National Institutes of Health (NIH)

PPC neurons, engineered to glow when active, flicker in response to a mouse seeing a visual stimulus and deciding whether to respond with a licking motion.

Study shows where brain transforms seeing into doing

MIT neuroscientists find posterior parietal cortex region is crucial to connecting perception to action.

July 3, 2018

“What we discovered is, very little [Medicare] money is spent on people who we know with high probability are going to die in a short amount of time,” says Amy Finkelstein, a professor in MIT’s Department of Economics and co-author of a paper in the journal Science.

The value of late-in-life health care spending

Study debunks notion that large chunks of Medicare go to futile end-of-life care.

June 28, 2018

This diagram depicts the configuration of the complex tropoelastin molecule, which forms the basis for the elastin that gives tissues like skin and blood vessels their elasticity. The molecule’s atom-by-atom structure was decoded by a team of researchers from MIT, Australia and the UK.

Researchers decode molecule that gives living tissues their flexibility

Study reveals atomic structure of tropoelastin, showing what goes wrong in some diseases.

June 25, 2018

This image shows pancreatic cancer cells (nuclei in blue) growing as a sphere encased in membranes (red).

Biologists discover how pancreatic tumors lead to weight loss

Shortfall of digestive enzymes can lead to tissue breakdown in early stages of pancreatic cancer.

June 20, 2018

Network of diverse noncoding RNAs acts in the brain

Scientists identify the first known network consisting of three types of regulatory RNAs.

June 7, 2018

Mehrdad Jazayeri, the Robert A. Swanson Career Development Professor of Life Sciences, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and the senior author of the study.

How the brain performs flexible computations

New neural model reveals how the brain adapts to new information.

June 6, 2018

MIT researchers, working with scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, have developed a new way to power and communicate with devices implanted deep within the human body.

Wireless system can power devices inside the body

New technology could enable remote control of drug delivery, sensing, and other medical applications.

June 4, 2018

MIT neuroscientists have performed a comprehensive study of the APOE4 gene, which increases risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and the more common form of the gene, APOE3.

Neuroscientists discover roles of gene linked to Alzheimer’s

Study reveals why people with the APOE4 gene have higher risk of the disease.

May 31, 2018

The T.5 Capacity in Medical Devices Program is co-led by Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) Director Elazer R. Edelman.

MIT-Tufts collaboration aims to advance translational research

Collaboration will focus on the early yet critical stage of translational science, when a medical device or diagnostic tool is still in its prototype stage.

May 29, 2018

Intestinal stem cells from mice that fasted for 24 hours, at right, produced much more substantial intestinal organoids than stem cells from mice that did not fast, at left.

Fasting boosts stem cells’ regenerative capacity

A drug treatment that mimics fasting can also provide the same benefit, study finds.

May 3, 2018

It’s often said that experience is the best teacher, but the experiences of other people may be even better.

Brain circuit helps us learn by watching others

Scientists pinpoint neural interactions that are necessary for observational learning.

May 3, 2018

Cognitive scientists define critical period for learning language

Study shows children remain adept learners until the age of 17 or 18.

May 1, 2018

MIT researchers have designed MRI sensors that form clusters in the presence of calcium, allowing them to monitor neuron activity in the living brain.

Calcium-based MRI sensor enables more sensitive brain imaging

System detects direct signals of neural activity; could reveal patterns underlying behavior.

April 30, 2018

MIT professor of biology Peter Reddien, a member of the Whitehead Institute, has created a transcriptome atlas of the planarian flatworm.

Single-cell database to propel biological studies

Whitehead team analyzes transcriptomes for roughly 70,000 cells in planarians, creates publicly available database to drive further research.

April 19, 2018

MIT neuroscientists have developed a machine-learning system that can process speech and music the same way that humans do.

Machine-learning system processes sounds like humans do

Neuroscientists train a deep neural network to analyze speech and music.