Two Neuro faculty members elected Fellows in the Royal Society of Canada
Two prominent Neuro faculty members, Dr. Frederick Andermann and Dr. Michael Petrides, are among the nine º£½ÇÉçÇø professors elected Fellows in the Royal Society of Canada, Canada’s national academy of arts and sciences.Â
Academic physician Frederick Andermann, with a career that spans 50 years, is a world leader in the field of epilepsy. He is known for his original and thorough studies of epilepsy syndromes and other degenerative disorders. As an example of this work, Dr. Andermann and his wife, Eva Andermann, discovered that a devastating neurodegenerative disorder in the Saguenay and Charlevoix regions of Quebec was a familial disorder. Using this information, scientists developed a genetic test for the Andermann Syndrome, which led to a significant reduction in its impact on families in these communities and opened the door for studies of other neurodegenerative disorders in geographically isolated populations. Dr. Andermann is a highly regarded mentor and trained a whole generation of epileptologists who went on to establish epilepsy centres around the world. He is Professor of Pediatrics, and Neurology and Neurosurgery at º£½ÇÉçÇø, and Director of The Neuro’s Epilepsy Clinic and Research Unit.Â
Michael Petrides joined the Neuro faculty in 1979 and has been the Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit since 1990. He was named a James º£½ÇÉçÇø Professor in 2001 and holds a faculty appointment in the departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery, and Psychology. Dr. Petrides’ research focuses on the function of the frontal and parietal cortex in cognitive activity. He is well respected by colleagues for his careful application and examination of animal model systems to understand how damage to the frontal cortex changes the ability to monitor self-generated, intentional actions. He also studies the action of single cells in this region of the brain to determine the specific neural activity that underlies the monitoring of working memory. Dr. Petrides was educated at the University of London and University of Cambridge and has been a Killam Scholar. He is also a Foreign Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.