Catherine J. "Cathy" Price is a British

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

and academic. She is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and director of the

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging The 'Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging'' at University College London is a world-leading interdisciplinary centre for neuroimaging research based in London, United Kingdom. Researchers at the Centre use expertise to investigate how the hum ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

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

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

that predicts and explains

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...

and language difficulties and their recovery after

brain damage Neurotrauma, brain damage or 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 t ...

(

stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...

neurosurgery Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

). 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 university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

. 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 appearances, intelligence, ...

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

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

using

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

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 obvious success indicators such as winn ...

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

Awards and honours

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (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 the United Kingdom # C ...

(FBA) (2022) *

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges 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) * 5th Suffrage award for Life Sciences (2018) *

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

Principal Research Fellowship (2017 *

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 th ...

(FMedSci) (2014) *

Ipsen Ipsen is a French biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France, with a focus on transformative medicines in three therapeutic areas: oncology, rare disease and neuroscience. Ipsen is one of the world’s top 15 biopharmaceutical com ...

Foundation Neuropsychology Prize (2012) *

Principal Research Fellowship (2012) * Justine et Yves Sergent award (2008) * Human Brain Mapping Editor's Choice Award (2006) *

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 the fir ...

Early Career Investigator Award (2001). *

Senior Research Fellowship (1997) * The Minnie Mitchel Goodall Studentship (1989)

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