18 FN: arnsten

Amy F. Arnsten, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and of psychology has received a $500,000 Pioneer Award given annually to researchers of exceptional creativity. The National Institutes of Health announced the award on Sept. 30. The award was one of 12 Pioneer awards and 78 grants given to innovative research projects under the NIH's High Risk-High Reward program. Arnsten will use the five-year grant to study how genetic and environmental factors interfere with activity in the highly-evolved association cortices to produce cognitive deficits in diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's. The NIH program is designed to encourage researchers at all career stages to take innovative approaches to difficult biomedical challenges. The Pioneer grant is geared towards research that has the potential to produce an unusually high impact on society.