Brain and cognitive sciences

Carey Goldberg of WBUR speaks with Professor Emery Brown about an implantable chip that could help those with PTSD or depression. “We’re moving out of the box,” says Brown. “We’re not just saying, ‘Let’s rely on the drugs’ anymore.”

Dr, Susan Whifield-Gabrieli discusses the importance of understanding the default mode network (DMN) in the human brain to the study of schizophrenia in a NOVA feature by Allison Eck. “This is first time we’ve found a neural system that actually reveals your inner self,” says Whitfield-Gabrieli.

Philip Ball of The Guardian speaks with graduate student Steve Ramirez about the potential for neuroscientist to one day be able to replace bad memories with good ones. “I see a world where we can reactivate any kind of memory we like, or erase unwanted memories,” says Ramirez.

Amy Robinson writes for Scientific American on work being done by MIT researchers in the field of microfluidics and its potential applications in neuroscience. Microfluidics technology is being used "to study stages of development and decipher how variance in chemical and physical processes causes neurons to grow or recede,” Robinson writes.

Carolyn Johnson of The Boston Globe reports on a new paper by MIT Prof. Pawan Sinha and others that says an inability to make good predictions may explain autism. “Researchers suggest people with autism spectrum disorder may perform repetitive behaviors because personal habits and rituals are a safe harbor in a world they find alarmingly out of control,” writes Johnson.

Tania Lombrozo of NPR writes about MIT Professor Nancy Kanwisher's new video examining the basics of brain imaging. “Readers might be especially interested in Kanwisher's tips for critically evaluating functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies, explained in the video,” writes Lombrozo.

Melissa Malamut of Boston Magazine writes that a team of MIT researchers has developed a new scaling law to estimate the risk of blast-induced traumatic brain injury. The new method could be useful in helping the military develop more protective helmets and in diagnosing traumatic brain injury, Malamut reports. 

Thomas Burton of The Wall Street Journal writes that MIT researchers were among those awarded the first research grants under President Obama’s new BRAIN Initiative. Burton writes that one of the MIT grants will go toward “determining which exact brain circuits are involved in generating short-term memories that influence decisions.”

Boston Globe reporter Deborah Kotz writes that MIT researchers have been awarded new grants from the National Institutes of Health to further brain research. “Biophysicist Alan Jasanoff received a grant to develop imaging agents for functional MRI imaging that would target the flow of calcium into and out of brain cells,” writes Kotz of one of the MIT grants. 

MIT neuroscientists were among the recipients of new grants for brain research from the National Institutes of Health, reports Jon Hamilton for NPR. Hamilton explains that as part of one grant, “Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will try to adapt functional MRI so that it can show the activity of individual brain cells.”

In a piece for Scientific American, Amy Robinson, creative director of EyeWire, writes about multiphoton microscopy, which is used to study how the human brain adapts and grows new synapses. Robinson’s piece is part of a series about emerging neurotechnologies at MIT. 

New research by Professor Ann Graybiel may indicate that the FOXP2 gene in humans plays a major role in how we learn speech, writes Chris Higgins for Wired. Mice given the gene were able to learn their way through a maze more quickly than those without it.

Amy Robinson of Scientific American presents the first installment of a new series on emerging neurotechnologies, which will feature lectures and lab tours from MIT’s Center for Neurobiological Engineering. “The more we know about the brain, the better we are equipped to prevent dysfunctions and fix it when things go wrong,” writes Robinson.

Jacqueline Howard of The Huffington Post writes about research by Professor Ann Graybiel that looked at the effect of the human Foxp2 gene in mice. The work could lead to a greater understanding of how the human brain learns speech.

Sharon Begley of Reuters writes about Professor Ann Graybiel’s research on the effect of the human FOXP2 gene on mice. “By isolating the effects of one gene, the work sheds light on its function and hints at the evolutionary changes that led to the unique capabilities of the human brain,” writes Begley.