Anne K. Churchland is a neuroscientist at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

. Her laboratory studies the function of the

posterior parietal cortex The posterior parietal cortex (the portion of parietal neocortex posterior to the primary somatosensory cortex) plays an important role in planned movements, spatial reasoning, and attention. Damage to the posterior parietal cortex can produce a ...

in cognitive processes such as

decision-making In psychology, decision-making (also spelled decision making and decisionmaking) is regarded as the Cognition, cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be ...

and

multisensory integration Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modality, sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous sy ...

. One of her discoveries is that individual neurons in rodent

can multitask i.e. play a role in multiple behaviors. Another discovery is that rodents are similar to humans in their ability to perform

, i.e. to integrate stimuli from two different modalities such as vision and hearing. Churchland is an advocate of using rodents to study these cognitive processes, and together with scientists Zachary Mainen and

Anthony Zador Anthony M. Zador is an American neuroscientist and the Alle Davis Harris Professor of Biology and Chair of Neuroscience at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. He is a co-founder, in 2004, of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE) confe ...

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a private, non-profit institution with research programs focusing on cancer, neuroscience, botany, genomics, and quantitative biology. It is located in Laurel Hollow, New York, in Nassau County, on ...

she has made substantial advances in bringing to these species the advanced behavioral techniques previously available only in primates. Churchland is a founding member of the

International Brain Laboratory The International Brain Laboratory (IBL) is a collaborative research group that aims to develop the first global model of decision making in mice. In its first phase, IBL members are recording 100,000's of neurons across virtually all brain structur ...

and an advisor to the

Allen Institute for Brain Science The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a division of the Allen Institute, based in Seattle, Washington, that focuses on bioscience research. Founded in 2003, it is dedicated to accelerating the understanding of how the human brain works. Wit ...

. She is the founder of ''Anneslist'', a website which promotes equality in representation across genders in scientific meetings.

Early life

She is the daughter of analytical philosopher

Patricia Churchland Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Cali ...

and philosopher

Paul Churchland Paul Montgomery Churchland (born October 21, 1942) is a Canadian philosopher known for his studies in neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh under Wilfrid Sellars (1969), Churchland rose ...

. Her brother, Mark Churchland, is also a neuroscientist working as assistant professor at Columbia University.

Education

Churchland studied cognitive development at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

as an undergraduate where she received a B.A . in mathematics and psychology. In 2003, she received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...

, advised by Dr. Stephen Lisberger. Her doctoral research focused on how the primate extrastriate cortex processes visual motion information. Afterwards, from 2004 to 2010, Churchland worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

's Physiology and Biophysics department for Dr. Michael Shadlen. She continued her research on primates to study sensory decision making, which included both experimental and theoretical work. During this time, Churchland was funded by a Pathways to Independence (K99) Award from the

National Eye Institute The National Eye Institute (NEI) is part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The mi ...

Research

From 2010 to May 2020, Churchland was a principal investigator at

. In May 2020, Churchland moved to the

where she serves as a professor in neurobiology. She currently holds the Arnold B. Scheibel, M.D. Chair for Brain Research. Anne Churchland worked on the science behind movement, specifically fidgeting, and its relation to the process of thinking. One hypothesis they developed is that fidgeting may be the instrument or way in which we begin and continue the process of thinking. This research, Churchland believes, may offer useful insight as to why people with ADHD when compared to average people, may require more movement to concentrate. Churchland continues to do research on the neural mechanisms of decision making, focusing on multisensory integration. Churchland's lab measures and manipulates neurons in the cortical region, while rodents make decisions on external stimuli. They also use mathematical analyses to understand neural population activity.

DEI in Science

Churchland is also known for her advocacy for women in neuroscience. She created ''anneslist'', a directory for women in the fields of systems and computational neuroscience. It began as a practical list of women in the field she encountered and could nominate as speakers. Since then, this work has been recognized by the

Society for Neuroscience The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is a professional society, headquartered in Washington, D.C., for basic scientists and physicians around the world whose research is focused on the study of the brain and nervous system. It is especially well k ...

in 2017, where Churchland was awarded The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award for her promotion of women in neuroscience through efforts that are not necessarily research-related.

Selected awards

McKnight Scholar Award (2012) Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by

The Pew Charitable Trusts The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948. Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". ...

(2014) Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in the Neurosciences from the

Simons Foundation The Simons Foundation is an American private foundation established in 1994 by Marilyn and James Harris Simons, Jim Simons with offices in New York City. As one of the largest charitable organizations in the United States with assets of over $5 ...

and the Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund (2014) The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award from the Society of Neuroscience (2017)

References

External links

Faculty profile at UCLA

Churchland Laboratory

International Brain Laboratory

Anneslist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Churchland, Anne Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian neuroscientists Canadian women neuroscientists American neuroscientists American women neuroscientists Wellesley College alumni University of California, San Francisco alumni 21st-century American women