Margaret Livingstone, Ph.D.
Professor of Neurobiology
Harvard Medical School
Dept. of Neurobiology
200 Longwood Ave
Boston, MA 02115
Telephone: 617-432-1664
Fax: 617- 432-0210
Email: margaret_livingstone@hms.harvard.edu
Lab Website: The Livingston Lab
We are interested in how cells in the visual system process information. Previous emphasis in the lab was on the parallel processing of different kinds of visual information: form, color, depth, and movement. We discovered an interdigitating and highly specific connectivity between functionally distinct regions in V1 and V2 (Livingstone and Hubel, 1984, 1987).
Subsequently we became more interested in how each of these variables is coded by cells in visual cortex. We developed a method for high-resolution receptive-field mapping in alert animals, and have used this technique to explore color perception, stereopsis and direction selectivity in primate V1, MT, V4, and IT. We have further developed this method to allow us to look at interactions between stimuli (second-order interactions). These maps allow us to see how stimuli, like contours and junctions, are integrated by single cells.Most recently we started using functional MRI (fMRI) to localize regions of interest in the primate brain to target single unit recordings. We used fMRI to find regions of the macaque temporal lobe that seemed to be especially activated by faces (monkey faces, human faces, cartoon faces) and found, using single-unit recording that an astonishing 97% of the cells in these targeted regions were face selective. We then looked at how faces are coded by these cells using parameterized cartoon faces. We are now using this approach to further study shape and symbolic representation in macaques.
For a complete listing of Margaret Livingstone's publications on PubMed, click here.
Neuroscience webpage updated 12/02/2009