FLORENCE, ITALY – The 2014 Brain prize for neuroscience went to an Italian for the first time on Thursday. Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neurophysiologist at the University of Parma, former professor at the University of Pisa (Tuscany) is best known for leading the team that discovered mirror neurons in the frontal and parietal cortex of the macaque monkey.
Rizzolatti shares the one-million-euro prize with scientists Stanislas Dehaene and Trevor Robbins for their “pioneering research on higher brain mechanisms underpinning such complex human functions as literacy, numeracy, motivated behavior and social cognition, and for their efforts to understand cognitive and behavioral disorders”. An official award ceremony will be held in Copenhagen on May 1.
He is the Senior Scientist of the research team that discovered mirror neurons in the frontal and parietal cortex of the macaque monkey, and has written many scientific articles on the topic. He is a past president of the European Brain and Behaviour Society. Rizzolatti was the 2007 co-recipient, with Leonardo Fogassi and Vittorio Gallese, for the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.