Memory

Cognito Therapeutics, founded by Prof. Ed Boyden and Prof. Li Huei Tsai, has developed a “specialized headset that delivers 40Hz auditory and visual stimulation” to the brain, which could potentially slow down the cognitive decline and neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. Prof. Li-Huei Tsai “and her team speculated that if gamma wave activity is reduced in Alzheimer’s disease, perhaps, artificially stimulating the brain may enhance synchronized firing and restore cognition,” writes Haseltine.

Cognito Therapeutics, founded by Prof. Ed Boyden and Prof. Li-Huei Tsai, is using a 40 Hzlight-flickering and auditory headset to help slow the progression of Alzheimer’s and restore cognition, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. “A recent pilot clinical trial found that this technology is not only safe and tolerable for home use, but also has a positive impact on reducing symptoms associated with age-related neurodegeneration,” writes Haseltine.

Researchers at MIT have showed that “they could induce people to dream about a particular subject and that doing so helped them become more creative,” writes F.D. Flam for Bloomberg. “The findings should remind us that the line between productivity and resting is blurry — especially in creative endeavors,” writes Flam.

Undergraduate student Kathleen Esfahany speaks with GBH host Jeremy Siegel about her work discovering that people are most creative in the early stages of sleep. “The biggest finding and the thing that I think most people would relate to is that there was a nice effect of people being more creative after a nap, versus staying awake,” says Esfahany. “And I think this is well-corroborated by a lot of other studies, but this was just really exciting to be able to see.”

MIT and Harvard Medical School researchers have found that people are most creative when drifting off to sleep, reports WHDH. “The earliest stage sleep, we call that N1 stage sleep, just a brief nap in that period can really boost your creativity,” says undergraduate student Kathleen Esfahany.

MIT scientists have found that the earlier stages of sleep are key to sparking creativity and that people could be guided to dream about specific topics, further boosting creativity, reports Ingrid Wickelgren for Scientific American. “There is an objective and experimental link between incubation of some specific dream and postsleep creativity around that topic,” explains postdoc Adam Haar Horowitz. “This validates centuries of anecdotal reports from people who are in the creative space.”

Researchers from MIT and Harvard have found that short naps “can help the brain come up with creative solutions to tough problems,” reports Tony Ho Tran for The Daily Beast. “The phenomenon occurs during the very early stages of the sleep cycle known as hypnagogia, or the liminal space right between dozing off and being awake,” writes Tran.

A study by MIT and Harvard researchers has found that sleep onset, the transitional period from a woozy but still awake state into sleep, has a strong effect on creativity, reports Alan Mozes for HealthDay.

Science reporter Sofia Moutinho spotlights how MIT researchers used a glove that tracks sleep stages to guide people’s dreams while they snoozed. Many participants who considered themselves “stuck and uncreative” were surprised at how inventive they could be in their dreams, explains postdoc Adam Haar Horowitz. “Most people don’t know that there’s a piece of themselves that is biologically designed to be totally unstuck, but they’re forgetting it every night.”

Prof. Li-Huei Tsai and Prof. Ed Boyden co-founded Cognito Therapeutics after their research found that gamma waves could help clear amyloid plaques, which are known to appear in Alzheimer’s patients, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe.  “It was the most surprising result I’ve ever got in my life,” says Tsai. “When we published our first paper, most people said, ‘I don’t believe it. This is too good to be true. How can something this simple have this kind of effect?’”

In an excerpt from “Your Brain on Art” published in Fast Company, Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross spotlight Prof. Li-Huei Tsai research exploring whether gamma oscillations from light and sound could help ease Alzheimer’s symptoms. “Li-Huei believes that increased gamma oscillations in the brain engage many different systems and cell types,” write Magsamen and Ross. “Because of this, the gamma waves may help with amyloid removal.”

Researchers at MIT have found that those with an E4 variant display abnormalities in cholesterol metabolism, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. “The MIT team suggest that the disruption of cholesterol metabolism could be a fundamental reason why those with the E4 variant are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease symptoms,” writes Haseltine.

MIT scientists have found that silent synapses - a type of memory-forming synapse - are present in the adult brain, reports The Economist. The discovery of these silent synapses, explains Prof. Mark Harnett, “is a lever for us to get into understanding learning in adults and how potentially we can get access to make it not degrade over the course of aging or disease.”

An MIT research study suggests that those with the E4 variant of the APOE gene are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s symptoms, reports William A. Haseltine for Forbes. The variant “disrupts how fat molecules are processed in the brain,” writes Haseltine. “It appears that the disruption of these fat molecules could be the fundamental reason why those that contain the E4 variant are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s symptoms.”

Researchers at MIT have found that the brain can send a burst of noradrenaline when it requires you to pay attention to something crucial, reports Juandre for Popular Mechanics. “The MIT team discovered that one important function of noradrenaline, commonly known as norepinephrine, is to assist the brain in learning from unexpected results,” explains Juandre.