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Robert Desimone's research focuses on disorders of perception, attention, and memory that frequently
accompany the major mental diseases. To understand the neural mechanisms of these mental processes,
his lab is recording the activity of neurons in the extrastriate and prefrontal cortex of nonhuman
primates engaged in tasks requiring visual discrimination, attention, and memory. They then use the
results from the neurophysiological studies to make predictions about the physiological organization
of human cortex.
Robert Desimone is Director of the McGovern Institute and The Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience. Prior to joining MIT in 2004, he served as Director of the NIMH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Intramural Research Program, the largest mental health research center in the world. Desimone received his B.A. from Macalester College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University, after which he established his own lab at the NIMH. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts of Sciences, and a recipient of numerous awards, including the Troland Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Golden Brain Award of the Minerva Foundation. He was named The Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience in 2008.
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