Cathy Price facts for kids

Catherine J. Price is a British scientist who studies the brain. She is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London. She also leads the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. Her main goal is to understand how our brains handle language. She wants to help people who have trouble speaking or understanding after a brain damage. This includes problems from a stroke or brain surgery. Dr. Price is a very important and well-known brain scientist.

Early Life and Education

Catherine Price earned her first degree in 1984. She then completed her PhD in 1990. Both of her degrees were from Birkbeck College.

Professor Kia Nobre spoke highly of Dr. Price. She said that Dr. Price succeeded in a tough field. She did so with kindness, hard work, and a good sense of humor.

From Neuropsychology to Brain Mapping

Dr. Price first trained as a neuropsychologist. She studied how people with brain damage read and recognize objects. In 1991, she joined the Medical Research Council. This was when human brain mapping began.

She used a special scanning method called PET scanning. This helped her learn new things. She discovered how the brain works when we read, hear speech, speak, and understand words.

Research and Discoveries

In 1995, Dr. Price moved to University College London. There, she used MRI scans. She showed how language skills and IQ are linked to brain structure. For example, she found that learning can change the brain's structure.

How Learning Changes the Brain

Dr. Price showed this in several important studies. She mapped brain changes linked to learning a second language. She also studied how adults learn to read. Her research also looked at natural changes in verbal and nonverbal IQ in teenagers.

Understanding Language in the Brain

Dr. Price has developed two big ideas. Her "cognitive ontologies" theory is different from older ideas. It says that no single part of the brain is only for language. Instead, language skills come from different brain areas working together. These areas are also used for many other non-language tasks.

She believes that understanding these brain systems helps us create better models. These models can explain how the brain works. They can also be useful for helping patients.

How the Brain Adapts and Recovers

Her "cognitive degeneracy" theory explains how the brain can use different paths. The same language task can be done in various ways. Understanding why and when these different paths are used is key. This helps us understand how patients recover language after brain damage.

Helping Stroke Survivors

Since 2012, Dr. Price has focused on a new project. She is creating a tool to predict language recovery after a stroke. This project is called PLORAS. She is building a large database for this.

The database includes information from thousands of stroke survivors. It has details about their behavior, background, and brain scans. Predictions for new patients are based on how others with similar brain damage recovered. This data also helps explain recovery. It shows how well patients have kept the brain paths needed for speech and language.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Price has received many awards for her important work.

• The Minnie Mitchel Goodall Studentship (1989)
• Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (1997)
• Organization for Human Brain Mapping Early Career Investigator Award (2001)
• Human Brain Mapping Editor's Choice Award (2006)
• Justine et Yves Sergent award (2008)
• Ipsen Foundation Neuropsychology Prize (2012)
• Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship (2012)
• Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) (2014)
• Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship (2017)
• 5th Suffrage award for Life Sciences (2018)
• Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) (2020)
• Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) (2022)