She has pioneered the use, in cognitive neuroscience, of brain imaging methods such as computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance scanning (MR). Her efforts are widely recognized as having helped establish the modern lesion method as a viable approach to systems neuroscience in humans. She has developed new techniques to investigate human brain structure using imaging technologies such as MR and PET, and has authored numerous scientific papers on the neuroanatomical substrates of higher brain function, especially language and memory, and on migraine.

The book she authored on her early lesion analysis techniques (Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology, published by Oxford University Press) was named “outstanding book”in Bio and Medical Sciences by the Association of American Publishers (1989), has been translated in Japanese and is used worldwide. Her recent book Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images (Oxford University Press, 1995), is the first brain atlas entirely based on computer reconstructions of living human brains.

In 1992 she shared the Pessoa Prize with Antonio Damasio. In 1995 she was elected to the American Neurological Association and she became a Grand Official of the Order of Santiago da Espada (a Portuguese merit order that distinguishes achievements in the sciences). In 1997 she was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.