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Picower Institute for Learning and Memory

Displaying 61 - 75 of 125 news clips related to this center/lab/program.
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CBS Boston

CBS Boston highlights a new study by MIT researchers that shows that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme could one day help restore memories in Alzheimer’s patients. Postdoctoral fellow Jay Penney explains that, “What we’ve done is found a new way to basically prevent this negative effect of this enzyme.”

Boston Globe

MIT researchers have found that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme could potentially restore the memories of Alzheimer’s patients, reports Alyssa Meyers for The Boston Globe. The researchers, “pinpointed a gene called Sp3 that binds with HDAC2, which then results in the compression and subsequent deactivation of memory genes.”

Boston Magazine

Boston Magazine reporter Jamie Ducharme writes that MIT researchers have found that blocking the HDAC2 enzyme may potentially reverse memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers, “blocked HDAC2 activity by preventing it from binding with Sp3, a protein coding gene that the team found to be a crucial part of genetic blockade formation.”

NBC News

NBC News reporter Maggie Fox writes that MIT researchers have developed a noninvasive brain stimulation technique that could eventually offer relief to patients with diseases like Parkinson’s and epilepsy without requiring surgery. Fox explains that the method allows for sending, “electrical signals deep into the brain without affecting the layers in between.”

Science

MIT researchers have developed a noninvasive method to stimulate specific neurons deep in the brain that could be used to help treat patients with diseases such as Parkinson’s, reports Meredith Wadman for Science. This new method could also allow scientists to “selectively prod deep-brain neurons into action,” explains Wadman. 

Wired

Writing for Wired, Abigail Beal highlights how MIT researchers have developed a noninvasive technique to trigger reactions in deep brain cells using low frequency electrical signals. “If we could noninvasively stimulate deep regions, without hitting overlying regions, we might be able to help more people because we could stimulate deep regions selectively, without needing surgery,” explains Prof. Ed Boyden. 

New York Times

New York Times reporter Pam Belluck writes that MIT researchers have developed a new, non-invasive deep brain stimulation technique. The technique could be used to help treat, “a range of neurological and psychiatric disorders more cheaply and safely than current approaches,” writes Belluck. 

Guardian

MIT researchers have developed a non-invasive technique for deep brain stimulation, which could be used to help patients with brain diseases, reports Mo Costandi for The Guardian. “Targets for disorders such as depression, Alzheimer’s, PTSD, and so forth, are deep in the brain, and they might be more selectively stimulatable with our method,” says Prof. Ed Boyden. 

Radio Boston (WBUR)

Prof. Emery Brown is a guest on WBUR’s Radio Boston to discuss the feasibility of merging computers with the human brain in an attempt to keep up with artificial intelligence. “Putting the emphasis on using the computational power to understand the physiology and neurocircuitry of the brain is where the success is going to come,” suggests Brown.

Scientific American

Simon Makin of Scientific American writes that MIT researchers have discovered the brain uses a complimentary memory system that simultaneously creates and stores both long and short-term memories. “There is a division of labor. The hippocampus can form active memories very quickly, while the cortex takes care of long-term stability,” explains Prof. Susumu Tonegawa.

PBS NOVA

A study by MIT researcher suggests that the brain simultaneously creates long and short-term memories, reports Tim De Chant for NOVA. The findings suggest that one version “is filed away in the hippocampus, the center of short-term memories, while the other is stored in cortex, where our long-term memories reside.”

BBC News

BBC News reporter James Gallagher writes that MIT researchers have found that the brain may simultaneously create short-term and long-term versions of memories. Prof. Susumu Tonegawa explains that “understanding how this happens may be relevant in brain disease patients.”

Boston Globe

A new study by MIT researchers suggests that, contrary to previous findings, the human brain may store short-term and long-term memories at the same time, reports Andy Rosen for The Boston Globe. Rosen writes that the findings could “lead toward a better understanding of memory diseases like Alzheimer’s.”

CNBC

Meg Tirrell of CNBC spotlights research by Prof. Li-Huei Tsai that shows that flashing lights could be used as a non-invasive treatment method for Alzheimer’s disease. Tsai and her colleagues found that flashing light could potentially be used to restore gamma rhythms in the brain, which are often impaired in people with Alzheimer’s. 

Wired

Wired reporter Nicola Davison spotlights the work of graduate student Dheeraj Roy, whose research is focused on developing new techniques to help Alzheimer’s patients remember lost memories. Davison writes that Roy’s findings offer a potential “strategy for improving memory that could go beyond the modest benefit of available drugs.”