Rebecca Saxe is a
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...
of
cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental proces ...
and associate Dean of Science at
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
. She is an associate member of the
McGovern Institute for Brain Research
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research is a research institute within MIT. Its mission is to understand how the brain works and to discover new ways to prevent or treat brain disorders. The institute was founded in 2000 by Patrick McGover ...
and a board member of the
Center for Open Science
The Center for Open Science is a non-profit technology organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia with a mission to "increase the openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research." Brian Nosek and Jeffrey Spies founded the or ...
. She is known for her research on the neural basis of social cognition. She received her BA from Oxford University where she studied Psychology and Philosophy, and her PhD from MIT in Cognitive Science. She is the granddaughter of Canadian coroner and politician
Morton Shulman
Morton Shulman (25 April 1925 – 18 August 2000) was a Canadian politician, businessman, broadcaster, columnist, coroner, and physician. He was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1925 to a Jewish family. He first came to fame as Ontario's Chief Coron ...
.
Scientific contributions
As a graduate student, Saxe demonstrated that a brain region known as the right
temporoparietal junction
The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is an area of the brain where the temporal and parietal lobes meet, at the posterior end of the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure). The TPJ incorporates information from the thalamus and the limbic system as well ...
(rTPJ) is specifically activated by ‘
theory of mind
In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them (that is, surmising what is happening in their mind). This includes the knowledge that others' mental states may be different fro ...
’ tasks that require understanding the mental states of other people. She continues to study this brain region, and has recently demonstrated that rTPJ is involved in moral judgments; in a task where subjects hear stories and evaluate the permissibility of the characters’ behavior, disruption of the rTPJ causes subjects to place less weight on the character’s intentions, and greater weight on the actual outcomes of their actions. Individuals with autism show a similar pattern of responses, suggesting a possible role for rTPJ in the etiology of autism.
[
In addition to her work on theory of mind, Saxe also studies the plasticity of the cortex and the neural substrates of empathy, group conflict and emotion attribution.]
Awards and recognition
Before joining the MIT faculty, Saxe was a junior fellow of Harvard University’s Society of Fellows. In 2008 she was named one of Popular Science Magazine’s “Brilliant 10” scientists under 40, and in 2012 the World Economic Forum named her a Young Global Leader
Forum of Young Global Leaders, or Young Global Leaders (YGL), was created by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. The YGL, a non-profit organization managed from Geneva, Switzerland, is under the supervision of the Swiss government ...
. Her 2009 TED talk has been viewed more than 3.3 million times. Saxe was awarded the Troland Research Award by the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
in 2014.
References
External links
Saxe LabRebecca Saxe MIT faculty pageSearch PBS.org for Rebecca Saxe
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saxe, Rebecca
Living people
Canadian cognitive neuroscientists
Canadian women academics
Canadian women neuroscientists
Harvard Fellows
Jewish Canadian scientists
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni
Year of birth missing (living people)
21st-century Canadian women scientists