NINDS’s Hallett Receives Brain Stimulation Award
Photo: NINDS
Dr. Mark Hallett, chief of the NINDS Medical Neurology Branch and the human motor control section in the Division of Intramural Research, recently received the 2019 International Brain Stimulation Award from the journal Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational and Clinical Research in Neuromodulation.
The award—which honors outstanding contributions that have profoundly influenced the field of brain stimulation—was presented on Feb. 25 during the 3rd International Brain Stimulation Conference in Vancouver, Canada.
Hallett was recognized for the groundbreaking contributions he has made to enhance understanding of the physiological principles of brain stimulation. His work has included studies of brain reorganization in various disorders and after learning a new motor task, the effects of fatigue on corticospinal excitability and the concept of surround inhibition in the pathophysiological mechanisms of dystonia.
At the conference, Hallett presented the award plenary lecture titled “How to Move an Individual Finger,” which reviewed his laboratory’s work on surround inhibition. “I was very pleased and honored by this award, which actually recognizes the hard work of the many outstanding fellows who have contributed to the human motor control section,” he said.
Hallett earned undergraduate and medical degrees from Harvard University and received his neurology training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He had fellowships in neurophysiology at NIH and in the department of neurology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London.
Before joining NIH in 1984, he was chief of the Clinical Neurophysiology Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. During his career at NINDS, his work has centered on understanding the physiology of normal human voluntary movement and the pathophysiology of different movement disorders.—Shannon E. Garnett