Professor Seiji Ogawa is the father of modern functional brain imaging, the BOLD(Blood Oxygenated Level Dependent) fMRI. He is the first to discovered that functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) that could be used to visualize the regions activated by external stimulation in the living human brain. He have first demonstrated that the functional brain imaging is depended on the oxygenation status of the blood, the BOLD effect. Functional MRI (fMRI) has been used to map the visual, auditory and sensory regions and moving toward higher brain functions such as cognitive functions in the brain. fMRI is one of the most revolutionary tool of the 20th century for neuroscience and has become essential tool for the investigation of higher order cognitive functions such as brain interconnectivity and plasticity. Professor Ogawa's research has opened up entirely new directions in neuroscience allowing us to observe how neuronal activation is related to external stimuli. He is a member of US National Academy of Sciences - Institute of Medicine, among other honors and recognition. He has received numerous awards and prizes, among them the most prestigeous prize for scientist in parallel to Nobel prize is the Japan Prize in 2003 for his contribution to fMRI. Professor Ogawa joined NRI since 2008 as a Distinguished Professor and leading the fMRI research in conjunction with the new 7.0T MRI system.
Canada Gairdner International Award 2003