Robert Desimone is an American neuroscientist who currently serves as the director of the

McGovern Institute for Brain Research The McGovern Institute for Brain Research is a research institute within MIT. Its mission is to understand how the brain works and to discover new ways to prevent or treat brain disorders. The institute was founded in 2000 by Patrick McGovern ...

and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. The McGovern Institute, established by Patrick Joseph McGovern and Lore Harp McGovern focuses on conducting basic research 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 The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primar ...

. He is a member of the

US National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...

and

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

and is known for his research on the brain mechanisms that underlie

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual percept ...

, attention, and executive control. At the McGovern Institute, Desimone works on promoting the development of

systems neuroscience Systems neuroscience is a subdiscipline of neuroscience and systems biology that studies the structure and function of various neural circuits and systems that make up the central nervous system of an organism. Systems neuroscience encompasses a n ...

, 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 Autism, also known as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by differences or difficulties in social communication and interaction, a preference for predictability and routine, sensory processing d ...

and

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

. From 2014 to 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 Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

, Desimone and his thesis supervisor Charles Gross published the first data that neurons respond specifically to faces. While working at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), he studied the physiological properties of neurons in extrastriate visual cortex, and together with

Leslie Ungerleider Leslie G. Ungerleider (April 17, 1946 – December 11, 2020) was an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist, previously Chief of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at the National Institute of Mental Health. Ungerleider was known for in ...

, he mapped the topographic organization and anatomical connections 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 The inferior temporal gyrus is one of three gyri of the temporal lobe and is located below the middle temporal gyrus, connected behind with the inferior occipital gyrus; it also extends around the infero-lateral border on to the inferior surface ...

. He reported evidence for the role of attention in modulating the neuronal properties of areas in the ventral stream, and he and John Duncan proposed a biased competition theory to explain many aspects of attention control. 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. With

Pascal Fries Pascal Fries (born January 28, 1972) is a German neurophysiologist. Vita Pascal Fries was born in St. Ingbert. He studied medicine from 1991 to 1993 at the University of Saarland and from 1993 at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfu ...

, he described the effects of attention on synchronized activity in

extrastriate cortex The extrastriate cortex is the region of the occipital cortex of the mammalian brain located next to the primary visual cortex. Primary visual cortex (V1) is also named striate cortex because of its striped appearance in the microscope. The e ...

, and he later found that synchronized activity between extrastriate cortex and

prefrontal cortex In mammalian brain anatomy, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) covers the front part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex. It is the association cortex in the frontal lobe. The PFC contains the Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA11, BA12, ...

is a mechanistic feature of selective attention

Education

Desimone received his BA from

Macalester College Macalester College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate institution with an enrollment of 2,142 students in the fall of 2023. The college ha ...

in 1974 and his Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1979.

Awards

Golden Brain Award The Golden Brain Award is an international science award in the field of neuroscience. It is given by the Berkeley-based Minerva Foundation every year since 1985. The foundation specifically aims at fundamental contributions to research in visio ...

, 1994; *

Troland Research Awards The Troland Research Awards are an annual prize given by the United States National Academy of Sciences to two researchers (preferably 45 years of age or younger) in recognition of psychological research on the relationship between consciousness an ...

, 1990; * Goldman-Rakic Prize, 2020 * Ralph Gerard Prize of the Society for Neuroscience, 2021;

References

External links

McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT

* ttp://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/anatomy-attention The Anatomy of Attention, Alan Lightman, The New Yorker, Oct 1, 2014
MIT Technology Review, A Turning Point. December 18, 2014

China-Japan Brain competition

video profile on MIT tech TV

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desimone, Robert Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences American neuroscientists Living people Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Year of birth missing (living people) Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni