Theresa Desrochers.

Theresa Desrochers

Rosenberg Family Assistant Professor of Brain Science
Brown University

Theresa Desrochers is Rosenberg Family Assistant Professor of Brain Science in the neuroscience department at Brown University. Her lab studies how the brain tracks and controls cognitive and behavioral sequences, such as cooking a meal or making a cup of coffee. In her research, she takes a unique cross-species approach, integrating cellular-level neuroscience insight in animal models with studies of human high-level cognitive function.

She earned a B.S. in neural science and science education from New York University. After teaching science in a public high school for a year, she went on to earn her Ph.D. in Ann Graybiel’s lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying the neural basis of habit learning in an animal model. She was then a postdoctoral fellow with David Badre at Brown University, where she studied human cognitive control.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of a shrew, sandpiper, locust, axolotl, monarch butterfly, African killifish, naked mole rat, octopus, bat and cichlid.

The non-model organism “renaissance” has arrived

Meet 10 neuroscientists bringing model diversity back with the funky animals they study.

Assembloids illuminate circuit-level changes linked to autism, neurodevelopment

These complex combinations of organoids afford a closer look at how gene alterations affect certain brain networks.

By Sarah DeWeerdt
19 December 2024 | 0 min watch
By clicking to watch this video, you agree to our privacy policy.

Rajesh Rao reflects on predictive brains, neural interfaces and the future of human intelligence

Twenty-five years ago, Rajesh Rao proposed a seminal theory of how brains could implement predictive coding for perception. His modern version zeroes in on actions.

By Paul Middlebrooks
18 December 2024 | 97 min listen