Author: Julie Pryor

MIT researchers to win awards from the Society for Neuroscience

Anne Trafton |

Three neuroscientists at MIT have been selected to receive awards from the Society for Neuroscience (SfN).

Tomaso Poggio, a founding member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, will receive the Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience; Feng Zhang, a member of the McGovern Institute and an assistant professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, will receive the Young Investigator Award; and Sung-Yon Kim, a Simons postdoctoral fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation at MIT, will receive the Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience.
 
The awards will be presented during Neuroscience 2014, the SfN’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience
 

The $25,000 Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, supported by the Swartz Foundation, recognizes an individual who has produced a significant cumulative contribution to theoretical models or computational methods in neuroscience.

“Dr. Poggio’s contributions to the development of computational and theoretical models of the human visual system have served to advance our understanding of how human systems learn from experience,” said Carol Mason, president of SfN. “It is an honor to recognize him as a founder and driving force in the field of computational neuroscience.”

Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the director of the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, develops computational models of the brain to understand human intelligence. Specifically, he has developed models that mimic the ways that humans learn to recognize objects, such as faces, and actions, such as motion — applications now present in digital cameras and some cars. Poggio is currently working to develop more complex models that mimic the forward as well as feedback signals that the human brain uses during visual recognition. The ultimate goal of this research is to better understand how the brain works and to apply this technology to build intelligent machines.


Young Investigator Award
 

The SfN has also named two winners of this year’s Young Investigator Award: Feng Zhang of MIT and Diana Bautista of the University of California at Berkeley.

The $15,000 award recognizes the outstanding achievements and contributions by a young neuroscientist who has recently received his or her advanced professional degree.

“Drs. Zhang and Bautista are two young neuroscientists who have demonstrated remarkable dedication to their work,” Mason said. “Their creative research is advancing their respective fields, and their commitment to helping other scientists succeed is an inspiration to us all.”

Zhang, who is also a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the W. M. Keck Career Development Professor in Biomedical Engineering, uses synthetic biology methods to study brain disease.
 
As a graduate student at Stanford University, Zhang was instrumental in advancing the development of optogenetic technology, which allows researchers to manipulate genetically modified neurons with light. More recently, Zhang was a leader in the development of the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing – a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the potential to treat human genetic disease.

Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience
 


The SfN will award the Donald B. Lindsley Prize to Sung-Yon Kim, a postdoc in Kwanghun Chung’s lab at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

Supported by The Grass Foundation, the prize recognizes an outstanding PhD thesis in the area of general behavioral neuroscience.
 
Kim, who earned his PhD at Stanford University, used optogenetics to study the brain circuits underlying anxiety.

“The Society is pleased to honor Dr. Kim’s groundbreaking research in the neuroanatomical basis of anxiety behavior,” said Mason. “His approach to behavioral neuroscience will likely have a broad and lasting impact on biology and medicine.”

2014 Winter Clothing Drive

Anne Trafton |

As winter and cold weather approaches, many people begin looking for opportunities to give back to their communities. The Thanksgiving season is a favorite time for charitable giving, and we encourage those looking to have a positive impact in someone’s life to lend us a hand in supporting CASPAR, a charitable neighbor of MIT right here in Cambridge.

CASPAR is a nonprofit organization that provides services to those affected by substance abuse disorders in Cambridge and Somerville. They have worked closely with MIT since 1994, when the Institute helped to build CASPAR’s Emergency Services Center (ESC) and Shelter on MIT property. Located just across the street from Ashdown, MIT’s oldest graduate residence, the ESC welcomes dozens of individuals struggling with drug use, alcohol abuse, and homelessness in from the cold. At the Center, CASPAR provides medical and mental health care, nutritional food, personal hygiene supplies, clean clothes, counseling, and employment housing and treatment referrals in an environment that is welcoming and safe.

Please join the McGovern Institute’s Winter Supply Collection Drive to benefit CASPAR. Our office has partnered with the MIT Office of Government and Community Relations and the Department of Facilities for this annual drive; we know that, together, we can continue MIT’s support of the work that CASPAR does for our community.

CASPAR is in need of gently used items such as: jeans, sweatshirts/fleeces, hats, gloves, winter boots, coats/vests, men’s belts, linens, twin-size blankets, towels, new socks, new undergarments, and new toiletries such as feminine products and packaged disposable razors. Larger sizes of all items are especially welcome. Drop off boxes will be located in McGovern Headquarters through Nov. 17.

Genome Editing with CRISPR – Cas9

Anne Trafton |

This animation depicts the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing – a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the potential to treat human genetic disease. Feng Zhang, a leader in the development of this technology, is a faculty member at MIT, an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and a core member of the Broad Institute.

 

Halloween Party 2014

Anne Trafton |

Click on the thumbnails below to view more images from the Halloween party.

The brain is a Swiss Army Knife: Nancy Kanwisher at TED2014

Anne Trafton |

Brain imaging pioneer Nancy Kanwisher, who uses fMRI scans to see activity in brain regions (often her own), shares what she and her colleagues have learned: The brain is made up of both highly specialized components and general-purpose “machinery.” Another surprise: There’s so much left to learn.

Learn more about Nancy’s research by visiting her website, which contains short talks on the different scientific methods neuroscientists can use to study the human mind and brain.

Fifteen MIT scientists receive NIH BRAIN Initiative grants

Anne Trafton |

Today, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced their first round of BRAIN Initiative award recipients. Six teams and 15 researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were recipients.

Mriganka Sur, principal investigator at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Paul E. Newton Professor of Neuroscience in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) leads a team studying cortical circuits and information flow during memory-guided perceptual decisions. Co-principal investigators include Emery Brown, BCS professor of computational neuroscience and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering; Kwanghun Chung, Picower Institute principal investigator and assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES); and Ian Wickersham, research scientist at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and head of MIT’s Genetic Neuroengineering Group.

Elly Nedivi, Picower Institute principal investigator and professor in BCS and the Department of Biology, leads a team studying 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. Her co-principal investigator is Peter So, professor of mechanical and biological engineering, and director of the MIT Laser Biomedical Research Center.

Ian Wickersham will lead a team looking at novel technologies for nontoxic transsynaptic tracing. His co-principal investigators include Robert Desimone, director of the McGovern Institute and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience in BCS; Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute and the Picower Professor of Neuroscience in BCS; and Kay Tye, Picower Institute principal investigator and assistant professor of neuroscience in BCS.

Robert Desimone will lead a team studying vascular interfaces for brain imaging and stimulation. Co-principal investigators include Ed Boyden, associate professor at the MIT Media Lab, McGovern Institute, and departments of BCS and Biological Engineering; head of MIT’s Synthetic Neurobiology Group, and co-director of MIT’s Center for Neurobiological Engineering; and Elazer Edelman, the Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Professor of Health Sciences and Technology in IMES and director of the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center. Collaborators on this project include: Rodolfo Llinas (New York University), George Church (Harvard University), Jan Rabaey (University of California at Berkeley), Pablo Blinder (Tel Aviv University), Eric Leuthardt (Washington University/St. Louis), Michel Maharbiz (Berkeley), Jose Carmena (Berkeley), Elad Alon (Berkeley), Colin Derdeyn (Washington University in St. Louis), Lowell Wood (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), Xue Han (Boston University), and Adam Marblestone (MIT).

Ed Boyden will be co-principal investigator with Mark Bathe, associate professor of biological engineering, and Peng Yin of Harvard on a project to study ultra-multiplexed nanoscale in situ proteomics for understanding synapse types.

Alan Jasanoff, associate professor of biological engineering and director of the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, will lead a team looking at calcium sensors for molecular fMRI. Stephen Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, is co-principal investigator.

In addition, Sur and Wickersham also received BRAIN Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Sur will focus on massive-scale multi-area single neuron recordings to reveal circuits underlying short-term memory. Wickersham, in collaboration with Li-Huei Tsai, Kay Tye, and Robert Desimone, will develop cell-type specific optogenetics in wild-type animals. Additional information about NSF support of the BRAIN initiative can be found at NSF.gov/brain.

The BRAIN Initiative, spearheaded by President Obama in April 2013, challenges the nation’s leading scientists to advance our sophisticated understanding of the human mind and discover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia, autism, and traumatic brain injury. The scientific community is charged with accelerating the invention of cutting-edge technologies that can produce dynamic images of complex neural circuits and illuminate the interaction of lightning-fast brain cells. The new capabilities are expected to provide greater insights into how brain functionality is linked to behavior, learning, memory, and the underlying mechanisms of debilitating disease. BRAIN was launched with approximately $100 million in initial investments from the NIH, the National Science Foundation, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

BRAIN Initiative scientists are engaged in a challenging and transformative endeavor to explore how our minds instantaneously processes, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information. Their discoveries will unlock many of the remaining mysteries inherent in the brain’s billions of neurons and trillions of connections, leading to a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of many neurological and psychiatric conditions. Their findings will enable scientists and doctors to develop the groundbreaking arsenal of tools and technologies required to more effectively treat those suffering from these devastating disorders.