Doris Tsao, professor of neuroscience and Pivotal Life Sciences Faculty Scholar, has been awarded the 2026 International Prize for Translational Neuroscience of the Gertrud Reemtsma Foundation by the Max Planck Society. Tsao shares the prize with Winrich Freiwald of the Rockefeller University for their groundbreaking insights into the neural basis of face and object recognition. The prize is awarded annually to two researchers whose fundamental neuroscientific discoveries have provided significant impetus for clinical practice, and comes with 60,000 euros.
Tsao and Freiwald identified a network of brain regions involved in visual face recognition, known as the “face patch system”, which is part of a larger system for identifying objects. Tsao also discovered the neural code used to represent individual faces, among other discoveries. This research could open new avenues for the treatment of disorders such as face blindness and contribute to the development of neuroprosthetics.
