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Brain and cognitive sciences

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Research shows that students who fail to read adequately in first grade have a 90 percent probability of reading poorly in fourth grade, and a 75 percent probability of reading poorly in high school.

MIT and Harvard join forces to address early childhood literacy

Reach Every Reader aims to end early literacy crisis.

March 6, 2018

Catching a bouncing ball or hitting a ball with a racket requires estimating when the ball will arrive. Neuroscientists have long thought that the brain does this by calculating the speed of the moving object. However, a new study from MIT shows that the brain's approach is more complex.

Study reveals how the brain tracks objects in motion

Timing and speed are both important for making accurate estimates of how an object will travel.

March 5, 2018

Researchers at MIT and the Allen Institute for Brain Science have developed a new modified version of the rabies virus that stops replicating once it infects a cell, allowing it to deliver its genetic cargo without harming the cell.

Viral tool traces long-term neuron activity

New technique is nontoxic to cells, should allow scientists to study neuron function for months or years instead of weeks.

March 5, 2018

Y. Eva Tan (left) and McGovern investigator Edward Boyden (right)

Edward Boyden named inaugural Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology

Neuroengineering leader appointed to new professorship at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

March 5, 2018

MIT researchers have developed a light-sensitive protein that can be embedded into neuron membranes, where it emits a fluorescent signal that indicates how much voltage a particular cell is experiencing. This could allow scientists to study how neurons behave, millisecond by millisecond, as the brain performs a particular function.

Seeing the brain's electrical activity

Fluorescent sensor allows imaging of neurons' electrical communications, without electrodes.

February 26, 2018

Polina Anikeeva was born in Leningrad, USSR, but grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia – the same city, whose name reverted to its original form after the fall of the Soviet Union. While in school there, she encountered two inspiring scientists who helped propel her toward a career at MIT, where she now develops cutting-edge materials to help researchers probe the mysteries of the brain in unprecede...

Seeking materials that match the brain

Polina Anikeeva explores ways to make neural probes that are compatible with delicate biological tissues.

February 18, 2018

As both a neuroscientist and an anesthesiologist, Emery Brown wants to make the brain the center of field.

Putting the brain at the center of anesthesiology

Emery N. Brown explains how statistics and neuroscience improve anesthesiology at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting.

February 16, 2018

A collection of SHERLOCK paper test strips. (Left) Unused paper strips, (middle) paper tests displaying a negative SHERLOCK readout, and (right) paper tests displaying a positive SHERLOCK readout.

Researchers advance CRISPR-based tool for diagnosing disease

With SHERLOCK, a strip of paper can now indicate presence of pathogens, tumor DNA, or any genetic signature of interest.

February 15, 2018

New Whitehead Institute research may prove to be a useful paradigm for targeting diseases caused by abnormal methylation.

Study: Fragile X syndrome neurons can be restored

Whitehead Institute researchers are using a modified CRISPR/Cas9-guided activation strategy to investigate the most frequent cause of intellectual disability in males.

February 15, 2018

MIT cognitive scientists have found that conversation between an adult and a child appears to change the child’s brain.

Back-and-forth exchanges boost children’s brain response to language

Study finds engaging young children in conversation is more important for brain development than “dumping words” on them.

February 13, 2018

In this image of a mouse visual cortex, astrocytes (stained red) appear about as abundant as neurons (green).

MIT neuroscientists give "invisible" cells a new look

With a new grant, a Picower Institute team is studying the role of astrocytes, which may partner with neurons to process information in the brain.

February 12, 2018

Our daily lives include hundreds of routine habits, made up of many smaller actions, such as picking up our toothbrush, squeezing toothpaste onto it, and then lifting the brush to our mouth. This process of grouping behaviors together into a single routine is known as “chunking.” MIT neuroscientists have now found that certain neurons in the brain are responsible for marking the beginning and ...

Distinctive brain pattern helps habits form

Study identifies neurons that fire at the beginning and end of a behavior as it becomes a habit.

February 8, 2018

This image shows neurons in the CA3 region of the hippocampus, which is important for memory encoding and retrieval. Nuclei of the CA3 neurons are labeled in green and their dendrites in red, and the smaller specks of green above represent axons projecting to the CA3 neurons from the dentate gyrus.

Study reveals molecular mechanisms of memory formation

Neuroscientists discover a cellular pathway that encodes memories by strengthening specific synapses.

February 8, 2018

“I am fascinated by how people work, why we do what we do, and why we think what we think,” says senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou.

Decoding human cognition

MIT senior and Marshall Scholar Liang Zhou wants to elucidate the neural basis for our thoughts and intuitions.

February 1, 2018

From left to right: Polina Anikeeva, the Class of 1942 Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and associate director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and Feng Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras ’63 Professor in Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute, a core member of the Broad Institute, and an associate professor in the departments of Brain and C...

Polina Anikeeva and Feng Zhang awarded 2018 Vilcek Prize

Prize recognizes contributions to biomedical research made by immigrant scientists.

February 1, 2018