MIT has numerous academic and research programs related to neuroscience. Key institutions include the Department of Brain, and Cognitive Sciences, Department of Biological Engineering, and the MIT Media Lab.

Important neuroscience related centers include: Center for Neurobiological Engineering (CNBE); McGovern Institute Neurotechnology (MINT) program; Simons Center for the Social Brain (SCSB); Synthetic Biology Center;Picower Center for Learning and Memory; and the Martinos Imaging Center at MIT.

Grant Information

Brain Initiative Grant – “Advancing MRI & MRS Technologies for Studying Human Brain Function and Energetics” Brain Initiative Grant – “Novel technologies for nontoxic transsynaptic tracing”“Novel technologies for nontoxic transsynaptic tracing” Brain Initiative Grant – “Ultra-Multiplexed Nanoscale In Situ Proteomics for Understanding Synapse Types” Brain Initiative Grant – “Calcium sensors for molecular fMRI” Brain Initiative Grant – “Next generation high-throughput random access imaging, in vivo” Brain Initiative Grant – “Cortical circuits and information flow during memory-guided perceptual decisions”

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences

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48 faculty members,over 200 graduate & undergraduate students, 180 researchers and post-docs and 36 staff

Department Head: James Dicarlo, PhD

Department of Biological Engineering

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MIT Media Lab

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Research Centers 

Center for Neurobiological Engineering (CNBE)

Associate Professor of Cognitive Science, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Principal Investigator, Computation Perception & Cognition Lab

Dr. Oliva’s research program is in the field of Computational Visual Cognition, a framework that strives to identify the substrates of complex visual recognition tasks and to develop models inspired by human perception and cognition. The natural visual environment is composed of three-dimensional objects, with textures, colors, and materials, embedded in an explicit spatial layout.

Web Information

MIT webpage: http://bcs.mit.edu/people/oliva.html

Lab website: http://cvcl.mit.edu/aude.htm

MIT Neuroscience: http://brain2015.onair.cc/mit-neuroscience/

Contact Information

Email: oliva@mit.edu

Address: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Building: 46-4065

Research

My research program is in the field of Computational Visual Cognition, a framework that strives to identify the substrates of complex visual recognition tasks and to develop models inspired by human perception and cognition. The natural visual environment is composed of three-dimensional objects, with textures, colors, and materials, embedded in an explicit spatial layout. Yet, the human brain understands scenes, places and events quickly and effortlessly, outperforming the most advanced artificial vision system. In the lab, we use multi-disciplinary techniques from behavioral sciences, cognitive neuroscience and computational vision, to identify key principles of human object, scene and space understanding and evaluate the capacity and fidelity of human memory systems for guiding ...

Time, Space and Computation: Converging Human Neuroscience and Computer Science

Video from BRAIN Workshop – “Research Interfaces between Brain Science and Computer Science”

December 3-5, 2014 Washington, DC

Published on Jan. 5, 2015 by computingresearch

For more information on Aude Oliva, go this BRAIN 2015 post

PI: Robert Desimone Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: “Vascular Interfaces for Brain Imaging and Stimulation” BRAIN category: Next Generation Human Imaging (RFA MH-14-217)

Dr. Desimone’s project will access the brain through its network of blood vessels to less invasively image, stimulate and monitor electrical and molecular activity than existing methods.

NIH Webpages

Sketch showing constitution of blood vessels inside the brain. Credit: Armin Kübelbeck

Project Description

Functional MRI (fMRI), EEG, and other completely noninvasive modalities for large-scale imaging of human brain activity have pioneeringly revealed many human brain functions, but cannot reach the single-neuron, single-spike level of neural code analysis possible in animals obtained using electrodes. This is partly due to the indirect methods of observation employed (e.g., blood flow for fMRI) and due to blurring of signals over distance by the skull (e.g., for EEG). In contrast, invasive approaches such as trans-cranially implanted multi- electrode arrays can achieve single-cell, single-spike resolution, but they necessitate opening of the skull – and, for implanted arrays, damage of the brain tissue – limiting utility to a small fraction of the population, those undergoing neurosurgery for some intractable brain disorder that justifies the risk. Trans-cranially implanted arrays also degrade i performance over time ...

Edwards S. Boyden Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: “Ultra-Multiplexed Nanoscale In Situ Proteomics for Understanding Synapse Types” BRAIN category: Tools for Cells and Circuits (RFA MH-14-216)

Dr. Boyden’s team will simultaneously image both the identities and locations of multiple proteins within individual synapses – made possible by a new technique called DNA-PAINT.

NIH Webpages

DNA-PAINT super-resolution image of microtubules inside a fixed HeLa cell using Atto 655–labeled imager strands (10,000 frames, 10-Hz frame rate). Inset, labeling and imaging schematic for DNA-PAINT in a cellular environment. From Neuron doi:10.1038/nmeth.2835

Project Description

Significant work is ongoing to reveal how different cell types in the brain contribute to behavior and pathology, and how they change in plasticity and disease, empowered by new genetic, optical, and physiological tools. However, the functional activity and dysregulation of neuronal circuits relies critically on the in situ molecular composition of neuronal synapses. Although it is clear that the properties of a given synapse are determined by, amongst other things, the specific types of cells that are thus connected, far less is known about the diversity of synapse types in the brain than cell types, perhaps because this is an intrinsically proteomic problem: a given neuron might make many ...

Principal Investigator: Ian Wickersham MIT Neuroscience Title: “Novel technologies for nontoxic transsynaptic tracing” BRAIN Category: Tools for Cells and Circuits (RFA MH-14-216)

Dr. Wickersham and colleagues will develop nontoxic viral tracers to assist in the study of neural circuitry underlying complex behaviors.

NIH Webpages

(a–c) Injection site in mouse somatosensory thalamus of an equal mixture of two deletion-mutant rabies viral vectors: VSVG-enveloped vector encoding mOrange2 (yellow), and an RVG-enveloped vector encoding mCherry (red). The VSVG-enveloped vector prolifically infects thalamic neurons at the injection site, whereas the RVG-enveloped one infects far fewer cells locally. (d–f) In the somatosensory cortex of the same mouse, mOrange2-filled thalamocortical axons ascend to layer 4 and densely ramify among the apical dendrites of mCherry-filled layer 6 corticothalamic cells retrogradely infected by the co-injected retrograde virus. Scale bar, 200 μm, applies to all panels.

Project Description

Genetic tools have dramatically increased the power and resolution of neuroscientific experiments, allowing monitoring and perturbation of specific neuronal populations within the brain, often in the context of complex cognitive and behavioral paradigms. However, the usefulness of these tools is limited by the available means of delivering them in circuit-specific ways, a major drawback in view of the critical importance of specific connectivity ...

Professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Biology, MIT Neuroscience Principal Investigator, Nedivi Lab

The Nedivi lab, part of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, studies the cellular mechanisms that underlie activity-dependent plasticity in the developing and adult brain through studies of neuronal structural dynamics, identification of the participating genes, and characterization of the proteins they encode.

Web Information

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences page: biology.mit.edu/people/elly_nedivi

Picower Institute for Learning and Memory page:  picower.mit.edu/Faculty/

Lab page: web.mit.edu/nedivi-lab/

MIT Neuroscience: neuroscience.onair.cc/mit-neuroscience/

Contact Information

Email: nedivi@mit.edu

Phone: 617-253-2344

Address: Room 46-3239

Biography

Elly Nedivi received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University Medical School and completed her postdoctoral training at The Weizmann Institute in Israel. In 1998, after two years at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, she joined the faculty of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. She also has an appointment in the Department of Biology at MIT.

Selected Awards

Julie Martin Mid-Career Award in Aging Research

Edgerly Innovation Fund Award

Dean’s Education and Student Advising Award

Sloan Research Fellow

NSF POWRE Award

Ellison New Scholar Award

Research

Candidate Plasticity Genes

To understand the cellular mechanisms that underlie activity-dependent plasticity in the developing and adult brain, we are identifying and characterizing the participating genes and the function of ...

PI: Alan Jasanoff Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: “Calcium sensors for molecular fMRI” BRAIN category: Large-Scale Recording-Modulation – New Technologies (RFA NS-14-007)

Dr. Jasanoff’s team will synthesize calcium-sensing contrast agents that will allow functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to reveal activity of individual brain cells.

NIH Webpages

Project Description

The development of minimally invasive direct readouts of neural activity is one of the greatest challenges facing neuroscience today. Our recent work has shown that it is possible to perform high resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of molecular-level phenomena using MRI contrast agents sensitive to hallmarks of neurotransmitter release. An even more valuable contribution would be the creation of calcium sensors suitable for molecular fMRI of intracellular neural signaling processes. Functional imaging performed with these sensors would combine the noninvasiveness and whole-brain coverage of MRI with the molecular specificity and broad applicability of established optical calcium neuroimaging techniques. Calcium-dependent fMRI will be a breakthrough technique for analysis of neural circuits in animals, with potential longer term applications in humans. The technique could achieve cellular resolution in conjunction with ultrahigh field MRI scanners and cell labeling techniques. A major hurdle in realizing this advance is the creation of effective calcium-dependent MRI contrast agents, however. This proposal describes ...

Principal Investigator: Elly  Nedivi Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title: “Next generation high-throughput random access imaging, in vivo” BRAIN category: Large-Scale Recording-Modulation – Optimization (RFA NS-14-008)

Dr. Nedivi’s team proposes a new imaging technology to simultaneously record activity at each of the thousands of synapses, or communication points, on a single neuron.

NIH Webpages

Project Description

The goal of this proposal is to develop new methods for high speed monitoring of sensory-driven synaptic activity across all inputs to single living neurons in the context of the intact cerebral cortex. Although our focus is on understanding how synaptic inputs are integrated across a single neuron embedded in an intact circuit, the next generation random access imaging technology we propose is more broadly applicable for monitoring multi-cellular activity representing large intra-and inter areal neuronal networks. The approach improves on the speed and sensitivity of current random-access technology by nearly 2 orders of magnitude, enabling high- throughput interrogation of up to 104 independent locations within a fraction of a millisecond and compatible with imaging using next generation voltage sensitive indicators. ...

Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Health Sciences and Technology, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology At large member of the Multi-Council Working Group

Brown’s lab is using a systems neuroscience approach to study how the state of general anesthesia is induced and maintained. To do so, the lab is using fMRI, EEG, neurophysiological recordings, microdialysis methods and mathematical modeling.

Web Information

MIT Webpage:  bcs.mit.edu/people/brown

Lab page: Neuroscience Statistics Research Lab

Contact Information

Email: enb@neurostat.mit.edu

Address: Building: 46-6079

Research

From MIT webpage

Neural Signal Processing Algorithms

Recent technological and experimental advances in the capabilities to record signals from neural systems have led to an unprecedented increase in the types and volume of data collected in neuroscience experiments and hence, in the need for appropriate techniques to analyze them. Therefore, using combinations of likelihood, Bayesian, state-space, time-series and point process approaches, a primary focus of the research in my laboratory is the development of statistical methods and signal-processing algorithms for neuroscience data analysis.

We have used our methods to:

“How do we see neurons, the brain’s principal functional units? Discover new views made possible by Multi-photon microscopy.”

Part 1 of 12 featuring MIT Professors Elly Nedivi and Peter So.

Video published on Sept. 24, 2014 by EyeWire

Profile of Elly Nedivi

Professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Biology, MIT Neuroscience Principal Investigator, Nedivi Lab

The Nedivi lab, part of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, studies the cellular mechanisms that underlie activity-dependent plasticity in the developing and adult brain through studies of neuronal structural dynamics, identification of the participating genes, and characterization of the proteins they encode.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has revolutionized our understanding of the human brain, but the method is now approaching the limit of its capabilities. Alan Jasanoff hopes to break through this limit and to develop new technologies for imaging the molecular and cellular phenomena that underlie brain function.

Video published on Mar 9, 2010 by mittechtv

Profile

Associate Professor of Biological Engineering with appointments in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT Neuroscience Associate member of the McGovern Institute Principal Investigator, Jasanoff Lab

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has revolutionized our understanding of the human brain, but the method is now approaching the limit of its capabilities. Alan Jasanoff hopes to break through this limit and to develop new technologies for imaging the molecular and cellular phenomena that underlie brain function.

“The B.R.A.I.N. Initiative faces a major technological barrier in obtaining high resolution, real-time recordings of brain activity over large areas of the brain. Leading researchers will explore available and promising approaches to surmounting that barrier, exploring current work and future possibilities for the detection and recording of the range of relevant electrical and chemical signals in the nervous system.”

Presentation by Alan Jasanoff of Jasnoff Lab research Published on June 16, 2014 by Calit2ube

Lab Profile

Principal Investigator, Alan Jasanoff MIT Neuroscience

Jasanoff Lab is developing a new generation of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods to study the neural mechanisms of behavior.The Lab’s focus is on the design and application of new contrast agents that may help define spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity with far better precision and resolution than current techniques allow. Experiments using the new agents will combine the specificity of cellular neuroimaging with the whole brain coverage and noninvasiveness of conventional fMRI.