In a study of adults who use cannabis because they are seeking relief from pain, depression, anxiety, or insomnia, scientists at MIT and Harvard found no changes in brain activity after one year of self-directed use. The study, reported September 18, 2024, in JAMA Network Open, is among the first to investigate how the real-world […]
What is it like to give birth on Mars? Can bioengineer TikTok stars win at the video game “Super Smash Brothers” while also answering questions about science? How do sheep, mouse, and human brains compare? These questions and others were asked last month when more than 50,000 visitors from across Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Greater Boston […]
Within the human brain, movement is coordinated by a brain region called the striatum, which sends instructions to motor neurons in the brain. Those instructions are conveyed by two pathways, one that initiates movement (“go”) and one that suppresses it (“no-go”). In a new study, MIT researchers have discovered an additional two pathways that arise […]
The National Academy of Medicine recently announced the election of more than 90 members during its annual meeting, including MIT faculty members Matthew Vander Heiden and Fan Wang, along with five MIT alumni. Election to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine […]
When an election result is disputed, people who are skeptical about the outcome may be swayed by figures of authority who come down on one side or the other. Those figures can be independent monitors, political figures, or news organizations. However, these “debunking” efforts don’t always have the desired effect, and in some cases, they can […]
Novel magnetic nanodiscs could provide a much less invasive way of stimulating parts of the brain, paving the way for stimulation therapies without implants or genetic modification, MIT researchers report. The scientists envision that the tiny discs, which are about 250 nanometers across (about 1/500 the width of a human hair), would be injected directly […]
A classical way to image nanoscale structures in cells is with high-powered, expensive super-resolution microscopes. As an alternative, MIT researchers have developed a way to expand tissue before imaging it — a technique that allows them to achieve nanoscale resolution with a conventional light microscope. In the newest version of this technique, the researchers have […]
The Blavatnik Family Foundation and New York Academy of Sciences has announced the honorees of the 2024 Blavatnik National Awards, and McGovern Investigator Polina Anikeeva is among five finalists in the category of physical sciences and engineering. Anikeeva, the Matoula S. Salapatas Professor in Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, works at the intersection of […]
