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.
Research by Professor Ann Graybiel demonstrated that providing mice with the human version of the FOXP2 gene allowed them to learn repetitive patterns more quickly, reports Clare Wilson of The New Scientist. This may demonstrate that the gene plays an important role in how humans learn to speak, says Graybiel.
The BBC’s Science Hour highlights new MIT research exploring how emotions are linked to memories. Researchers found that the emotional associations of specific memories could be reversed in mice.
In a piece for Forbes, Josh Wolfe interviews Prof. Edward Boyden about his work with optogenetics and his new research at MIT. “I’m very excited about these new kinds of microscopes that we’re building that allow you to map all the neural activity in a complete organism,” says Boyden of his current work.
Amina Khan of the Los Angeles Times explores new MIT research into how the brain links memories with positive and negative emotions. “Recording memory is not like playing a tape recorder, but it is a creative process -- sometimes even leading to an entirely false memory,” explains Prof. Susumu Tonegawa.
Boston Magazine reporter Andrea Timpano writes about how MIT researchers have developed a technique to reverse the emotions associated with specific memories in mice. The new technique uses light to manipulate brain cells and control neuron activity.
Writing for The New Yorker, Patrick House examines Professor Pawan Sinha’s work with sight restoration. “A remarkable thing about the brain’s processing capabilities is that, even with less than perfect image quality, it can extract a great deal of meaning about the visual world,” says Sinha of the benefits of sight restoration surgery.
Emily Tamkin of Slate writes about how MIT scientists have developed a technique to manipulate the emotional associations linked with memories in mice. “Scientists are excited by the potential impact these findings could have on, for example, treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder,” writes Tamkin.
In a piece for The Washington Post, Jay Van Bavel and Mina Cikara highlight a new paper co-authored by MIT Professor Rebecca Saxe and Dr. Emile Bruneau that examines public displays of schadenfreude, in which people exhibit pleasure at others’ pain. The researchers found that such behavior is a consequence of basic group dynamics.
Writing for Wired, Greg Miller explores new MIT research into the emotional association of memories. “This study and others like it are illuminating the neural mechanisms of memory in unprecedented detail, and showing that it’s possible to activate, alter, or even create memories just by tweaking the right neurons,” writes Miller.
Washington Post reporter Rachel Feltman examines how MIT researchers have uncovered the brain circuitry that links memories to emotion and how to manipulate it. In rodent tests, “neurons that had once conjured up fearful memories had been switched to pleasant ones,” writes Feltman of the MIT study.
Gautam Naik of The Wall Street Journal writes about new MIT research showing how the brain associates memories with emotion and that circuits in the brain could potentially be rewired to change bad memories to good ones. "We identified the circuit, and we've showed that we can manipulate such circuits artificially," says Dr. Roger Redondo.
Reuters reporter Sharon Begley writes about the new MIT study showing that memories can be rewired in the brain. "We could switch the mouse's memory from positive emotions to negative, and negative to positive," says Professor Susumu Tonegawa of the research.