Robert Desimone

Robert Desimone is an American neuroscientist who currently serves as the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Robert Desimone
Alma materMacalester College
Princeton University
Scientific career
InstitutionsMcGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The McGovern Institute, established by Patrick Joseph McGovern and Lore Harp McGovern focuses on conducting basic reserarch on the mind and brain, as well as applying that knowledge to help those affected by brain disorders.

Before joining the McGovern Institute in 2004, Robert Desimone held the position of director of intramural research at the National Institute of Mental Health. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is known for his research on the brain mechanisms that underlie visual perception, attention, and executive control.[1] At the McGovern Institute, Desimone works on promoting the development of systems neuroscience, novel neuroscience technologies, and the translation of basic research findings into new treatments that improve human health, including new approaches to brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.[2][3]

From 2014-2019 and again in 2023, Desimone appeared as an international judge and team leader on The Brain, a competition showing unique mental skills. He is married with two children.

Research

As a graduate student at Princeton, Desimone and his thesis supervisor Charles Gross published the first data that neurons respond specifically to faces.[4][5] While working at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), he studied the physiological properties [6] of neurons in extrastriate visual cortex, and together with Leslie Ungerleider, he mapped the topographic organization and anatomical connections [7] of many new cortical visual areas. In collaboration with Earl Miller, he discovered a physiological basis for recency memory (repetition suppression) and working memory in inferior temporal cortex.[8] He reported evidence for the role of attention in modulating the neuronal properties of areas in the ventral stream,[9] and he and John Duncan proposed a biased competition theory to explain many aspects of attention control.[10] With John Reynolds, he proposed a quantitative model of biased competition to explain the effects of attention on neurons, which is formally a normalization model.[11] With Pascal Fries, he described the effects of attention on synchronized activity in extrastriate cortex,[12] and he later found that synchronized activity between extrastriate cortex and prefrontal cortex is a mechanistic feature of selective attention [13][14]

Education

Desimone received his BA from Macalester College in 1974 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1979.

Awards

References
  1. New Yorker, Attention, by Alan Lightman, Oct 1 2014
  2. Brain Scan: Newsletter of the McGovern Institute for Brain research Issue no. 9 (Summer 2008)
  3. MIT Technology Review, A Turning Point, December 18, 2014
  4. J Neurophysiol. 1981 Aug;46(2):369-384
  5. J Neurosci. 1984 2051-62
  6. J. Neurophysiol. 1987 57(3):835-68
  7. J Comp Neurol. 1986 248(2):164-89
  8. Science. 1994 263(5146):520-2
  9. Science. 1988 240(4850):338-40
  10. Annu Rev Neurosci. 1995 18:193-222
  11. J. Neurosci. 1999 19(5):1736-53
  12. Science. 2001 291(5508):1560-3
  13. Science. 2009 324(5931):1207-10
  14. Science. 2014 344(6182):424-7.
  15. "1994".
  16. "Troland Research Awards".
  17. "Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience". 31 March 2017.
  18. "2021 Awards Announcement Week". Society for Neuroscience. Retrieved November 20, 2022.



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