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

Escaping groupthink: What animals’ behavioral quirks reveal about the brain

Neuroscientists have long ignored the variability in animals’ behavioral responses in favor of studying differences across groups. But work on the brain differences that underlie that variability is beginning to pay off.

By Angie Voyles Askham
23 May 2025 | 0 min watch
Research image of the spinal meninges in mice.

Immune cells block pain in female mice only

Regulatory T cells in the spinal meninges release endogenous opioids in a sex-specific manner, new work shows.

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 May 2025 | 5 min read
A disembodied hand holds a stamp over a messy stack of papers.

Exclusive: Layoffs revoked at U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

After more than a month of uncertainty, 30 previously purged employees at the institute no longer face termination.

By Angie Voyles Askham, Sydney Wyatt
21 May 2025 | 3 min read