MIT’s McGovern Institute and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences welcome new faculty member Sven Dorkenwald
The McGovern Institute and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences are pleased to announce the appointment of Sven Dorkenwald as an assistant professor starting in January 2026. A trailblazer in the field of computational neuroscience, Dorkenwald is recognized for his leadership in connectomics—an emerging discipline focused on reconstructing and analyzing neural circuitry at unprecedented […]
Feng Zhang elected to EMBO membership
The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), a professional non-profit organization dedicated to promoting international research in life sciences, announced its new members today. Among the 69 new members recognized for their outstanding achievements is Feng Zhang, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and an investigator at the McGovern Institute. Zhang, who […]
Researchers present bold ideas for AI at MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium kickoff event
Launched in February of this year, the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC), a presidential initiative led by MIT’s Office of Innovation and Strategy and administered by the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing, issued a call for proposals, inviting researchers from across MIT to submit ideas for innovative projects studying high-impact uses of […]
How the brain solves complicated problems
The human brain is very good at solving complicated problems. One reason for that is that humans can break problems apart into manageable subtasks that are easy to solve one at a time. This allows us to complete a daily task like going out for coffee by breaking it into steps: getting out of our office building, navigating to the coffee shop, and once […]
How the brain distinguishes between ambiguous hypotheses
When navigating a place that we’re only somewhat familiar with, we often rely on unique landmarks to help make our way. However, if we’re looking for an office in a brick building, and there are many brick buildings along our route, we might use a rule like looking for the second building on a street, […]