Professor Antonio Torralba elected 2021 AAAI Fellow
EECS faculty head of artificial intelligence and decision making honored for significant and extended contributions to the field of AI.
Department
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Brain waves guide us in spotlighting surprises
The brain uses different frequency rhythms and cortical layers to suppress expected stimulation and increase activity for what’s novel.
Neuroscientists identify brain circuit that encodes timing of events
Findings suggest this hippocampal circuit helps us to maintain our timeline of memories.
Cortex over reflex: Study traces circuits where executive control overcomes instinct
Frontal brain region overrides reflexive inclination of a deeper, older region when rules require.
Controlling drug activity with light
Miniaturized device activates drugs in a small region deep within the brain.
To the brain, reading computer code is not the same as reading language
Neuroscientists find that interpreting code activates a general-purpose brain network, but not language-processing centers.
Building machines that better understand human goals
A new algorithm capable of inferring goals and plans could help machines better adapt to the imperfect nature of human planning.
“SCOUT” helps researchers find, quantify significant differences among organoids
Unbiased, high-throughput analysis pipeline improves utility of “minibrains” for understanding development and diseases such as Zika infection.
One more clue to brain changes in Huntington’s disease
Opioid receptor MOR1 changes discovered in neurodegenerative disease model.
Two MIT seniors named 2021 Marshall Scholars
Katie Collins and Marla Odell are heading to the United Kingdom next fall for two years of graduate study.
Down syndrome symposium highlights clinical, fundamental progress
Speakers describe studies to address Alzheimer’s disease, sleep apnea, and to advance fundamental discoveries in cell and chromosome biology.
Neuroscientists find a way to make object-recognition models perform better
Adding a module that mimics part of the brain can prevent common errors made by computer vision models.
How humans use objects in novel ways to solve problems
What's SSUP? The Sample, Simulate, Update cognitive model developed by MIT researchers learns to use tools like humans do.
Imaging method reveals a “symphony of cellular activities”
Fluorescent imaging technique simultaneously captures different signal types from multiple locations in a live cell.
A hunger for social contact
Neuroscientists find that isolation provokes brain activity similar to that seen during hunger cravings.