Justine Sergent facts for kids

Justine Saade-Sergent (March 31, 1950 – April 11, 1994) was a researcher in the cognitive neuroscience field. She was an associate professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University from 1979 to 1982.

Sergent was considered a top scientist in her field, until she was anonymously accused of violating research ethics. Attacks on her character and research caused significant stress. She and her husband died less than two years later. Three years after her death, the inquiry was unable to come up with any evidence of fraud.

Early life and education

Justine Saade was born March 31, 1950 in Lebanon. While teaching there, she met her later-to-be husband Yves Sergent. They then moved to France where they married.

Justine Sergent later enrolled at McGill University where she earned her bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.

Research

Justine Sergent was one of the first researchers that brought forth evidence towards the functional neuroanatomy of face processing. She described the Fusiform face area or FFA in 1992.

Using positron emission tomography (PET), Sergent found that there were different patterns of activation in response to the two different required tasks, face processing and object processing.

This processing area was later named by Nancy Kanwisher in 1997 who proposed that the existence of the FFA is evidence for domain specificity in the visual system.

In memoriam

• The Justine and Yves Sergent International Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience
• The Justine and Yves Sergent Conference

Eve Séguin, "Mobbing, ou l'extermination concertée d'une cible humaine"