Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions: Lynn Nadel

The Awards for Distinguished Scientific Contributions are presented to persons who, in the opinion of the Committee on Scientific Awards, have made distinguished theoretical or empirical contributions to basic research in psychology. The 2020 recipients of the APA Scientific Contribution Awards were recognized by the 2019 Board of Scientific Affairs and selected by the 2019 Committee on Scientific Awards. For outstanding contribution, with John O'Keefe, in developing a framework that linked the discovery of neurons that encode spatial location with a computational theory, a foundational advance in the field of cognitive neuroscience. As described in their influential 1978 book The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map, they showed how neurons within the hippocampus fire when an animal is in a particular place and can be used to map and navigate the world. Building upon this work, Lynn Nadel has shown how hippocampal dysfunction contributes to memory deficits in Down syndrome and in response to stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved) © 2020 American Psychological Association