Ready to learn? Brain scans can tell you. A team led by Professor John Gabrieli has shown that activity in a specific part of the brain, known as the parahippocampal cortex (PHC), predicts how well people will remember a visual scene.
Image courtesy of GABLab
Spotlights
Robots that reveal the inner workings of brain cells
New method offers automated way to record electrical activity inside neurons in the living brain. A collaborative between the labs of Ed Boyden, MIT and Craig Forest of Georgia Tech. Read More>>
Institute faculty share prestigious neuroscience prize
Ed Boyden and Feng Zhang awarded the Perl/UNC Neuroscience Prize Read More>>
13 Faculty members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Emery Brown and Matthew Wilson are among 13 MIT faculty members elected as new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Read More>>
New tools to answer timeless questions
Alan Jasanoff is designing imaging sensors that could help reveal the brain's inner workings. Read More>>
Reversing Alzheimer's gene 'blockade' can restore memory, other cognitive functions
Neuroscientists show that HDAC2 enzyme could be a good target for new drugs. Read More>>
James DiCarlo to head Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
New Department head suceeds Mriganka Sur, who will lead the new Simons Center for the Social Brain at MIT. Read More>>
Seeking the neurological roots of conflict
MIT neuroscientists explore how longstanding conflict influences empathy for others. Read More>>
The advantage of ambiguity
Cognitive scientists develop a new take on an old problem: why human language has so many words with multiple meanings. Read More>>
Neuroscientists identify a master controller of memory
One gene appears to regulate the brain's ability to form new memories. Read More>>
How does our brain know what is a face and what's not?
New research from MIT neuroscientists helps explain how the brain makes this decision. Read More>>
Patterns of connections reveal brain functions
Neuroscientists identify face-recognition areas based on what parts of the brain they link to. Read More>>
The Mystery Behind Anesthesia
Mapping how our neural circuits change under the influence of anesthesia could shed light on one of neuroscience's most perplexing riddles: conciousness. Read More>>
Unraveling how a mutation can lead to psychiatric illness
MIT neuroscientists show that a gene linked with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder impairs early brain development. Read More>>
Oliva explores new ground in computational perception at CSAIL
Neuroscientist looks forward to collaborative studies of visual perception in the brain and its computational applications. Read More>>
Stars in your eyes to help blind people see
Stand up too quickly and you might see stars. Analysing the area of the brain that creates these flashes of light could help blind people to see. Read More>>
Brain rhythms are key to learning
New study from MIT neuroscientists finds that brain waves shift frequency as a new task becomes routine. Read More>>
How to reverse general anesthesia
Neuroscientists find that Ritalin could help bring surgical patients out of surgery much more quickly, with less grogginess. Read More>>
Localizing language in the brain
New Study pinpoints areas of the brain used exclusively for language, providing a partial answer to a longstanding debate in cognitive science. Read More>>
Scene perception versus action in the brain
Cognitive neuroscientists shed light on how the brain responds to scenes and their mirror-image reversals. Read More>>
Ready to Learn? Brain scans can tell you
Neuroscientists identify brain activity that predicts how well you will remember images. Read More>>
Emery N. Brown receives the 2011 Jerome Sacks Award
The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) has presented the 2011 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research to Emery N. Brown, professor of HST and computational neuroscience at MIT. Read More>>
Portable, super-high-resolution 3-D imaging
A simple new imaging system could help manufactureres inspect their products, forensics experts identify weapons and doctors identify cancers. Read More>>
Recognizing voices depends on language ability
Study finds that for people with dyslexia, it's much harder to identify who is speaking. Read More>>
Don't show, don't tell?
Cognitive scientists find that when teaching young children, thre is a trade-off between instruction and independent exploration. Read More>>
We want to know how the mind works
MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences stands at the nexus of neuroscience, biology and psychology. We combine these disciplines to study specific aspects of the brain and mind including: vision, movement systems, learning and memory, neural and cognitive development, language and reasoning. Working collaboratively, we apply our expertise, tools, and techniques to address and answer both fundamental and universal questions about how the brain and mind work.
don't you?