William Newsome

Administrative Appointments

• Scientific Advisory Board, Riken Brain Sciences Institute, Tokyo (2003 - present)
• Correspondent, Committee on Human Rights, National Academy of Sciences (2001 - present)
• Chairman, Department of Neurobiology (2005 - present)

Honors and Awards

• Dan David Prize, Dan David Foundation and Tel Aviv University (2004)
• Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association (2002)
• Elected to membership, National Academy of Sciences, USA (2000)
• Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (1997)
• Guggenheim Fellowship, Guggenheim Foundation (1995)

Professional Education

Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations

• Neurosciences

Web Site Links

• http://monkeybiz.stanford.edu/

Research Interests

The long-term goal of our research is to understand the neuronal processes that mediate visual perception and visually guided behavior. To this end we are conducting parallel behavioral and physiological experiments in animals that are trained to perform selected perceptual or eye movement tasks. By recording the activity of cortical neurons during performance of such tasks, we gain initial insights into the relationship of neuronal activity to the animal's behavioral capacities. Hypotheses concerning this relationship are tested by modifying neural activity within local cortical circuits to determine whether behavior is effected in a predictable manner. Computer modelling techniques are then used to develop more refined hypotheses concerning the relationship of brain to behavior that are both rigorous and testable. This combination of behavioral, electrophysiological and computational techniques provides a realistic basis for neurophysiological investigation of cognitive functions such as perception, memory and motor planning.

Publications

• Linear-Nonlinear-Poisson models of primate choice dynamics GS Corrado, LP Sugrue, WT Newsome. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 2005: 84 581-617
• Choosing the greater of two goods: neural currencies for valuation and decision making LP Sugrue, GS Corrado, WT Newsome. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2005: 6 363-375
• Matching behavior and the encoding of value in parietal cortex Sugrue, LP, GS Corrado, WT Newsome. Science. 2004: 304 1782-1787
• Perceptual "read-out" of conjoined direction and disparity maps in extrastriate area MT DeAngelis, GC, WT Newsome. PLOS Biology. 2004: 2 394-404
• Neural basis of a perceptual decision in the parietal cortex (area LIP) of the rhesus monkey. Shadlen MN, Newsome WT. J Neurophysiol. 2001; 86 (4): 1916-36