Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), neuroscientists have identified several regions of the brain that are responsible for processing language. However, discovering the specific functions of neurons in those regions has proven difficult because fMRI, which measures changes in blood flow, doesn’t have high enough resolution to reveal what small populations of neurons are doing. Now, using a more precise technique that involves recording electrical activity directly from the brain, MIT neuroscientists have identified different clusters of neurons that appear to process different amounts of linguistic context. These “temporal windows” range from just one word up to about six words.

Placebos are inert treatments, generally not expected to impact biological pathways or improve a person’s physical health. But time and again, some patients report that they feel better after taking a placebo. Increasingly, doctors and scientists are recognizing that rather than dismissing placebos as mere trickery, they may be able to help patients by harnessing their power. To maximize the impact of the placebo effect and design reliable therapeutic strategies, researchers need a better understanding of how it works. Now, with a new animal model developed by scientists at the McGovern Institute at MIT, they will be able to investigate the neural circuits that underlie placebos’ ability to elicit pain relief.

The idea of electrically stimulating a brain region called the central thalamus has gained traction among researchers and clinicians because it can help arouse subjects from unconscious states induced by traumatic brain injury or anesthesia, and can boost cognition and performance in awake animals. But the method, called CT-DBS, can have a side effect: seizures. A new study by researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who were testing the method in awake mice quantifies the probability of seizures at different stimulation currents and cautions that they sometimes occurred even at low levels.

“Understanding production and prevalence of this type of seizure activity is important because brain stimulation-based therapies are becoming more widely used,” says co-senior author Emery N. Brown, Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and the Center for Brains Minds and Machines (CBMM) at MIT.