Kavli Prize for a Yale neuroscientist

Pasko Rakic, M.D., Ph.D., chair and the Doris McConnell Duberg Professor of Neurobiology, professor of neurology and director of the Kavli Institute of Neuroscience at Yale, was named one of the inaugural recipients of the Kavli Prize, given for the first time this year. The 2008 laureates were selected for groundbreaking research that has significantly advanced understanding of the unusual properties of matter on an ultra-small scale, the basic circuitry of the human brain and the nature of quasars. Rakic, one of seven scientists to receive the $1 million prize, was honored for a pioneering series of anatomical studies carried out over the past three decades that revealed how neurons in the developing cerebral cortex are generated and how they assemble themselves into interconnected circuits that direct higher-order sensory and motor functions. The seven winners will receive a scroll, a medal and a share of the overall prize for each area.