Mind, Brain, Body, and Behavior

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 51

December 30, 1959, to discuss opportunities that would encourage
Livingston to remain at the NIH as a scientist. They expressed

...an unanimous hope that every effort would be made to

keep Dr. Livingston in the program...based upon a number

of cogent considerations. These include his devotion to

academic and scientific ideals and his willingness to defend

them forthrightly, his breadth as a scholar of the nervous

system and of behavior, the ability to utilize this knowledge

in meaningful conceptualizations and the requisite compe­

tence and skill, based upon many years in neurophysiologi­

cal teaching and research, [and] to organize and carry out a

program of laboratory investigation.^73

Were Livingston to remain at the NIH, sensory feedback, an area of
research not well represented in the program at the time but one to
which Livingston had contributed over the prior decade, would have
been emphasized as a pressing research area.^74 However, the chiefs were
aware that given the space limitations, pursuing such a course at the
time was not feasible without taking away from existing laboratories.^75
Nevertheless, a small Laboratory of Neurobiology was established on
October 18, 1960, wherein Livingston could conduct brain research
using neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, biophysical, and behavioral
techniques to improve understanding of perception, learning, memory,
and judgment.^76 After two years, however, Livingston left the NIMH to
become Chief of the General Research Support Branch, in the Division
of Research Facilities and Resources. Shortly thereafter, he left NIH
altogether to establish a department of neurosciences at the University
of California at San Diego.^77
In response to the recommendations of Livingston and the labora­
tory chiefs, however, John C. Eberhart became the NIMH’s new asso­
ciate director for research, succeeding Livingston.^78