Tag: Brain

  • Nation & World

    Auditory cortex nearly identical in hearing and deaf people

    The neural architecture in the auditory cortex — the part of the brain that processes sound — of profoundly deaf and hearing people is virtually identical, a new study has found. The study could point the way toward potential new avenues for treating deafness.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Eye-opening complexity

    The findings of Professor Jeff Lichtman and postdoctoral fellow Joshua Morgan have unveiled unexpected neural complexity in the thalami of mice, potentially challenging a number of core tenets of brain science.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Watching sensory information translate into behavior

    A state-of-the-art microscope built by Harvard researchers will allow scientists to capture 3-D images of all the neural activity in the brains of tiny, transparent C. elegans worms as they crawl.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    How the brain builds new thoughts

    A new study suggests that two adjacent brain regions allow humans to use a sort of conceptual algebra to construct thoughts.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Two named MacArthur Fellows

    Matthew Desmond, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, and Beth Stevens, an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and neuroscientist at Boston Children’s Hospital, have been named MacArthur Fellows.

    8 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Injectable device delivers nano-view of the brain

    An international team of researchers has developed a method of fabricating nanoscale electronic scaffolds that can be injected via syringe. The scaffolds can then be connected to devices and used to monitor neural activity, stimulate tissues, or even promote regeneration of neurons.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Promising stem cell therapy

    Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an “imageable” mouse model of brain-metastatic breast cancer and shown the potential of a stem-cell-based therapy to eliminate metastatic cells from the brain and prolong survival. The study, published online in the journal Brain, also describes a strategy for preventing the potential negative consequences…

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Brown named to National Academy of Engineering

    Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Professor Emery N. Brown, who also holds appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named to the National Academy of Engineering in early February.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A boost for understanding the brain

    Two groups of Harvard scientists will be among the first researchers nationwide to receive grant funding through the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) Initiative launched last year by President Obama.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Parental controls

    It could be that the key to being a better parent is all in your head, Harvard researchers say.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A face is not a fish

    A new study from Dartmouth and Harvard researchers looks at the mechanisms behind facial recognition.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    What’s in a face?

    Using scans of the brain, Harvard researchers show that patterns of neural activity change when people look at black and white faces, and male and female faces.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Advancing science and technology

    The National Science Foundation is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, with two of them based in Cambridge. The two multi-institutional grants total $45 million over five years.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    ‘Brainbow,’ version 2.0

    Led by Joshua Sanes and Jeff Lichtman, a group of Harvard researchers has made a host of technical improvements in the “Brainbow” imaging technique.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The motivation to move

    Using an unusual decision-making study, Harvard researchers exploring the question of motivation found that rats will perform a task faster or slower depending on the size of the benefit they receive, suggesting they maintain a long-term estimate of whether it’s worthwhile for them to invest the energy.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    A look inside the lab

    The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Science recently relaunched its “Science Research Lecture Series,” aimed at introducing the broader local community to research conducted by Harvard faculty members. The talks will be held once a month in the Science Center, and will be open to the public.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    First Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor is named

    Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been appointed as the first Ramón y Cajal Professor of Arts and Sciences.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Controlling behavior, remotely

    Researchers have been able to take control of tiny, transparent worms by manipulating neurons in their brains, using precisely targeted pulses of laser light.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Listening for clues

    Baby songbirds learn to sing by imitation, just as human babies do. So researchers at Harvard and Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, have been studying the brains of zebra finches — red-beaked, white-breasted songbirds — for clues to how young birds and human infants learn vocalization on a neuronal level.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Researchers awarded NARSAD grants

    The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation announced $11.9 million in new research grants, strengthening its investment in the most promising ideas to lead to breakthroughs in understanding and treating mental illness, including 19 grants to Harvard researchers.

    2 minutes
  • Nation & World

    The growing brain

    As reported on June 7 in the journal Neuron, a team of researchers led by Professor Jeff Lichtman has found that just days before birth mice undergo an explosion of neuromuscular branching. At birth, the research showed, some muscle fibers are contacted by as many as 10 nerve cells. Within days, however, all but one…

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Deciding to go left or right

    Researchers in a Harvard lab have developed a device, dubbed LADY GAGA, that allows them for the first time to precisely control airborne scents. They have used the device in their work unraveling how animals make navigational decisions based on their environment.

    4 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Clues to addiction

    Harvard scientists have developed the fullest picture yet of how neurons in the brain interact to reinforce behaviors that range from learning to drug use, a finding that could open the door to new treatments for addiction.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Rebuilding the brain’s circuitry

    Harvard scientists have rebuilt genetically diseased circuitry in a section of the mouse hypothalamus, an area controlling obesity and energy balance, demonstrating that complex and intricately wired circuitry of the brain long considered incapable of cellular repair can be rewired with the right type of neuronal “replacement parts.”

    7 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Neurons in youth

    A group of researchers is working to map how the brain is wired in an effort to pinpoint the causes of — and potential treatments for — schizophrenia, autism, and a host of other disorders.

    6 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Brain navigation

    Hanspeter Pfister, an expert in high-performance computing and visualization, is part of an interdisciplinary team collaborating on the Connectome Project at the Center for Brain Science. The project aims to create a wiring diagram of all the neurons in the brain.

    5 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harvard Medical School researchers crawl a neural network

    Scientists can finally look at circuits in the brain in all of their complexity. How the mind works is one of the greatest mysteries in nature, and this research presents a new and powerful way for us to explore that mystery.

    1 minute
  • Nation & World

    Web-crawling the brain

    Researchers in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School have developed a technique for unraveling these masses. Through a combination of microscopy platforms, researchers can crawl through the individual connections composing a neural network, much as Google crawls web links.

    3 minutes
  • Nation & World

    Harnessing your creative brain

    Shelley Carson, a researcher in the Psychology Department and lecturer at the Extension School, has penned a how-to book on harnessing your untapped abilities.

    4 minutes