Lim Awarded Prestigious Lindsley Prize for Behavioral Neuroscience Research

At its meeting Nov. 14, the Society for Neuroscience recognized CBN postdoctoral fellow Miranda Lim, PhD, for the most outstanding doctoral thesis in behavioral neuroscience with the 2005 Donald B. Lindsley Prize. Lim’s dissertation, titled "Neural Mechanisms Underlying Pair Bond Formation in Vole Species," identified the role of the vasopressin receptor in the formation of social bonds between animals.

Lim, an Emory University MD/PhD candidate, was mentored by CBN affiliation collaboratory head Larry Young, PhD, a research scientist at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University’s School of Medicine, and Thomas Insel, MD, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIHM) and former CBN director. NIMH funded Lim’s research.

Lim’s current research focuses on the role of corticotropin-releasing factor in the neural control of pair bond formation. She also is examining the molecular and structural changes that take place in the brain during social experiences over a lifetime. Lim hypothesizes similar neural mechanisms underlie learning, drug addiction and pair bond formation.

Lim completed her doctoral degree in March 2004 and plans to pursue a neurology residency after earning her medical doctorate in May 2006.

The Lindsley Prize is named after the late Donald Lindsley, a neuroscientist who published some 250 scientific papers during his career and facilitated one of the first mass exchanges of information on brain electrophysiology between the Soviet Union and the United States.