b "Funded People and Projects - Grant Funding" (xls). Wellcome Trust. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  22. ^ "Justine & Yves Sergent Fund". Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  23. ^ "Human Brain Mapping". Wiley Online Library. doi:10.1002/(ISSN)1097-0193. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
  24. ^ "Early Career Investigator Award 2001: Cathy Price". Organization for Human Brain Mapping.
  25. ^ "Prof. Catherine Price". AcademiaNet. Retrieved 19 March 2020.
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