#  Margaret S Livingstone 

Takeda Professor of Neurobiology, HMS

 

 

 



   ![Margaret Livingstone sits in front of an Isia Leviant print, which is comprised of purple and red circles and black and white radiating lines.](/sites/g/files/omnuum11411/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2026-05/61.Margaret-S-Livingstone-Questions.jpg?h=b5f71a2e&itok=wfcmRrTf) 

 



 





 

**What inspires or motivates you in your role at HMS/HSDM?**  
I love figuring out how our brains work, how we see.

**In what ways do you feel you contribute to the Harvard community?**  
I am a visual physiologist, so I try to figure out how we see by recording from neurons in the visual systems, but I have discovered that artists also try to figure out how we see, so I have been exploring how artists have made fundamental discoveries that we can understand in terms of neurobiology.

**What is the significance of the object you brought with you to the photo shoot?**  
It's a print by the artist Isia Leviant, who explored how high contrast stripes adjacent to homogeneous area can induce a weird sense of motion.



 

 

 



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- ## Person Categories
    
     [Dimensions](/person-categories/dimensions)
- ## Institution
    
     [Harvard Medical School](/institution/harvard-medical-school)