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Louis Sokoloff, American neurophysicist (born Oct. 14, 1921, Philadelphia, Pa.—died July 30, 2015, Washington, D.C.), developed a method that made it possible to visualize simultaneous biochemical activity in neural pathways in the brain, a breakthrough that contributed greatly to the understanding of brain function as well as of brain diseases and disorders. Sokoloff was honoured with the 1981 Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award for his achievement. The technique measured the metabolism of glucose through the use of a radioactive anologue, 2-deoxy-D-glucose, that remains in brain tissue long enough to produce images via positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Sokoloff attended the University of Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor’s degree (1943) and an M.D. (1946), and later was head of neuropsychiatry for the U.S. Army hospital at Camp Lee (now Fort Lee), Virginia. He was recruited (1953) to the National Institute of Mental Health, where he headed the cerebral metabolism section before serving (1968–2004) as chief of the Laboratory for Cerebral Metabolism. Sokoloff became a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1980.
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