Adele Diamond

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Adele Diamond is one of the founders of the field of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. She holds the Canada Research Chair Tier 1 Professorship in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver.

She is one of the world's leading researchers on the development of the cognitive functions (called “executive functions,” “self-regulation,” or “cognitive control”) that depend on prefrontal cortex. Since 1980, she has been studying these functions from their earliest beginnings in infancy throughout the lifespan in clinical and “normal” populations. These abilities include inhibition (effortful or self-control), cognitive flexibility, working memory, directed attention, and reasoning. Her lab examines fundamental questions about the development, neuroanatomical and neurochemical bases, and genetic and environmental modulation of those abilities.

Her research on the genetic disorder, PKU (phenylketonuria), demonstrating selective deficits in these prefrontal cognitive abilities in PKU children who were supposedly well-treated, changed medical guidelines worldwide, changes that markedly improved children's lives.