Double Honors for Prof. Dr. Dr. Karl Zilles
The Organization for Human Brain Mapping, OHBM, has honored the renowned neuroscientist with the Glass Brain Award 2014 and elected him president of the organization.
His expeditions go into the deepest part of the brain: Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h.c. Karl Zilles has spent decades researching the structure and function of the human control center. The neuroscientist maps the cerebral cortex, among other things, and uses this data to create a three dimensional brain atlas. Additionally, he is developing innovative methods, with which fiber tracts in the human brain can be visualized in a resolution that previously was not available.
The JARA Senior Professor, who works in JARA-BRAIN at the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics at Aachen University Hospital as well as the Institute of Neurosciences and Medicine at Forschungszentrum Jülich, was honored with the OHBM Glass Brain Award for his life's work during the 20th annual meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping in Hamburg at the beginning of June 2014. The international professional society also elected him president for the next three years.
During a short speech held by Professor Alan Evans from the Monteal Neurological Institute in Canada, Karl Zilles' groundbreaking work on the expression of transmittor receptors in the human brain were particularly praised. This work lead to a new understanding of the organization of the cerebral cortex at the molecular level. Evans further emhasized the cytoarchitectonic mapping of the cerebral cortex as an innovative and pioneering contribution to the analysis of structure-function relationships in the brain.
The award winner has been pursuing this work for many years together with Prof. Dr. Katrin Amunts, Director at Forschungszentrum Jülich and of the C. & O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research at the University of Düsseldorf. Together with her and Dr. Markus Axer from Forschungszentrum Jülich Karl Zilles is also intensively working on a new method for visualizing and analyzing fiber tracts in the human brain, which attains a spatial precision far beyond that of methods available till now.
Scientific Society Promotes Interdisciplinary Exchanges on the Brain
The OHBM has members in over 40 countries. The professional association promotes a comprehensive understanding of the anatomical and functional organization of the human brain by brining together scientists from different disciplines ranging from medicine to physics and neurobiology to psychology at conferences, workshops, and more.
Prof. Zilles was director of the C. & O. Vogt Institute of Brain Research at the University of Düsseldorf, founding director of the Institute of Medicine at Forschungszentrum Jülich, and one of the founding members of the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance, JARA. Since 2013, he has been JARA Senior Professor in JARA-BRAIN at the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, and Psychosomatics at Aachen University Hospital, and worked at the Institute of Neurosciences and Medicine INM-1 at Forschungszentrum Jülich.