Established in 1947 to celebrate neuroanatomy and now promotes all of neuroscience.

The Cajal Club remembers Barbara L. Finlay, a pioneering developmental and evolutionary neuroscientist whose research explored how developmental processes shape the organization and evolution of the brain. A longtime professor at Cornell University, Finlay challenged established ideas about brain evolution and helped reveal the developmental principles underlying changes in brain size and structure across species. In 2024, the Cajal Club honored her contributions with the Pinckney J. Harman Memorial Lecture at the University of Zadar in Croatia.

The Cajal Club congratulates John L.R. Rubenstein, M.D., Ph.D., recipient of the 2026 Gruber Neuroscience Prize. The award recognizes four decades of pioneering research that transformed our understanding of the genetic and developmental mechanisms shaping the mammalian forebrain. A former Cajal Club President and current Board member, Rubenstein will receive the prize and deliver the Gruber Prize Lecture during the 2026 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Constantino Sotelo (1937–2026) was a pioneering neuroscientist whose career formed a remarkable bridge between the histological tradition of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and modern neuroscience. Trained by Fernando de Castro, one of Cajal’s last direct disciples, Sotelo carried that legacy forward through influential research on synaptic organization, the cerebellum, neuronal development, plasticity, and regeneration. In 2001, he and King Juan Carlos I of Spain became the first recipients of the Cajal Club’s Krieg Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Portrait of Dr. Constantino Sotelo, seated at his microscope with a cigar. Photograph by Dr. Isabelle Dusart.

Dr. Paola Arlotta, Golub Family Professor at Harvard University, has achieved the rare distinction of election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. Her pioneering research combines developmental biology and neuroscience, using stem-cell-based models and advanced 3D brain organoids to investigate human cortical development, cellular diversity, and neurological disease. Her elections to these three prestigious institutions recognize the broad impact of her contributions to neuroscience and medicine.

Each year, the Cajal Club brings together neuroscientists from around the world during the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting. Through its annual social, scientific presentations, awards, and informal gatherings, the Club celebrates achievements across generations of researchers while fostering conversation, collaboration, and a shared appreciation for the relationship between structure and function in the nervous system.