- Email: [email protected]
Patricia Goldman-Rakic
OBITUARY
Obituary
Rights were not granted to include this image in electronic media. Please refer to the printed journal.
Patricia Goldman-Rakic
Robert Lisak
Professor of neuroscience at Yale University, USA, her groundbreaking work on brain and memory functions advanced our understanding of schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Born April 22, 1937, in Salem, MA, USA; died aged 66 years on July 31, 2003, at Yale-New Haven Hospital, from injuries sustained 2 days previously when she was hit by a car while crossing the street in Hamden, USA.
sk anyone with a rudimentary understanding of neuroscience for the brain’s most interesting and complicated region, and they are likely to name the frontal lobe. This sophisticated structure is implicated in many of the brain’s most complex tasks, such as learning, memory, and behaviour, and malfunctions in some of the organ’s most distressing disorders—among them Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia. Yet before the work of Patricia Goldman-Rakic, the frontal lobe was unexplored territory, a desert in our scientific understanding. “Her work parted the waters for a new understanding of complex aspects of cognition and behaviour and for understanding very dramatic aberrations such as those seen in schizophrenia”, said Daniel Weinberger, head of the clinical disorders branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. “Nobody ever put it together like Pat did. Her science was very powerful.” Goldman-Rakic was born in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, in 1937, and was awarded her bachelor’s degree cum laude from Vassar College in 1959. A doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles followed in 1937, and she began her research career at the American Museum of Natural History. Her work took her back to the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as to New York University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the US National Institutes of Health, before she joined Yale University in 1979, becoming Eugene Higgins Professor of Neuroscience. During the 1970s, Goldman-Rakic’s seminal studies of the structure and function of the frontal lobe laid the foundations for our modern understanding of this part of the brain. Her achievement was to provide a neurobiological basis for normal behaviour, and for the aberrations that occur in mental illness. The effects of drugs and neurotransmitters, the processes of memory and learning, the breakdowns of schizophrenia: today’s scientists owe their grasp of all these fields, and more, to Goldman-Rakic’s work. She made the discovery that the loss of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex led to severe impairment of working memory, a
A
Mark Henderson e-mail: [email protected]
finding with implications for many mental illnesses and the drugs used to treat them. Another of Goldman-Rakic’s most notable breakthroughs came in 1977, when she discovered that clusters of cells in the prefrontal cortex are dedicated to specific memory tasks, such as recalling a face or voice. Her achievements were all the more remarkable because the frontal lobe had previously been thought one of the parts of the brain most inaccessible to in-depth research. Goldman-Rakic chose to investigate a subject with little prior knowledge on which to build, doing the elementary work that essentially opened a new field of scientific inquiry. Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University, a Nobel laureate neuroscientist, described her work as having “raised the quality of multidisciplinary brain research to a new level. Her work has provided a foundation for understanding schizophrenia and other disorders”. Goldman-Rakic was the author of hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, and she collected many scientific awards, including the Karl Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, and a Merit Award from the National Institutes of Health. Colleagues paid tribute to Goldman-Rakic as a warm and thoughtful person, whose enthusiasm for her work could light up a room. She did much of her research with Pasko Rakic, her husband of 24 years and her research collaborator for 30 years. In 2001, she was named by Time magazine as the top neurobiologist in the USA, in a series on the most eminent scientists in their fields. Shortly before her death, she published research that showed how short periods of amphetamine use in adolescence could inflict long-lasting cognitive damage. As Albert Aguayo, Secretary General of the International Brain Research Organisation, said: “World neuroscience has lost one of its best leaders. She did so much and would have accomplished so much more.” Goldman-Rakic is survived by her husband, Pasko, and her sister, Ruth Rappaport.
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • October 18, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.
1337
Obituary
Rights were not granted to include this image in electronic media. Please refer to the printed journal.
Patricia Goldman-Rakic
Robert Lisak
Professor of neuroscience at Yale University, USA, her groundbreaking work on brain and memory functions advanced our understanding of schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease. Born April 22, 1937, in Salem, MA, USA; died aged 66 years on July 31, 2003, at Yale-New Haven Hospital, from injuries sustained 2 days previously when she was hit by a car while crossing the street in Hamden, USA.
sk anyone with a rudimentary understanding of neuroscience for the brain’s most interesting and complicated region, and they are likely to name the frontal lobe. This sophisticated structure is implicated in many of the brain’s most complex tasks, such as learning, memory, and behaviour, and malfunctions in some of the organ’s most distressing disorders—among them Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia. Yet before the work of Patricia Goldman-Rakic, the frontal lobe was unexplored territory, a desert in our scientific understanding. “Her work parted the waters for a new understanding of complex aspects of cognition and behaviour and for understanding very dramatic aberrations such as those seen in schizophrenia”, said Daniel Weinberger, head of the clinical disorders branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. “Nobody ever put it together like Pat did. Her science was very powerful.” Goldman-Rakic was born in Salem, Massachusetts, USA, in 1937, and was awarded her bachelor’s degree cum laude from Vassar College in 1959. A doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles followed in 1937, and she began her research career at the American Museum of Natural History. Her work took her back to the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as to New York University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the US National Institutes of Health, before she joined Yale University in 1979, becoming Eugene Higgins Professor of Neuroscience. During the 1970s, Goldman-Rakic’s seminal studies of the structure and function of the frontal lobe laid the foundations for our modern understanding of this part of the brain. Her achievement was to provide a neurobiological basis for normal behaviour, and for the aberrations that occur in mental illness. The effects of drugs and neurotransmitters, the processes of memory and learning, the breakdowns of schizophrenia: today’s scientists owe their grasp of all these fields, and more, to Goldman-Rakic’s work. She made the discovery that the loss of dopamine in the prefrontal cortex led to severe impairment of working memory, a
A
Mark Henderson e-mail: [email protected]
finding with implications for many mental illnesses and the drugs used to treat them. Another of Goldman-Rakic’s most notable breakthroughs came in 1977, when she discovered that clusters of cells in the prefrontal cortex are dedicated to specific memory tasks, such as recalling a face or voice. Her achievements were all the more remarkable because the frontal lobe had previously been thought one of the parts of the brain most inaccessible to in-depth research. Goldman-Rakic chose to investigate a subject with little prior knowledge on which to build, doing the elementary work that essentially opened a new field of scientific inquiry. Paul Greengard of Rockefeller University, a Nobel laureate neuroscientist, described her work as having “raised the quality of multidisciplinary brain research to a new level. Her work has provided a foundation for understanding schizophrenia and other disorders”. Goldman-Rakic was the author of hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, and she collected many scientific awards, including the Karl Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, and a Merit Award from the National Institutes of Health. Colleagues paid tribute to Goldman-Rakic as a warm and thoughtful person, whose enthusiasm for her work could light up a room. She did much of her research with Pasko Rakic, her husband of 24 years and her research collaborator for 30 years. In 2001, she was named by Time magazine as the top neurobiologist in the USA, in a series on the most eminent scientists in their fields. Shortly before her death, she published research that showed how short periods of amphetamine use in adolescence could inflict long-lasting cognitive damage. As Albert Aguayo, Secretary General of the International Brain Research Organisation, said: “World neuroscience has lost one of its best leaders. She did so much and would have accomplished so much more.” Goldman-Rakic is survived by her husband, Pasko, and her sister, Ruth Rappaport.
THE LANCET • Vol 362 • October 18, 2003 • www.thelancet.com
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet.
1337