Memory

“When you encounter something new, there are some really new and notable stimuli, but you already know quite a bit about that particular experience, because it’s a similar kind of experience to what you have already had before,” says Susumu Tonegawa, a professor of biology and neuroscience at the RIKEN-MIT Laboratory of Neural Circuit Genetics at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Me...

Neuroscientists find memory cells that help us interpret new situations

Neurons that store abstract representations of past experiences are activated when a new, similar event takes place.

April 6, 2020

MIT biological engineers have created a specialized sensor that allows them to track dopamine in the brain using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as shown in the bottom row. Images in the top row show overall brain activity, as measured by functional MRI.

How dopamine drives brain activity

A specialized MRI sensor reveals the neurotransmitter’s influence on neural activity throughout the brain.

April 1, 2020

The same neurons that store feelings of reward also store memories that suppress fearful ones, a new study shows. In this image, the broader population of Ppp1r1b neurons is labeled green while neurons storing a specific fear extinction memory are labeled red.

With these neurons, extinguishing fear is its own reward

The same neurons responsible for encoding reward also form new memories to suppress fearful ones.

January 21, 2020

The visual cortex, where the brain processes visual input, is made like a stack of pancakes. In a new study, scientists sought to determine the role in several visual phenomena of a receptor on neurons in layer 4.

Study probing visual memory and amblyopia unveils many-layered mystery

Scientists pinpoint the role of a receptor in vision degradation in amblyopia.

December 17, 2019

In a study using machine-generated art to understand what makes a picture memorable, researchers found that the images people remembered best had bright colors, simple backgrounds, and subjects centered prominently in the frame.

What makes an image memorable? Ask a computer

An artificial intelligence model developed at MIT shows in striking detail what makes some images stick in our minds.

November 1, 2019

Josh Tenenbaum receives 2019 MacArthur Fellowship

Brain and cognitive sciences professor studies how the human mind is able to learn so rapidly.

September 25, 2019

The startup Rendever uses virtual reality to help aging adults overcome widespread problems like depression and social isolation.

Startup uses virtual reality to help seniors re-engage with the world

Rendever’s VR platform brings new experiences and fond memories to aging adults in nursing homes.

September 12, 2019

MIT biological engineers have developed a new way to encode complex memories in the DNA of living cells.

High-precision technique stores cellular “memory” in DNA

Engineers program human and bacterial cells to keep a record of complex molecular events.

August 22, 2019

Images from two-photon microscopy track the comings and goings of dendritic spines (key infrastructure for neural connections called synapses) in a mouse brain. Top row: A spine present on day 14 is gone by two weeks later. Bottom row: A spine emerges around day 28 and sticks around.

How brain cells pick which connections to keep

Novel study shows protein CPG15 acts as a molecular proxy of experience to mark synapses for stabilization.

August 6, 2019

MIT neuroscientists have identified patterns of brain activity that underlie our ability to interpret sensory input based on our expectations and past experiences.

How expectation influences perception

Neuroscientists find brain activity patterns that encode our beliefs and affect how we interpret the world around us.

July 15, 2019

By exposing mice to a unique combination of light and sound, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can improve cognitive and memory impairments similar to those seen in Alzheimer’s patients. At left, the mouse cortex shows a reduction in amyloid plaques following visual and auditory stimulation, compared to the untreated mouse at right.

Brain wave stimulation may improve Alzheimer’s symptoms

Noninvasive treatment improves memory and reduces amyloid plaques in mice.

March 14, 2019

Matthew Wilson and former postdocs Zhe "Sage" Chen and Fabian Kloosterman have been working for a decade on systems to decode neural signals.

Real-time readouts of thinking in rats

New open-source system provides fast, accurate neural decoding and real-time readouts of where rats think they are.

December 19, 2018

Red staining indicates expression of Kir2.1 potassium ion channels in dentate gyrus engram cells in the hippocampus of the brain.

How returning to a prior context aids memory recall

Picower Institute researchers discover the brain mechanism that helps details come flooding back when you visit a scene again.

December 12, 2018

Neural representations of task rules are maintained in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for planning action.

How the brain switches between different sets of rules

When you slow down after exiting the highway, or hush your voice in the library, you’re using this brain mechanism.

November 19, 2018

Alexi Choueiri (left) and Mahdi Ramadan, both evacuees from Lebanon, met at MIT 11 years after leaving their homeland on the same boat.

Meeting of the Minds

Mahdi Ramadan and Alexi Choueiri’s common experiences as Lebanese evacuees led both to study the human brain at MIT.

October 26, 2018

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