Keynote speaker Dr. Floyd Bloom also will receive the Dr. Charles L. Branch BrainHealth Award at the symposium.
The Center for BrainHealth will host Reprogramming the Brain to Health, an annual symposium that brings together top neuroscientists and medical investigators to share breakthroughs in brain research.
This year’s symposium, scheduled for April 10, will focus on the topic of “Brain Connectivity in Health and Disease.” Keynote speaker Dr. Floyd Bloom, chairman emeritus of the department of neuropharmacology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., will receive the Dr. Charles L. Branch BrainHealth Award for his contributions to the understanding of the dopamine system and its role in brain health and brain decline.
The symposium is held in partnership with the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
Since 2010, the Branch Award has honored neuroscientists who have made noteworthy breakthroughs in brain discoveries. Bloom will be the first to receive the award since its namesake, Dr. Charles Branch Sr., died last year. Branch was a leading research scholar, neurosurgeon, humanitarian and brain-mapping pioneer.
“Dr. Bloom has been a major force urgently pushing forward the need for biomedical discoveries to be more rapidly transformed into meaningful advances in health care for society today,” said Dr. Sandra Bond Chapman, BrainHealth’s founder and chief director, and Dee Wyly Distinguished University Chair. “For that reason, the Center for BrainHealth is closely aligned with his life mission.”
A leading medical expert in neuroscience, neurology and psychiatry, Bloom is a renowned physician-combined neuroscientist and editor of a book written as the consumer’s “bible” for the brain, The Dana Guide to Brain Health. Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, the first Branch Award recipient, will present the award.