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

A comment on "Perceptual correlates of magnocellular and parvocellular channels: seeing form depth in afterimages".

Authors: Authors: Hubel DH, Livingstone MS.
Vision Res 1991-01-01
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Color and contrast sensitivity in the lateral geniculate body and primary visual cortex of the macaque monkey.

Authors: Authors: Hubel DH, Livingstone MS.
J Neurosci 1990-07-01
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Segregation of form, color, movement, and depth processing in the visual system: anatomy, physiology, art, and illusion.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone M.
Res Publ Assoc Res Nerv Ment Dis 1990-01-01
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Color puzzles.

Authors: Authors: Hubel D, Livingstone M.
Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 1990-01-01
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Do the relative mapping densities of the magno- and parvocellular systems vary with eccentricity?

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
J Neurosci 1988-11-01
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Segregation of form, color, movement, and depth: anatomy, physiology, and perception.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone M, Hubel D.
Science 1988-05-06
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Art, illusion and the visual system.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS.
Sci Am 1988-01-01
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Psychophysical evidence for separate channels for the perception of form, color, movement, and depth.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
J Neurosci 1987-11-01
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Connections between layer 4B of area 17 and the thick cytochrome oxidase stripes of area 18 in the squirrel monkey.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
J Neurosci 1987-11-01
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Segregation of form, color, and stereopsis in primate area 18.

Authors: Authors: Hubel DH, Livingstone MS.
J Neurosci 1987-11-01
View full abstract on Pubmed