James DiCarlo

About

James DiCarlo is the Peter de Florez Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. He is also the Director of the Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence and an Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. He served as the department head of Brain and Cognitive Sciences from 2012 to 2021. Dr. DiCarlo earned his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and M.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in 1998 and completed postdoctoral training in primate visual neurophysiology at Baylor College of Medicine. He joined the MIT faculty in 2002 and received tenure in 2009. His research group focuses on understanding the neuronal mechanisms and cortical computations underlying visual object recognition, utilizing techniques such as large-scale neurophysiology, brain imaging, optogenetics, and computational simulations. His work aims to inspire machine vision systems, develop neural prosthetics, and deepen understanding of how high-level visual representations are altered in conditions like agnosia, autism, and dyslexia.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Machine Learning
• Cognitive science
• Psychology
• Data science
• Human–computer interaction
• Neuroscience
• Engineering
• Political Science

Selected publications

• Unsupervised neural network models of the ventral visual stream

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021 · 328 citations

  Deep neural networks currently provide the best quantitative models of the response patterns of neurons throughout the primate ventral visual stream. However, such networks have remained implausible as a model of the development of the ventral stream, in part because they are trained with supervised methods requiring many more labels than are accessible to infants during development. Here, we report that recent rapid progress in unsupervised learning has largely closed this gap. We find that neu…

  DOI

• Integrative Benchmarking to Advance Neurally Mechanistic Models of Human Intelligence

  Neuron · 2020 · 236 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  DOI

• An Open Resource for Non-human Primate Optogenetics

  Neuron · 2020 · 129 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• ThreeDWorld: A Platform for Interactive Multi-Modal Physical Simulation

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2020 · 129 citations

  We introduce ThreeDWorld (TDW), a platform for interactive multi-modal physical simulation. TDW enables simulation of high-fidelity sensory data and physical interactions between mobile agents and objects in rich 3D environments. Unique properties include: real-time near-photo-realistic image rendering; a library of objects and environments, and routines for their customization; generative procedures for efficiently building classes of new environments; high-fidelity audio rendering; realistic p…

  DOI

• A unifying framework for functional organization in early and higher ventral visual cortex

  Neuron · 2024-05-10 · 54 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• The role of inferior temporal cortex in core visual object recognition

  NIH · $4.0M · 2004–2018

• Imaging Core

  NIH · $7.9M · 1997–2024

• Time delimited neural silencing to dissect the basis of visual object perception

  NIH · $403k · 2013–2015

Frequent coauthors

• Patrick Cavanagh

  York University

  121 shared

• Danny Dilks

  McGovern Institute for Brain Research

  121 shared

• Doug Crawford

  York University

  121 shared

• Laurence R. Harris

  York University

  121 shared

• Keynote Speaker

  University of British Columbia

  121 shared

• Kohitij Kar

  York University

  86 shared

• Daniel Yamins

  84 shared

• Ha Hong

  57 shared

Labs

• Brain and Cognitive SciencesPI

Education

• Ph.D., Neuroscience

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1992

• B.A., Psychology

  Harvard University

  1987

Awards & honors

• Alfred Sloan Fellow
• Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences
• McKnight Scholar in Neuroscience

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Emery N Brownh-162
• Mark Bearh-152
• Ann M.Graybielh-148