Karl Friston is Professor of Neurology at University College London. He is a theoretical neuroscientist and an authority on brain imaging. Although he trained in psychiatry, his revolutionary impact on studies of the brain derives from his inventive use of probability theory to analyse neural imaging data. He invented statistical parametric mapping, voxel-based morphometry, and dynamic causal modelling. These contributions were motivated by schizophrenia research and theoretical studies of value-learning, formulated as the dysconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia. Friston currently works on models of functional integration in the human brain and the principles that underlie neuronal interactions. His main contribution to theoretical neurobiology is a free-energy principle for action and perception (active inference). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006 and became of Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2012. He was the 2016 recipient of the Charles Branch Award for unparalleled breakthroughs in Brain Research and the Glass Brain Award, a lifetime achievement award in the field of human brain mapping. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the University of Zurich and Radboud University.
