Spring General Meeting
Joseph E. LeDoux

The American Philosophical Society awarded the 2011 Karl Spencer Lashley Award to Joseph E. LeDoux. The citation read: “in recognition of his seminal studies of the neural mechanisms of emotional learning, particularly fear learning and fear memory.”  The award was presented by the Society’s President, Clyde F. Barker, Donald Guthrie Professor, Department of Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Joseph LeDoux has carried out pioneering and comprehensive studies of the neuroscience of fear learning and fear memory.  In an animal model, he traced the fear processing circuit from sensory systems to the amygdala, identified the lateral nucleus of the amygdala as a key sensory region and a site for synaptic plasticity, and showed that the connections from the lateral to the central nucleus are essential for processing fear responses.  He has also elucidated the phenomenon of extinction, related extinction to the medial prefrontal cortex, and shown how medial prefrontal cortex interacts with the amygdala in extinction.  His work has substantial clinical relevance for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Dr. LeDoux is currently the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science and University Professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University.  He is also the director of the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety, a multi-university Center in New York City.  He received his Ph.D. in 1977 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

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 made in recognition of work on the integrative neuroscience of behavior.  At the time of his death, Dr. Lashley 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.” Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience.

The Lashley Award Selection Committee consisted of chair Larry R. Squire, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology at University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and Research Career Scientist at VA Medical Center, San Diego; John E. Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences at Harvard University; Fernando Nottebohm, Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor in the Laboratory of Animal Behavior at Rockefeller University; and Richard F. Thompson, Keck Professor of Psychology and Biological Sciences in the Neuroscience Program at University of Southern California.

2012 Spring General Meeting
Eve Marder

The American Philosophical Society awarded the 2012 Karl Spencer Lashley Award to Eve Marder. The citation read: "in recognition of her comprehensive work with a small nervous system, demonstrating general principles by which neuromodulatory substances reconfigure the operation of neuronal networks."  The award was presented by the Society’s President, Clyde F. Barker, Donald Guthrie Professor, Department of Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Eve Marder has carried out pioneering work with a small nervous system, the stomatogastric ganglion of a decapod crustacean. She showed that a single neural circuit can produce a number of different outputs depending on the presence of specific neuromodulators. In addition, she has combined experimental and computational studies to identify the neurons and synapses in the circuit, to understand how the circuit works, and to explore broader issues such as how networks maintain stability across time.

Eve Marder's primary interest is in the intrinsic properties of individual neurons and their synaptic connections. She has carried out pioneering work elucidating the various mechanisms by which a similar circuit outputs can be produced both in multiple individual animals and in the same animal over time, and how, exactly, these networks can remain stable despite the continuing changes of a living organism. She has published seminal studies in neuronal homeostasis, rhythm generation, neuromodulation, computational neuroscience, and dynamic clamp technique. She is a member of both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Marder is currently the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience at Brandeis University. She received her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego in 1974.

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 made in recognition of work on the integrative neuroscience of behavior.  At the time of his death, Dr. Lashley 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.”  Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience.

The Lashley Award Selection Committee consisted of Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology at University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, and Research Career Scientist at VA Medical Center, San Diego; John E. Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences at Harvard University; William T. Newsome, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Fernando Nottebohm, Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor, Laboratory of Animal Behavior, Rockefeller University.

Autumn General Meeting
J. Anthony Movshon

The 2013 recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s Karl Spencer Lashley Award is 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.” J. Anthony Movshon is currently Director of the Center for Neural Science, University Professor, Silver Professor, Professor of Neural Science, and Professor of Psychology at New York University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in 1975.

J. Anthony Movshon has carried out pioneering work on the neuroscience of vision, focusing on the organization and function of area V1, the first region of cerebral cortex to receive visual information from the external world. He developed the leading quantitative descriptions of V1 neuronal activity, characterized the linear and nonlinear properties of visual signals, and developed quantitative descriptions of how neurons in higher cortical areas combine inputs from lower cortical levels to support the perception of global motion patterns. His work has shed light on the neural basis of amblyopia - the most common form of blindness - and how the effects of amblyopia might be mitigated through early intervention.

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. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The selection committee consisted of Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, UCSD School of Medicine, Research Career Scientist, VA Medical Center, San Diego; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences, Harvard University; William T. Newsome III, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Fernando Nottebohm, Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor, Laboratory of Animal Behavior, Rockefeller University; and Carla J. Shatz, Director, BioX, Stanford University.

2014 Autumn General Meeting

Edvard and May-Britt Moser

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2014 Karl Spencer Lashley Award are 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." Professor Edvard Moser leads the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and May-Britt Moser is Director of the Centre for Neural Computation, both at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. The award was presented to the Mosers on November 9, 2014, at the Society's annual Autumn General Meeting.

Edvard and May-Britt Moser have carried out pioneering studies of the neural circuitry in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, structures of the brain long known to be involved in memory. They discovered a new cell type in entorhinal cortex, grid cells, illuminated how information is represented in place cells of the hippocampus, and identified separate operations for its CA1 and CA3 fields. Grid cells are neurons in the entorhinal cortex that provide a map of the spatial environment. Unlike place cells, which fire when the animal is at a single location, grid cells have multiple firing fields which form a periodic triangular matrix tiling the entire environment. Their work has transformed understanding of how these structures operate to support spatial processing and memory.

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. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The selection committee consisted of Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, UCSD School of Medicine, Research Career Scientist, VA Medical Center, San Diego; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences, Harvard University; William T. Newsome III, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Fernando Nottebohm, Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor, Laboratory of Animal Behavior, Rockefeller University; and Carla J. Shatz, Director, BioX, Stanford University.

2015 Spring General Meeting

David W. Tank

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to award the 2015 Karl Spencer Lashley Award to 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.

David Tank pioneered the application of intracellular recording and two-photon microscopy in awake animals working in virtual-reality environments. These techniques have revealed information at the cellular and circuit levels about neural integration, place coding in the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, and about the neural circuitry underlying decisions during spatial navigation. His work has provided key tests of computational models of how neural circuits operate.

Dr. Tank is Henry L. Hillman Professor in Molecular Biology at Princeton University and Co-Director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. He received a Ph.D. in physics at Cornell University. For almost two decades he served on the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, including as director of the Biological Computation Research Department, and remains a consultant. He joined the faculty of Princeton University in 2001 as a professor of molecular biology and physics.

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. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The selection committee consisted of Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, UCSD School of Medicine, Research Career Scientist, VA Medical Center, San Diego; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences, Harvard University; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences; and William T. Newsome III, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

2016 Autumn General Meeting

Charles G. Gross

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2016 Karl Spencer Lashley Award is 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.” The award will be presented to Dr. Gross on November 11, 2016, at the Society’s annual Autumn General Meeting.

Charles Gross pioneered the neuroscience of higher level vision. His seminal work on the inferotemporal cortex of nonhuman primates described neurons that are activated by complex stimuli such as faces, hands, and multicolored objects. His discoveries identified inferotemporal cortex as the highest-level area dedicated to object vision.

Dr. Gross is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. He received an A.B in biology at Princeton University and a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Cambridge. He was a faculty member at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University before joining the Princeton faculty in 1970. He is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.

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. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The members of the selection committee are Larry R. Squire (chair), Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosciences, and Psychology, UCSD School of Medicine, Research Career Scientist, VA Medical Center, San Diego; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences, Harvard University; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences; Edvard Moser, Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and William T. Newsome III, Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

2017 Spring General Meeting

Michael N. Shadlen

The American Philosophical Society is pleased to award the 2017 Karl Spencer Lashley Award to Michael 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.

Michael Shadlen studies how sensory information guides behavioral choice. His experience as a clinical neurologist led to an interest in how the brain makes decisions on the basis of external evidence, in particular how brain mechanisms combine information arriving over time to form choices. Guided by anatomical knowledge of sensorimotor circuitry, he recorded in areas of the parietal and frontal cortex—structures that link visual perception to eye movement selection—while animals performed rigorously controlled decision-making tasks. He and his colleagues discovered that these association areas integrate information using computations akin to those used in cryptanalysis and statistical hypothesis testing. Understanding the process of choice is fundamental to understanding cognition and behavior. Shadlen’s work has combined elegant biological and behavioral experimentation with rigorous theory and analysis to uncover the brain basis for this fundamental element of cognition.

Dr. Shadlen earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.D. at Brown University. He is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University and an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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. His entire scientific life was spent in the study of behavior and its neural basis. Dr. Lashley’s famous experiments on the brain mechanisms of learning, memory and intelligence helped inaugurate the modern era of integrative neuroscience, and the Lashley Award recognizes innovative work that continues exploration in the field.

The members of the selection committee were William T. Newsome III (chair), Professor of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; John Dowling, Gordon and Llura Gund Research Professor of Neurosciences Emeritus, Harvard University; Ann M. Graybiel, Institute Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Eric Knudsen, Sewell Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus, Stanford University School of Medicine; John G. Hildebrand, Regents Professor of Neuroscience, University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Sciences; Edvard Moser, Professor of Neuroscience, Director, Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Science and Technology; and Larry R. Squire, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry,

2007 Spring General Meeting

Richard Rorty

The 2007 recipient of the American Philosophical Society's Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, Humanities, or Social Sciences is philosopher Richard Rorty, professor of comparative literature emeritus and, by courtesy, of philosophy at Stanford University. The citation for the medal reads, "In recognition of his influential and distinctively American contribution to philosophy and, more widely, to humanistic studies. His work redefined knowledge "as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature" (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1979) and thus redefined philosophy itself as an unending, democratically disciplined, social and cultural activity of inquiry, reflection, and exchange, rather than an activity governed and validated by the concept of objective, extramental truth."

Richard Rorty is considered among the most influential of English-speaking philosophers. His synthetic thought brings together a pragmatic linguistic philosophy with a variety of naturalistic materialism. He is the latest in the line of a distinctively American tradition that includes James, Dewey, Sellars, Kuhn, and Quine. His is the most significant attempt to bridge the gap between "continental" and "analytic" philosophy in the United States, and his ideas have made an impact in philosophical circles around the world. Rorty is not only one of the few philosophers in the United States to enjoy a reputation in disciplines other than his own, he has resurrected the pragmatist tradition of commentary by philosophers on public affairs. At the same time, his influence beyond the field of professional philosophy has entailed no compromise of the logical and analytical skills admired by professional philosophers.

Dr. Rorty's published works include Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), Consequences of Pragmatism (1982), Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (1988), Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers I (1991), Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers II (1991), Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth Century America (1998), Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers III (1998), and Philosophy and Social Hope (2000). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2005.

The Thomas Jefferson Medal was created in 1993 by an act of Congress to honor the American Philosophical Society and its third president, Thomas Jefferson, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the Society. It is the Society's highest award for distinguished achievement in the arts, humanities, or social sciences.

The selection committee consisted of the Society's president, Baruch S. Blumberg, Fox Chase Distinguished Scientist at Fox Chase Cancer Center; the co-executive officers Mary Maples Dunn, president emeritus of Smith College, and Richard S. Dunn, Roy F. and Jeannette P. Nichols Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania; vice president Harriet Zuckerman, senior vice president at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Council members Elizabeth Cropper, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art; Lionel Gossman, M. Taylor Pyne Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages at Princeton University; Barbara B. Oberg, general editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson; John W. O'Malley, University Professor at Georgetown University; and Charles E. Rosenberg, Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Social Sciences at Harvard University.