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.
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. 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.New Yorker, Attention, by Alan Lightman, Oct 1 2014 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.Brain Scan: Newsletter of the McGovern Institute for Brain research Issue no. 9 (Summer 2008)MIT Technology Review, A Turning Point, December 18, 2014
From 2014 to 2019 and again in 2023-2024, Desimone appeared as an international judge and team leader on The Brain, a competition showing unique mental skills.
Research His early work, conducted during his Ph.D. at Princeton and his postdoctoral years at the National Institute of Mental Health, included the first published evidence that some neurons in the temporal cortex of primates respond exclusively to faces.J Neurophysiol. 1981 Aug;46(2):369-384J Neurosci. 1984 2051-62 While working at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), he studied the physiological properties J. Neurophysiol. 1987 57(3):835-68 of neurons in extrastriate visual cortex, and together with Leslie Ungerleider, he mapped the topographic organization and anatomical connections J Comp Neurol. 1986 248(2):164-89 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.Science. 1994 263(5146):520-2 He reported evidence for the role of attention in modulating the neuronal properties of areas in the ventral stream,Science. 1988 240(4850):338-40 and he and John Duncan proposed a biased competition theory to explain many aspects of attention control.Annu Rev Neurosci. 1995 18:193-222 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.J. Neurosci. 1999 19(5):1736-53 With Pascal Fries, he described the effects of attention on synchronized activity in extrastriate cortex,Science. 2001 291(5508):1560-3 and he later found that synchronized activity between extrastriate cortex and prefrontal cortex is a mechanistic feature of selective attention Science. 2009 324(5931):1207-10Science. 2014 344(6182):424-7.
Education Desimone received his BA from Macalester College in 1974 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1979.
Personal life Desimone is married and has two children.
Awards
Golden Brain Award, 1994; Troland Research Awards, 1990; Goldman-Rakic Prize, 2020 Ralph Gerard Prize of the Society for Neuroscience, 2021;
References
External links McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration. New York Times May 4, 2009 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