Marge Livingstone

Marge Livingstone, Ph.D.

Takeda Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

Research
Publications

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Margaret Livingstone, PhD

Takeda Professor of Neurobiology
Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School

Email: margaret_livingstone@hms.harvard.edu
Website: Livingstone Lab website – more information about Margaret Livingstone’s research (opens in a new tab)

The Aim

The Livingstone Lab studies how we learn to recognize faces, objects, and scenes, with a focus on visual development.

The Impact

The Livingstone Lab studies how the brain develops the ability to recognize and differentiate between objects we see in everyday life, including faces, cars, and animals. Certain brain cells become specialized for these tasks based on our experiences. By understanding how these areas of the brain develop and function, this research can help explain why some people have difficulty recognizing forms and images, such as is the case with dyslexia and face blindness. This knowledge could lead to better support for people with vision or learning difficulties, and could improve diagnosis or treatment for related disorders.

A Closer Look

McGovern.MIT.edu – January 2024: Scolnick Prize awarded to Margaret Livingstone (article, opens in a new tab)

MIT’s McGovern Institute announces Livingstone as the winner of its most prestigious neuroscience prize, the Scolnick Prize. It honors her for her discovery that face‑recognition regions in the brain are not hard‑wired at birth, but must be built from experience, overturning a decades‑old assumption about how the cortex organizes itself.

Brandeis.edu – October 2024: Rosenstiel Award for discoveries in face recognition (article, opens in a new tab)

Livingstone is named co‑recipient of the prestigious Rosenstiel Award (alongside Nancy Kanwisher, Winrich Freiwald, and Doris Tsao) for discovering how and where in the brain face recognition happens. This discovery includes mapping a network of six interconnected face areas and probing the specific features that make individual neurons respond.

Publications View

Learning and memory in Drosophila, studied with mutants.

Authors: Authors: Aceves-Piña EO, Booker R, Duerr JS, Livingstone MS, Quinn WG, Smith RF, Sziber PP, Tempel BL, Tully TP.
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1983-01-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Thalamic inputs to cytochrome oxidase-rich regions in monkey visual cortex.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1982-10-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Effects of sleep and arousal on the processing of visual information in the cat.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
Nature 1981-06-18
View full abstract on Pubmed

Biochemistry and ultrastructure of serotonergic nerve endings in the lobster: serotonin and octopamine are contained in different nerve endings.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Schaeffer SF, Kravitz EA.
J Neurobiol 1981-01-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Amines and a peptide as neurohormones in lobsters: actions on neuromuscular preparations and preliminary behavioural studies.

Authors: Authors: Kravitz EA, Glusman S, Harris-Warrick RM, Livingstone MS, Schwarz T, Goy MF.
J Exp Biol 1980-12-01
View full abstract on Pubmed

Serotonin and octopamine produce opposite postures in lobsters.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Harris-Warrick RM, Kravitz EA.
Science 1980-04-04
View full abstract on Pubmed

Vision and Art: the Biology of Seeing

Authors: Authors: Margaret S Livingstone
2002.