Marcus E.
Raichle

Marcus E. Raichle is a Professor of Radiology, Neurology, Anatomy, and Neurobiology at the Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis. He received his bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle. Between 1964 and 1971, he furthered his medical training at Baltimore City Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins University, including a two-year appointment as a Major in the United States Air Force, where he worked as a Neurologist and Flight Surgeon at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine in Texas. He joined the faculty at Washington University as a research instructor in Neurology and Radiology in 1971, and was appointed as Professor of Neurology in 1978 and Professor of Radiology in 1979.

Marucs Raichle is known for his pioneering research in the development and use of imaging techniques, such as positron emission tomography, to identify specific areas of the brain that are involved in tasks such as seeing, hearing, reading, and remembering, as well as emotion. This work has allowed researchers to study the living human brain and record its function in health and disease. In addition, he and his research team have analyzed chemical receptors in the brain, investigated the physiology of major depression and anxiety, and evaluated patients at risk for stroke. He has also played a pivotal role in the development of the “default mode network” to describe resting state brain function, a concept that has become a central theme in neuroscience.

He has received many honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine in 1991 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996. More recently, he has received the Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Achievement in Neuroscience Research, the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology, and the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize.