| Abstract |
Centennial Lectureship in Physics 
Denis Le Bihan is the Director of the Federative Research Institute of Functional Neuroimaging, and the founder of the Anatomical and Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, at the Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot of the CEA, in Orsay, France. He is a native of France where he completed his training in Medicine (including a Residency in Neurosurgery and Radiology) and Physics. He served as a Research Section Chief in the Clinical Center at NIH, Bethesda, Maryland and as a Clinical Associate Professor of Radiology at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Dr. Le Bihan is credited with developing, refining, and introducing diffusion MRI into research and clinical practice, enabling the study of normal and diseased brain anatomy and wiring. This method was adopted by MRI system manufacturers and is used worldwide both for basic research and clinical applications. Dr. Le Bihan has also significantly contributed to the development of functional MRI (fMRI) which has become a key method for the noninvasive measurement of human brain activity. Together, diffusion MRI and fMRI provide the technological basis for understanding of the structure and function of the human brain, allowing study of domains such as perception, language, decision-making, and memory within normal, developing, and diseased persons. Dr. Le Bihan is also leading NeuroSpin, a CEA project aimed at developing and using ultra high field Magnetic Resonance to understand the brain, from mouse to human. He belongs to several professional societies and serves on the editorial boards of many peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Le Bihan has authored or co-authored over 200 articles, book chapters and review articles in the fields of MRI, imaging, neuroscience and radiology. Dr. Le Bihan was awarded in 2001 the Gold Medal of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He is also the 2002 recipient of the Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and French Academy of Sciences and a 2003 co-recipient (with S. Dehaene) of the Louis D. Award of the Institut de France. In 2003, Dr. Le Bihan was elected a full member of the French Academy of Sciences. Dr. Le Bihan's talk also serves as the first lecture in the "Physics at work in Neuroscience, Neuroscience at work in Mental Health" series. His lecture is sponsored by the UT-Austin Department of Physics, UT-Austin Institute for Neuroscience, France-UT Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the French Consulate (Houston).
The University of Texas at Austin |