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

Complex-unoriented cells in a subregion of primate area 18.

Authors: Authors: Hubel DH, Livingstone MS.
Nature 1985-05-23
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Spatial relationship and extrafoveal vision.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
Nature 1985-05-23
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Specificity of intrinsic connections in primate primary visual cortex.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
J Neurosci 1984-11-01
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Mutations in the dopa decarboxylase gene affect learning in Drosophila.

Authors: Authors: Tempel BL, Livingstone MS, Quinn WG.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1984-06-01
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Loss of calcium/calmodulin responsiveness in adenylate cyclase of rutabaga, a Drosophila learning mutant.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Sziber PP, Quinn WG.
Cell 1984-05-01
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Anatomy and physiology of a color system in the primate visual cortex.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
J Neurosci 1984-01-01
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The 11th J.A.F. Stevenson memorial lecture. Blobs and color vision.

Authors: Authors: Hubel DH, Livingstone MS.
Can J Physiol Pharmacol 1983-12-01
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Specificity of cortico-cortical connections in monkey visual system.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Hubel DH.
Nature 1983-08-11
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Colour-generating interactions across the corpus callosum.

Authors: Authors: Land EH, Hubel DH, Livingstone MS, Perry SH, Burns MM.
Nature 1983-06-16
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Genetic dissection of monoamine neurotransmitter synthesis in Drosophila.

Authors: Authors: Livingstone MS, Tempel BL.
Nature 1983-05-05
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