Karl Spencer Lashley Award presented by the American Philosophical Society to May-Britt and Edvard Moser for work on spatial representation.
On 25 April 2014, May-Britt and Edvard Moser received the Karl Spencer Lashley Award from the American Philosophical Society. The award ceremony recognized their seminal contributions to understanding the neural mechanisms underlying spatial representation and memory in the mammalian brain.
The Lashley Award honors outstanding work in physiological psychology and allied fields. The Mosers’ research on grid cells and related entorhinal-hippocampal circuits provided a mechanistic bridge between behavior, cognition, and neural dynamics, aligning closely with Lashley’s own quest to link brain function to psychological phenomena. Their experiments demonstrated how spatial location and movement are encoded in coordinated firing patterns, offering a concrete neural substrate for the cognitive map.
Historically, the award signaled the integration of systems neuroscience into a long tradition of experimental psychology and brain research. For women’s history, Moser’s recognition by a venerable learned society founded in the eighteenth century represented a symbolic crossing of institutional boundaries that had long favored male scientists. The Lashley Award contributed to her international profile and highlighted the role of female investigators in unravelling complex questions about memory, space, and cognition.