A Ferrier Lecture é uma palestra da Royal Society ministrada a cada três anos "sobre um assunto relacionado ao avanço do conhecimento natural sobre a estrutura e função do sistema nervoso". Foi criada em 1928 para homenagear a memória de Sir David Ferrier, um neurologista que foi o primeiro cientista britânico a estimular eletronicamente o cérebro para fins de estudo científico.
Em seus 90 anos de história a Lecture foi ministrada 30 vezes. Nunca foi apresentada mais de uma vez pela mesma pessoa. A primeira mulher a receber a honra foi Christine Holt, em 2017. A primeira Lecture foi proferida em 1929 por Charles Scott Sherrington e foi intitulada "Alguns problemas funcionais associados à convergência". Em 1971 a Lecture foi proferida por dois indivíduos (David Hubel e Torsten Wiesel) sobre o mesmo tópico, com o título "A função e a arquitetura do córtex visual".
| Ano | Nome | Título | Notas |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | Charles Scott Sherrington | "Some functional problems attaching to convergence" | |
| 1932 | Cornelius Ubbo Ariëns Kappers | "Some correlations between skull and brain" | |
| 1935 | Otto Loewi | "Problems connected with the principle of humeral transmission of nervous impulses" | – |
| 1938 | Edgar Douglas Adrian | "Some problems of localization in the central nervous system" | |
| 1941 | Frederic Bartlett | "Fatigue following highly skilled work" | |
| 1944 | Gordon Morgan Holmes | "The organization of the visual cortex in man" | |
| 1947 | Wilder Penfield | "Some observations of the cerebral cortex of Man" | |
| 1950 | John Zachary Young | "Growth and plasticity in the nervous system" | – |
| 1953 | Francis Walshe | "The contribution of clinical observation to cerebral physiology" | |
| 1956 | Wilfrid Le Gros Clark | "Inquiries into the anatomical basis of olfactory discrimination" | |
| 1959 | John Eccles | "The nature of central inhibitory action" | |
| 1962 | William Albert Hugh Rushton | "Visual adaptation" | |
| 1965 | Stephen Kuffler | "Physiological properties of vertebrate and invertebrate neurological cells and the movement of substances through the nervous system" | |
| 1968 | Charles Garrett Phillips | "Studies of a primates brain and hand" | |
| 1971 | David Hubel e Torsten Wiesel | "The function and architecture of the visual cortex" | |
| 1974 | Wilhelm Siegmund Feldberg | "Body temperature and fever, changes in our views during the last decade" | |
| 1977 | János Szentágothai | "The neuron network of the cerebral cortex, a functional interpretation" | |
| 1980 | Horace Barlow | "Cerebral cortex and the design of the eye" | – |
| 1983 | Leslie Iversen | "Amino acids and peptides: fast and slow chemical signals in the nervous system" | – |
| 1986 | Giles Brindley | "The actions of parasympathetic and sympathetic nerves in human micturition, erection and seminal emission, and their restoration in paraplegic patients by implanted electrical stimulators" | – |
| 1989 | Lawrence Weiskrantz | "Side glances at blindsight, recent approaches to implicit discrimination in human cortical blindness" | |
| 1992 | Gerald Westheimer | "Seeing depth with two eyes, stereopsis" | |
| 1995 | Semir Zeki | "Behind the scene: an exploration of the visual brain" | |
| 1998 | Jean-Pierre Changeux | "The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor and synaptic plasticity" | |
| 2001 | Andrew Lumsden | "Patterning the embryonic brain" | – |
| 2004 | Alan Cowey | "Magnetic brain stimulation: what can it tell us about brain function?" | |
| 2007 | Marc Tessier-Lavigne | "Brain development and brain repair: Molecules and mechanisms that control neuronal wiring" | – |
| 2010 | Colin Blakemore | "Plasticity of the brain: the key to human development, cognition and evolution" | |
| 2013 | John O'Keefe | "cognitive neuroscience, especially on the role of the hippocampus, and the mechanisms supporting memory and cognition" | |
| 2017 | Christine Holt | "understanding of the key molecular mechanisms involved in nerve growth, guidance and targeting which has revolutionised our knowledge of growing axon tips" | |
| 2019 | Ray Dolan | "for his work charting the brain activity related to fundamental aspects of human conduct and behaviour" |