Brain and cognitive sciences

Feng Zhang wins NSF's Alan T. Waterman Award

Waterman Award is NSF's highest honor recognizing an outstanding researcher under the age of 35.

April 15, 2014

Screen shots from a video of overlapping images of faces and houses, shown to subjects who were asked to pay attention to one or the other.

How the brain pays attention

Neuroscientists identify a brain circuit that’s key to shifting our focus from one object to another.

April 10, 2014

Salvador Esparza ’14 in the Theater Arts Costume Shop in Building E33, the Rinaldi Tile Building.

The brain on his mind

First-generation senior Salvador Esparza finds roles in the lab, in the dorm, and onstage.

April 3, 2014

Alan Jasanoff, an MIT associate professor of biological engineering and leader of the research team.

MRI reveals genetic activity

New MIT technique could help decipher genes’ roles in learning and memory.

March 25, 2014

The yellow and blue cells are two retinal ganglion cells of different types obtained from different mice. The researchers determined their relative positions using the two surfaces (in red) created by the arbors of retinal cells called starburst amacrine cells. The vertical distance between the arbors of these three different neuron types is precisely maintained across different animals and differ...

Seeking a ‘parts list’ for the retina

New technique classifies retinal neurons into 15 categories, including some previously unknown types.

March 24, 2014

Patrick McGovern, founder of McGovern Institute for Brain Research, dies at 76

$350 million gift in 2000 aimed to broaden neuroscientists’ understanding of the human brain.

March 20, 2014

Thinking hard about social problems

A senior in brain and cognitive sciences, Aliya Dincer turns next to challenges in education and economics.

March 3, 2014

This image of the Cas9 complex depicts the Cas9 protein (in light blue), along with its guide RNA (yellow), and target DNA (red).

Research reveals structure of key CRISPR complex

Work reveals how a genome-editing tool works to correct errors in the genetic code.

February 13, 2014

MIT-led researchers engineered neurons so they can be activated with either blue or red light, allowing each population to be controlled separately.

Optogenetic toolkit goes multicolor

New light-sensitive proteins allow scientists to study how multiple sets of neurons interact with each other.

February 9, 2014

MIT neuroscientists tested children's spatial imagery abilities by asking them to mentally trace paths along a grid.

Vision is key to spatial skills

Neuroscientists find that the ability to imagine spatial structures improves dramatically after blind children’s sight is restored.

February 6, 2014

(Clockwise, from top left) Joseph Checkelsky, Gloria Choi, Ibrahim Cissé, Mark Vogelsberger, Jing-Ke Weng, and Omer Yilmaz.

School of Science welcomes new faculty

Professors' research areas include molecular mechanisms in cells, quantum condensed matter, and dark matter.

February 4, 2014

3 Questions: Suzanne Corkin on new study of neuroscience’s most famous patient

Preliminary analysis of H.M.’s brain tissue lays groundwork for more comprehensive studies.

January 28, 2014

This cross-section of the hippocampus shows island cells (green) projecting to the CA1 region of the hippocampus.

In the brain, timing is everything

Study reveals how the brain links memories of events that occur one after the other.

January 23, 2014

Artist's rendering of person looking downward, with clouds in their head

Erasing traumatic memories

New study identifies drug that could improve treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder.

January 16, 2014

In the blink of an eye

MIT neuroscientists find the brain can identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds.