“Cognitive researcher Nancy Etcoff looks at happiness — the ways we try to achieve and increase it, the way it’s untethered to our real circumstances, and its surprising effect on our bodies.”

Filmed February 2004 at TED 2004 Uploaded to YouTube on June 15, 2009 by TED 

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Despite intense interest in the ways brains work, we still have quite a rudimentary understanding of this organ, especially compared to our knowledge of the other organ systems in the body.

One central problem is that brain function is based on a much more complicated cellular organization than found in any other part of the body.

Published July 13, 2013 by Harvard University

Synopsis

Despite intense interest in the ways brains work, we still have quite a rudimentary understanding of this organ, especially compared to our knowledge of the other organ systems in the body. One central problem is that brain function is based on a much more complicated cellular organization than found in any other part of the body. The brain contains billions of nerve cells and these are interconnected by trillions of synapses in a vast wiring diagram. This wiring diagram has ...

Feng Zhang, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, discusses the work of his research team on the brain and its relationship to the President’s Brain Initiative. He spoke with NSF’s Lisa-Joy Zgorski during his visit to NSF in May of 2014 to receive NSF’s most prestigious award for young investigators, the Alan T. Waterman Award, with which he was awarded $1 million to further his research.

NSF BRAIN Initiative Published May 2, 2014

Professor of Child Neurology and Mental Retardation, Harvard Medical School Unit Chief, Pediatric Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital Director, Pediatric Epilepsy Research Lab

Staley focuses on neuronal ion transport and the spread of activity in neural networks. Research interests include epilepsy, synaptic physiology, and neural network activity. Research techniques used: single cell electrophysiology, in vivo radiotelemetry, ion-sensitive fluorescent imaging of ion transport and neural network activity, computer modeling.

Web Information

Webpage: massgeneral.org/neurology/researcher_profiles/staley_kevin Neuroscience@Harvard BRAIN Initiative grant

Contact Information

Email: staley.kevin@mgh.harvard.edu Clinic Phone: 617-724-6400 Address: Kevin J. Staley, MD Massachusetts General Hospital 114 16th Street Charlestown, MA 02129

Biography

Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School

Unit Chief, Pediatric Neurology, Mass General Hospital Department of Neurology

Kevin Staley received his MD degree from the University of California, San Diego. He completed his postdoctoral research training at Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr Staley studies neuronal ion transport in neonatal seizures and neural network dysfunction in epilepsy. He has served as Chair of the Investigator’s Workshop Committee and the Research and Training Committee of the American Epilepsy Society, as Chair of the Research Council of the Epilepsy Foundation of America, as co-chair of the inaugural Gordon Conference on Mechanisms of Epilepsy and Neuronal Synchronization, and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of ...

Principal Investigator: Joshua R  Sanes Neuroscience@Harvard

The Sanes Lab wants to learn how neural circuits are assembled in young animals and how they process information in adults. A particular focus is identification and analysis of synaptic recognition molecules responsible for the amazing specificity of connections that underlies complex neural processing. We use a combination of genetic, molecular, histological and electrophysiological approaches to address these issues.  Our main model system is the mouse retina.

Wild Type and Protocadherin-Mutant Starburst Amacrine Cells. Sanes Lab

Web Information

Website:  saneslab.mcb.harvard.edu Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: kpike@fas.harvard.edu Phone: 617-496-8787 Address: NW 335.30 Northwest Building 52 Oxford St Cambridge, MA  02138

Research

Key questions in neuroscience are: how are complex neural circuits assembled in young animals and how do they process information in adults? The retina may be the first part of the mammalian brain for which satisfactory answers to these questions will be obtained. The retina is about as complex as any other part of the brain, but it has several features that facilitate analysis: it is accessible, compact, and structurally regular, and we already know a lot about what it does. Visual information is passed from retinal photoreceptors to interneurons to retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) and then on to the rest of the ...

Director: Florian Engert Program in Neuroscience @Harvard 

The general goal of the laboratory is the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling behavior using the larval zebrafish as a model system. To that end, we have established and quantified a series of visually induced behaviors and analyzed the individual resulting motor components.  An extended goal is the study of how changes or variations in the behavior are reflected in changes in the underlying neuronal activity.

Web Information

Website:  labs.mcb.harvard.edu/engert/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: lorian@mcb.harvard.edu Phone: 617-495-4382 Address: Harvard University BioLabs 16 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 2138

Research

Introduction

The general goal of the laboratory is the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling behavior using the larval zebrafish as a model system. To that end, we have established and quantified a series of visually induced behaviors and analyzed the individual resulting motor components. Using these assays in combination with various calcium indicators and two-photon microscopy we have monitored neuronal activity throughout the fish brain in an awake and intact preparation. An extended goal is the study of how changes or variations in the behavior are reflected in changes in the underlying neuronal activity. To that end, we have developed several quantitative learning assays and tools ...

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University Director, Engert Lab

The general goal of my research is the development of the larval zebrafish as a model system for the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling visually induced behaviors. My lab plans to establish and quantify a series of visually induced behaviours and analyze the individual resulting motor components. Using these assays we will monitor neuronal activity throughout the fish brain in an awake and intact preparation.

Web Information

Webpage: mcb.harvard.edu/mcb/faculty/profile/florian-engert/ Program in Neuroscience @Harvard  Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: lorian@mcb.harvard.edu Phone: 617-495-4382 Address: Harvard University BioLabs 16 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 2138

Research

Neuroscientists have long been working to understand how biological structures can produce the complex behaviors that are generated by the nervous system. However, even the basic operational principles governing a brain’s interconnected network of cells have remained painfully elusive. My laboratory is working on a scientific strategy focused on building a complete, multi-level picture of simple neural circuits that will advance our basic understanding of brain function and offers a complete view into the neuronal activity underlying a series of relatively complex behaviors. We are taking a first step towards this rather lofty goal via the comprehensive identification and examination of neural circuits controlling behavior in the ...

Principal Investigator: Florian Engert Program in Neuroscience @Harvard Title: “Neural circuits in zebrafish: form, function and plasticity” BRAIN Category: Understanding Neural Circuits (RFA NS-14-009)

Dr. Engert’s team will combine a wide array of cutting-edge neuroscience techniques to watch the entire brain activity of a see-through fish while it swims, and to make detailed maps of its brain circuitry.

NIH Webpages

n order to examine response properties of specific neuronal subpopulation in freely swimming larvae we have developed an imaging technique based on the bioluminescence of Aquorin-GFP that does not require excitation light and can therefore operate on a zero background signal 17. This optical signal can be collected with large angle optics and detected as a one-dimensional temporal signal by a photon multiplier tube. Figure 3 shows data from a first series of experiments in which Aquorin is expressed in the hypocretin system, a small nucleus consisting of less than 20 neurons that are known to regulate the sleep-wake cycle.The left side shows an in-vivo two-photon image of the transgenic fish and a diagram of the set-up. On the right side bioluminescence photon counts from the same fish are shown in green below traces describing the simultaneously monitored ...

Principal Investigator: Kevin J. Staley Neuroscience@Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital Title: “Mapping neuronal chloride microdomains” BRAIN Category: Tools for Cells and Circuits (RFA MH-14-216)

Using protein engineering technology to monitor the movement of chloride through inhibitory neurotransmitter receptor channels, Dr. Staley’s group aims to understand the role of chloride microdomains in memory.

NIH Webpages

Expression of NKCC1 transcripts in rat and mouse dorsal root ganglion (DRG) by RT-PCR and in situ hybridization (ISH).

Project Description

Dramatic new insights into the functioning of neural networks have been made possible by our ability to visualize neural function with calcium-sensitive fluorophores, and biology has been revolutionized by the ability to sequence and manipulate DNA, RNA, and proteins. Both of these tremendous advances have unexplored “flip sides”. Our understanding of neural network function remains limited by our inability see GABA-mediated synaptic activity: we can’t measure the output of the remarkable diversity of interneuron structure and function. Similarly, the methods for studying templated biopolymers such as DNA, RNA, and protein are not applicable to untemplated biopolymers such as polyglutamylated intracellular tubulin, and the variably sulfated glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) that comprise the extracellular matrix. The glutamate and sulfate moieties displace chloride, thereby defining chloride microdomains. These microdomains thus provide a ...

Principal Investigator: Joshua R  Sanes Neuroscience@Harvard Title: “Comprehensive Classification Of Neuronal Subtypes By Single Cell Transcriptomics” BRAIN Category: Census of Cell Types (RFA MH-14-215)

Dr. Sanes and colleagues will use new methods of genetic screening to comprehensively catalog and distinguish different kinds of cells across species and brain regions.

NIH Webpages

Immunoglobulin Superfamily Code for Laminar Specificity in Retina

Project Description

To understand the brain, we need a “parts list” of its cell types. The list will need to integrate molecular, functional and morphological data, but of these, molecular classification is best suited for comprehensive categorization and the only approach that can lead directly to genetically accessing the types; such access is essential in order to mark and manipulate neurons and to allow rigorous comparison of neurons from normal and diseased brains. We will apply the emerging method of single-cell transcriptional profiling (scRNA-seq) to this task. We will first rigorously compare and optimize cutting- edge methods for cell isolation, transcriptional profiling, and computational analysis to establish an efficientand effective pipeline for categorization. Then, we will apply our suite of methods to two brain regions – mouse retina and zebrafish habenula – that differ in several ways but share key features: ...

Associate Professor in Radiology, Harvard Medical School Associate Biophysicist, Massachusetts General Hospital Director, MGH NMR Core, Martinos Center

Technique development for high field imaging of the Brain. Development of 7 Tesla scanner and coils for imaging human brain function, highly parallel phased array coil development for 3T and 7T, Parallel transmit methods for B1+ mitigation in the head at 7T, and highly accelerated echo volume imaging.

Web Information

Webpage:  martinos.org/user/5615 Harvard Catalyst Profile: https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/42452 Neuroscience@Harvard  Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: wald@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu Phone: 617-724-9706 Address: Building 75, Room 2.109 13th Street Charlestown, MA 02129 USA

Biography

PhD Physics, U.C. Berkeley, 1992

Research

Technique development for high field imaging of the Brain. Development of 7 Tesla scanner and coils for imaging human brain function, highly parallel phased array coil development for 3T and 7T, Parallel transmit methods for B1+ mitigation in the head at 7T, and highly accelerated echo volume imaging.

Principal Investigator: Lawrence Wald Neuroscience@Harvard

The Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging dual mission includes translational research using state-of-the-art imaging technologies and ongoing development of those technologies. The core technologies being developed and used at the Center include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and more (see the navigation menu on the left for a complete list of the technologies). A key area of innovation is Multimodal Functional Neuroimaging, which involves the integration of two or more different imaging technologies.

Multimodal Functional Neuroimaging, which involves the integration of two or more different imaging technologies.

Web Information

Website:  www.martinos.org/ Brain Initiative Grant

Contact Information

Email: info@martinos.org Phone: 617-726-3197 Address: Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging 149 Thirteenth Street, Suite 2301 Charlestown, Massachusetts 02129

About

The Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital is one of the world’s premier research centers devoted to development and application of advanced biomedical imaging technologies. Our mission is to advance imaging in healthcare through technology development, translational research and education.

Located on the MGH Research Campus in Charlestown, the Center is home to roughly 100 faculty researchers and more than 200 affiliated and visiting faculty, postdoctoral research fellows and graduate students, who use advanced imaging technologies both separately ...