Picower Institute

A new study by researchers at MIT and elsewhere has found a correlation between addiction and eye care, reports Hadley Barndollar for MassLive. “The study found nearly half of the patients with opioid use disorder being treated for the eye infection were eligible to initiate medication-assisted treatment,” explains Barndollar. “But medications were only initiated when an addiction consult occurred, highlighting how much more eye doctors responding to emergency rooms can offer patients beyond vision care.” 

Researchers at MIT studying amblyopia – commonly known as lazy eye – have found that anesthetizing the retina could restore visual responses, reports Emma Frederickson for Popular Mechanics. “Their recent findings could reshape the way we think about vision loss,” writes Frederickson. 

Prof. Earl Miller speaks with National Geographic reporter Dana Binfet about the impact of increased social media and digital platform use on the brain. “Brain rot is not really rotting our brains,” explains Miller. “It’s constantly creating an environment that our brains are not equipped to deal with—that's the real problem. We’re single-minded creatures and when all this information is coming at us, we want to consume everything and it’s hard to turn off that desire.”

Prof. Laura Lewis speaks with New Scientist reporter Grace Wade about the importance of sleep research. Lewis notes that understanding the dynamics of how the brain transitions into sleep could help lead to new treatments for insomnia. “With sleep onset, it has been really difficult for us to find that moment,” says Lewis, where brain mechanisms drive the transition to sleep. “If we knew when that was, then we could start to say, what is the brain region or circuit that is making somebody fall asleep?” 

A new study from researchers at MIT shows that lack of focus after a poor night’s sleep often corresponds with a surge of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which usually flows while we’re asleep. “We like to think we’re in control—that willpower, caffeine, and determination can overcome a missed night of sleep,” writes Bill Murphy Jr. for Inc. “However, this research suggests otherwise. When your brain needs to clean itself, it’s going to find a way to do it, whether you’re ready for it or not.”

Researchers at MIT examined how lack of sleep can impact a person’s attention, and “found that during these moments of brain fog, a wave of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is released out of the brain - a process which normally occurs whilst we are sound asleep, and helps to wash away waste products built up during the day,” reports Shaheena Uddin for The Independent. 

Prof. Laura Lewis and her colleagues have discovered that momentary lapses in attention that often follow a bad night’s sleep are caused by the brain attempting to flush fluid out of its system, a process that normally occurs during sleep, reports Carissa Wong for New Scientist. “If you don’t have these waves [of fluid flowing] at night because you’re kept awake all night, then your brain starts to kind of sneak them in during the daytime, but they come with this cost of attention,” says Lewis. 

Researchers at MIT have found that momentary lapses in attention, often described as zoning out, coincide with waves of fluid flowing out of the brain, reports Ian Sample for The Guardian. “The moment somebody’s attention fails is the moment this wave of fluid starts to pulse,” says Prof. Laura Lewis. “It’s not just that your neurons aren’t paying attention to the world, there’s this big change in fluid in the brain at the same time.”

Prof. Laura Lewis speaks with Quanta Magazine reporter Yasemin Saplakoglu about her quest to better understand how the brain transitions to sleep. “Our brains can really rapidly transform us from being aware of our environments to being unconscious, or even experiencing things that aren’t there,” said Lewis. “This raises deeply fascinating questions about our human experience.”

Prof. Ed Boyden and Prof. Li-Huei Tsai have “found that if gamma waves through non-invasive stimulation, were put back into baseline frequency, it could slow down the process in certain brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s,” reports Hansa Bhargava for Forbes. 

MIT Profs. Angela Belcher, Emery Brown, Paula Hammond and Feng Zhang have been honored with National Medals of Science and Technology, reports Michael T. Neitzel for Forbes. Additionally, R. Lawrence Edwards '76 received a National Medal of Science and Noubar Afeyan PhD '87, a member of the MIT Corporation, accepted a National Medal on behalf of Moderna. The recipients have been awarded “the nation’s highest honors for exemplary achievements and leadership in science and technology,” explains Neitzel. 

Prof. Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute, speaks with NPR host Jon Hamilton about her work identifying a protein called reelin that appears to protect brain cells from Alzheimer's. “Tsai says she and her team are now using artificial intelligence to help find a drug that can replicate what reelin does naturally,” says Hamilton. 

MIT researchers have discovered how propofol, a commonly used anesthetic, works on the brain, reports Francesca Benson for IFL Science. The research studied “the differences between an awake brain and one under anesthesia by looking at the stability of the brain’s activity,” writes Bensen. 

MIT scientists have discovered how propofol, a commonly used anesthetic, induces unconsciousness, reports Adam Kovac for Gizmodo. “The new research indicates that [propofol] works by interfering with a brain’s ‘dynamic stability’ – a state where neurons can respond to input, but the brain is able to keep them from getting too excited,” explains Kovac. 

Prof. Emerita Mary-Lou Pardue, a cellular and molecular biologist whose work “formed the foundation for key advancements and discoveries in understanding the structure of chromosomes,” has died at age 90, reports Bryan Marquard for The Boston Globe. Pardue “was a role model of what women in science can be at a time when there weren’t a lot of those, and a trailblazer as a woman,” emphasizes Ky Lowenhaupt, manager of the Biophysical Instrumentation Facility at MIT, “but also a trailblazer as a scientist who didn’t do things along the path that other people took.”