A facility exploiting viruses' ability to inject DNA precisely and efficiently into brain cells and two new experts on the molecular underpinnings of the brain's ability to change in response to experience will bolster neuroscience at MIT, home to one of the largest brain sciences research centers in the world.
MIT is developing new technologies for neuroscience research in projects aimed at accelerating basic research and developing new therapeutic approaches for brain disorders.
The tiny roundworm bears little resemblance to a person. Its nervous system has just 302 neurons to our 100 billion. Yet it uses many of the same genes and signaling chemicals as the human brain, so studies of its system could have relevance to our own. A new MIT study shows that even the simplest worm behaviors can be controlled by multiple signaling pathways, with implications for treating human brain disorders.
In work that could improve computer vision systems, MIT neuroscientists tricked the brain into confusing one visual object with another. Although we never see the same image twice, experience teaches us that differing images in rapid succession reflect the same object. The new study shows that even in adulthood, the object recognition system is constantly being retrained by natural experience.
Anyone who has seen an optical illusion can recall the quirky moment when you realize that the image being perceived is different from objective reality. Now, a team of scientists from MIT, Harvard and McGill has designed a new illusion involving the sense of touch, which is helping to glean new insights into perception and how different senses"”such as touch and sight"”work together.
Young songbirds babble before they can mimic an adult's song, much like their human counterparts. Now, in work that offers insights into how birds"”and perhaps people"”learn new behaviors, MIT scientists have found that immature and adult birdsongs are driven by two separate brain pathways, rather than one pathway that slowly matures.
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT announced today that Michael Davis, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta GA, will be the 2008 recipient of the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize an individual who has made outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience.
An ambitious new project using brain imaging to study dyslexia and autism will be headed by two prominent researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and supported by a $8.5M grant from the Ellison Medical Foundation. A major emphasis will be refined brain imaging technology, procedures, and analysis methods for children.
Object recognition tests are inadvertently stacked in favor of computer vision models, according to researchers at MIT's McGovern Institute. A simulation based on the earliest stages of the brain's visual pathway exposed these flaws. The authors propose new tests that more closely reflect the real-world variability encountered by the visual system.
People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, according to a MIT-led study. In American subjects, brain areas implicated in demanding tasks were more active during relative judgments than absolute judgments. In East Asians, the reverse pattern was seen, consistent with prior studies of cultural preferences in the two groups.
Using fMRI to study early brain development requires understanding the fMRI signal in the developing brain. MIT neuroscientists studying rats determined how the signal changes during first few weeks in relation to actual brain activity and identified a key molecular player in the age-related changes.
MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research has received a $20 million philanthropic commitment to establish the James W. and Patricia T. Poitras Center for Affective Disorders Research. The Center support translational and clinical research, including collaborative projects with the Broad Institute and local clinical research institutions.
A MIT neuroscientist proposes that blood actively modulates how neurons process information, rather than just delivering "supplies" to neurons. The Hemo-Neural Hypothesis has clinical implications for diseases involving irregular vasculature like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. It also enriches the interpretation fMRI images from being just a marker of past brain activity to also being a predictor of future function.
Ed Boyden and Alan Jasanoff, Associate Members of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, each receive a prestigious NIH award for conceptual and technological breakthroughs.
In work that could eventually aid interventions following stroke or brain injury, researchers at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and Johns Hopkins University used converging evidence from brain imaging and behavioral studies to show that the adult visual cortex can reorganizes, and that the change affects visual perception.
Neuroscientists at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT using fMRI to explore how memory formation differs between children and adults report in Nature Neuroscience that although the two groups have much in common, adults do better at remembering the rich, contextual details. These new insights into how children learn could inform practical learning in everyday settings.
Scientists are keenly studying how neurons form synapses--the physical and chemical connections between neurons--and the "pruning" of neural circuits during development, not least because synaptic abnormalities may partially underlie many developmental and neurodegenerative diseases. Several key molecules are involved in normal synaptic formation, but their interactions are not well understood. Now MIT neuroscientists have taken an important step toward solving this challenging jigsaw puzzle. They have pieced together a direct linear pathway connecting three molecules involved in synaptic formation, to be reported in the May 21 advance online publication of Nature Neuroscience.
In a new MIT study, a computer model designed to mimic the way the brain itself processes visual information performs as well as humans do on rapid categorization tasks. This new study supports the hypothesis that rapid categorization happens without any feedback from cognitive or other areas of the brain. The results also indicate that the model can help neuroscientists make predictions and drive new experiments to explore brain mechanisms involved in human visual perception, cognition, and behavior.
This brain imaging symposium will cover the biology of neurovascular coupling and its practical implications for fMRI and other imaging methods. The sessions will focus on cellular mechanisms of coupling in health and disease, the applications to whole brain imaging, and the technological frontiers of what can be measured using MRI.
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT selects David Julius, a physiologist at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), as the 2007 recipient of the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience. The Scolnick Prize is awarded each year by the McGovern Institute to recognize an individual who has made outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience.
Scientists in Tomaso Poggio's laboratory at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT developed a computational model of how the brain processes visual information and applied it to a complex, real world task: recognizing the objects in a busy street scene. The researchers were pleasantly surprised at the power of this first application of a biologically inspired computer model for artificial vision, which has many potential practical applications.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, and Harvard University are holding a symposium on the science, law, and ethics of using brain imaging technology to detect deception. The program will focus on the status of the science behind detecting deception using fMRI. Presenters will also consider the legal, ethical, and public policy implications of using brain imaging for lie detection.
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT announces the appointment of Charles Jennings, PhD, as director of the McGovern Institute Neurotechnology (MINT) Program. The aim of this recently established program is to develop new technologies that will advance the study of neuroscience and its translation into clinical applications.
At MIT, a researcher in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research introduces a new calcium contrast agent to boost fMRI's unmet potential.
The McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT is accepting nominations for the 4th annual Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience, now through November 15, 2006.
With the help of a highly sensitive whisker stimulator, neuroscientists at MIT have discovered a precise, micro sensory map for directions in a place that nobody predicted it, connected to the whiskers on a rat's face.
Neuroscientists at MIT have developed an approach for studying object recognition that may bridge the gap between the electrode and fMRI studies of high-level vision. The results may improve the understanding of what may underlie the fMRI signal.
Neuroscientists at the McGovern Institute at MIT discover that the mechanism by which synapses are strengthened or weakened differs before and after eye opening.
Finding it difficult to concentrate with all those holiday distractions? Maybe it's the neurons in your brain that are singing out of tune. When neurons synchronize their activity, they call attention to the task at hand "“ and help speed the response time, according to a study.
Like watching "Hi-Def" TV, Nancy Kanwisher's lab in the McGovern Institute at MIT used more finely grained fMRI images and saw that a brain region suspected of having dual functions actually resolves to two close neighbors, each with a different specialty.
A novel fMRI study confirms what psychologists have known, that being able to accurately predict if you'll remember a fact makes you a better learner, but reveals that prediction and memory happen in different parts of the brain.
The most sophisticated computer on earth reveals its code for recognizing objects to researchers at the McGovern Institute at MIT in a new study.
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