[O]n hearing any scientific explanation or theory put forward, "But sir, what experiment could disprove your hypothesis?" or on hearing a scientific experiment described, "But sir, what hypothesis does your experiment disprove?" This goes straight to the heart of the matter. It forces everyone to refocus on the central question of whether there is or is not a testable scientific step forward. John R. Platt, 1964

Bio

I am a research scientist at Reality Labs at Meta, working on EMG-based neural interfaces for next-generation motor augmentation.

Prior to this, I obtained my undergraduate degree in Honours Electrical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics as well as a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering, from McGill University. My undergraduate research focused on computer vision for medical imaging at the Center for Intelligent Machines. My Masters research focused on the development of motor “brain-machine interfaces” in the Neural Prosthetics Laboratory.

I then received my PhD from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT in June 2018. My doctoral thesis, under the supervision of Jim DiCarlo, investigates how the primate ventral visual stream causally supports visual perception. To this end, I used behavioral, computational and experimental (e.g. electrophysiological, optogenetic, and pharmacological) techniques to map the causal role of mesoscale regions of primate inferior temporal (IT) cortex in core object recognition behavior.

I was then a postdoctoral fellow in the Jazayeri Lab at MIT, investigating how dynamics in the primate frontal cortex supports "mental simulation" of physical using dense neurophysiology and neural network modeling.

Selected Work

Refer to Google Scholar for complete list.

• Recurrent neural networks with explicit representation of dynamic latent variables can mimic behavioral patterns in a physical inference task
  Rajalingham R., Piccato A., Jazayeri M. (2022) Nature Communications PDF
• Chronically implantable LED arrays for behavioral optogenetics in primates.
  Rajalingham R., Sorenson M., Azadi R., Bohn S., DiCarlo J. J., Afraz A. (2021) Nature Methods PDF


• The inferior temporal cortex is a potential cortical precursor of orthographic processing in untrained monkeys.
  Rajalingham R., Kar K., Sanghavi S., Dehaene S., DiCarlo J. J. (2020). Nature Communications. PDF


• Reversible inactivation of different millimeter-scale regions of primate inferior temporal (IT) cortex results in different patterns of core object recognition deficits.
  Rajalingham, R., DiCarlo, J. J. (2019). Neuron. PDF


• Large-scale, high-resolution comparison of the core visual object recognition behavior of humans, monkeys, and state-of-the-art deep artificial neural networks.
  Rajalingham, R.*, Issa, E. B.*, Bashivan, P., Kar, K., Schmidt, K., DiCarlo, J. J. (2018). Journal of Neuroscience. PDF


• Characterization of neurons in the primate medial intraparietal area reveals a joint representation of intended reach direction and amplitude.
  Rajalingham, R., Musallam, S. (2017). PloS One. PDF


• Comparison of object recognition behavior in human and monkey.
  Rajalingham, R., Schmidt, K., and DiCarlo, J. J. (2015). The Journal of Neuroscience. PDF


• Modulation of neural activity by reward in medial intraparietal cortex is sensitive to temporal sequence of reward.
  Rajalingham, R., Stacey, R. G., Tsoulfas, G., and Musallam, S. (2014). Journal of Neurophysiology. PDF