Robert B. Livingston, 83; Helped Pioneer 3-D Mapping of the Brain

Dr. Robert B. Livingston, 83, founding chairman of the department of neurosciences at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, a renowned scientist and activist, died of undisclosed causes Friday at UC San Diego’s Thornton Hospital. He had been in declining health for some time.

In the 1970s, Livingston was instrumental in developing some of the first 3-D images of the human brain.

In the 1980s, his laboratory was awarded a major grant to develop a prototype computer system to map the brain in three dimensions in microscopic detail.

Before founding the world’s first department of neurosciences at the San Diego university in 1964, Livingston taught at Stanford, Yale, Harvard and the UCLA Medical School.

He also served on the staff of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council, in addition to serving as scientific director for the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Blindness.

Born in Boston in 1918, he earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at Stanford University. During World War II, he was a physician in a Navy hospital on Okinawa.