As a cucumber plant grows, it sprouts tightly coiled tendrils that seek out supports in order to pull the plant upward. This ensures the plant receives as much sunlight exposure as possible. Now, researchers at MIT have found a way to imitate this coiling-and-pulling mechanism to produce contracting fibers that could be used as artificial […]
Ev Fedorenko studies the cognitive processes and brain regions underlying language, a signature cognitive skill that is uniquely and universally human. She investigates both people with linguistic impairments, and those that have exceptional language skills: hyperpolyglots, or people that are fluent in over a dozen languages. Indeed, she was recently interviewed for a BBC documentary […]
Exploring Language Evelina (Ev) Fedorenko aims to understand how the language system works in the brain. Her lab is unpacking the internal architecture of the brain’s language system and exploring the relationship between language and various cognitive, perceptual, and motor systems. To do this, her lab employs a range of approaches – from brain imaging […]
In a moment more reminiscent of a Comic-Con event than a typical MIT symposium, Shawn Robinson, senior research associate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, helped kick off the first-ever MIT Science of Reading event dressed in full superhero attire as Doctor Dyslexia Dude — the star of a graphic novel series he co-created […]
McGovern Institute investigator Mark Harnett is one of six young researchers selected to receive a prestigious 2019 McKnight Scholar Award. The award supports his research “studying how dendrites, the antenna-like input structures of neurons, contribute to computation in neural networks.” Harnett examines the biophysical properties of single neurons, ultimately aiming to understand how these relate […]
A team of researchers at the McGovern Institute and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a new technique for mapping cells. The approach, called DNA microscopy, shows how biomolecules such as DNA and RNA are organized in cells and tissues, revealing spatial and molecular information that is not easily accessible through other microscopy […]
Using the genome-editing system CRISPR, researchers at MIT and in China have engineered macaque monkeys to express a gene mutation linked to autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in humans. These monkeys show some behavioral traits and brain connectivity patterns similar to those seen in humans with these conditions. Mouse studies of autism and other neurodevelopmental […]
Imagine trying to focus on a friend’s voice at a noisy party, or blocking out the phone conversation of the person sitting next to you on the bus while you try to read. Both of these tasks require your brain to somehow suppress the distracting signal so you can focus on your chosen input. MIT […]
