Scientist: Barbara Sahakian

Professor Barbara J. Sahakian is a Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the University of Cambridge, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute (BCNI), UK. She is also an Honorary Clinical Psychologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a Fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge, a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences, an Honorary Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, and an Advisory Professor at Xinhua Hospital associated with the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China. Sahakian has an international reputation in the fields of psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, neuroimaging and neuroethics. She is best known for her work on problems of cognition and motivation in brain injury, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ cognitive deficits in depression and early detection, and early treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease. Sahakian co-invented the neuropsychological CANTAB and EMOTICOM tests and the University of Cambridge/PEAK Advanced Training Programme and the Wizard Apprentice Memory Game.