FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON March 28, 2006
Schulich School of Medicine – Toronto Student to be Honored for Research in Language Recovery After Brain Surgery
St. Paul, Minn., -
Lisa Jong, a medical student at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada, will be honored with the G. Milton Shy Award for her work in neurological language recovery. Jong will receive the award during the American Academy of Neurology’s 58th Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif., held April 1 – 8. The G. Milton Shy Award seeks to stimulate interest in the field of neurology as an exciting and challenging profession by offering highly competitive awards for the best essay. This is one of four Medical Student Essay Awards offered by the American Academy of Neurology. Jong is expected to give a poster presentation based on her essay during the meeting. Jong’s essay, “Plasticity of Language Areas of the Brain in Adult Patients with Medically, Refractory, Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Following Temporal Lobectomy,” examines how the brain can recover language function after brain surgery. “In addition to helping us understand how the brain can recover after an insult [as in a surgical procedure] with regards to language, it can also help with planning a brain surgery,” said Jong. “It tells us that the adult brain is capable of plasticity—the ability to recruit new areas to recover lost function.” The 58th Annual Meeting takes place in the San Diego Convention Center. It is the world’s largest annual gathering of neurologists.