Congratulations to Carla J. Shatz!

Carla J. Shatz, Professor of Neurobiology and of Biology at Stanford University and Director of Bio-X, USA, but also member of the Scientific Advisory Board at the BMI institute, was awarded the prestigious 2016 Kavli prize in neuroscience. She shares the prize with Eve Marder, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience, Brandeis University, USA, and Michael M. Merzenich, Professor Emeritus in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco, USA, and Chief Scientific Officer, Posit Science, USA. They share the prize “for the discovery of mechanisms that allow experience and neural activity to remodel brain function”.

"Carla Shatz showed how patterns of activity in the developing brain instruct and refine the arrangement of synapses between neurons. She demonstrated that the formation of appropriate connections between the eye and the brain of mammals depends on neuronal activity before birth. She discovered that spontaneous waves of activity sweep across the retina early in development, and showed that these organized activity patterns select the final set of connections from a coarse, genetically-determined map. Her demonstration that “neurons that fire together, wire together” links the mechanisms of brain wiring during development to those underlying adult learning and memory." (From the Kavil prize website)

About the Kavli Prize: The Kavli Prizes recognize scientists for pioneering advances in our understanding of existence at its biggest, smallest, and most complex scales. Presented every two years in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience, each of three international prizes consists of $1 million (U.S.). Laureates are chosen by committees whose members are recommended by six of the world’s most renowned science societies and academies.