Catherine J. Price is a British

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist specializing in neuroscience that deals with the anatomy and function of neurons, Biological neural network, neural circuits, and glia, and their Behavior, behavioral, biological, and psycholo ...

and academic. She is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and director of the

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging The Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, formerly the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London (incorporating the Leopold Muller Functional Imaging Laboratory and the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience) is ...

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. Her overarching research goal is to provide a model of the neural basis of

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

that predicts and explains

speech Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...

and language difficulties and their recovery after

brain damage Brain injury (BI) is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. In general, brain damage refers to significant, undiscriminating trauma-induced damage. A common ...

(

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

neurosurgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty that focuses on the surgical treatment or rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system ...

). She is a world-leading, renowned

Education

Price obtained her bachelor's degree in 1984, and her PhD in 1990, both from

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public research university located in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' ...

. 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." 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 A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive/ cute appearances, inte ...

scanning to provide new insights into the functional anatomy of reading, speech perception, speech production and semantics.

Research and career

In 1995, Price moved to

using

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

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, (ii) learning to read in adulthood and (iii) naturally occurring changes in verbal and nonverbal IQ in the teenage brain. Price has made two strong theoretical claims. Contrary to traditional views, her “cognitive ontologies” theory 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. Her “cognitive degeneracy” theory 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). 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). In March 2020, her

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...

is 86 from a total of 322 papers, with more than 24,000 citations.

Awards and honours

* The Minnie Mitchel Goodall Studentship (1989) *

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predec ...

Senior Research Fellowship (1997) *

Organization for Human Brain Mapping The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) is an organization of scientists with the main aim of organizing an annual meeting ("Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping"). The organization was established in 1995 at its fir ...

Early Career Investigator Award (2001). * Human Brain Mapping Editor's Choice Award (2006) * Justine et Yves Sergent award (2008) *

Ipsen Ipsen is a French biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France, with a focus on drug development and commercialization in three therapeutic areas: oncology, rare diseases and neuroscience. Ipsen is one of the world's top 15 biopha ...

Foundation Neuropsychology Prize (2012) *

Principal Research Fellowship (2012) *

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) is an award for medical scientists who are judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the "excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of the ...

(FMedSci) (2014) *

Principal Research Fellowship (2017 * 5th Suffrage award for Life Sciences (2018) *

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

(FRS) (2020) *

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in t ...

(FBA) (2022)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Cathy J. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people British women neuroscientists Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London Academics of University College London Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellows Female fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the British Academy