Marcus E. Raichle

Marcus E. Raichle, MD, is the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, where he also holds professorships in Radiology, Neurology, Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, and Psychological & Brain Sciences. As a pioneering neurologist and researcher at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Raichle has spent over 50 years at Washington University, making fundamental contributions to our understanding of human brain function through advanced imaging techniques.

Dr. Raichle's research interests focus on functional brain imaging with positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), with particular emphasis on studying human brain organization and function in health and disease. His work can be divided into two main categories: studies of normal human brain function and investigations into the biological origins of functional brain imaging signals obtained with MRI and PET. He uses fMRI to determine brain systems involved in cognitive and emotional functions, studies patients with psychiatric diseases like depression and anxiety, and relates changes in blood flow and brain metabolism to underlying cellular activity.

Raichle's most significant contributions include developing the first integrated strategy for functional brain imaging, discovering that blood flow and glucose utilization change more than oxygen consumption in active brain regions, and pioneering the concept of the brain's default mode network - a unique fronto-parietal network active when the brain is not engaged in specific tasks. His 2001 paper on the default mode network revolutionized neuroscience and is now central to studies of brain function worldwide.

Throughout his distinguished career, Raichle has received numerous prestigious awards including the 2014 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, the Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience, and the George A. Miller Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Neurological Association, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Raichle's recent research continues to explore the relationship between the default mode network, glycolysis, and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. He collaborates with researchers including Andrei Vlassenko and Manu Goyal to investigate how brain glucose metabolism relates to aging and cognitive decline, with implications for understanding why diabetes is linked to Alzheimer's disease.