Brain and cognitive sciences

Two MIT faculty were recently honored by Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative of Eric and Wendy Schmidt. MathWorks Professor Jörn Dunkel received the 2023 Schmidt Science Polymath award, and professor of computational cognitive science Josh Tenenbaum was named a Schmidt Futures AI2050 Senior Fellow. Also winning a Schmidt Science Polymath award was Surya Ganguli ’98, MNG ’98, who is an …

Connectomics, the ambitious field of study that seeks to map the intricate network of animal brains, is undergoing a growth spurt. Within the span of a decade, it has journeyed from its nascent stages to a discipline that is poised to (hopefully) unlock the enigmas of cognition and the physical underpinning of neuropathologies such as in Alzheimer’s disease. At its …

Anyone who has ever tried to pack a family-sized amount of luggage into a sedan-sized trunk knows this is a hard problem. Robots struggle with dense packing tasks, too. For the robot, solving the packing problem involves satisfying many constraints, such as stacking luggage so suitcases don’t topple out of the trunk, heavy objects aren’t placed on top of lighter …

The National Academy of Medicine announced the election of 100 new members to join their esteemed ranks in 2023, among them five MIT faculty members and seven additional affiliates. MIT professors Daniel Anderson, Regina Barzilay, Guoping Feng, Darrell Irvine, and Morgen Sheng were among the new members. Justin Hanes PhD ’96, Said Ibrahim MBA ’16, and Jennifer West ’92, along …

Imagine grasping a heavy object, like a pipe wrench, with one hand. You would likely grab the wrench using your entire fingers, not just your fingertips. Sensory receptors in your skin, which run along the entire length of each finger, would send information to your brain about the tool you are grasping. In a robotic hand, tactile sensors that use …

Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 6 million people in the United States, and there are very few FDA-approved treatments that can slow the progression of the disease. In hopes of discovering new targets for potential Alzheimer’s treatments, MIT researchers have performed the broadest analysis yet of the genomic, epigenomic, and transcriptomic changes that occur in every cell type in the …

Imagine you’re enjoying a picnic by a riverbank on a windy day. A gust of wind accidentally catches your paper napkin and lands on the water’s surface, quickly drifting away from you. You grab a nearby stick and carefully agitate the water to retrieve it, creating a series of small waves. These waves eventually push the napkin back toward the …

There has been a remarkable surge in the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence to address a wide range of problems and challenges. While their adoption, particularly with the rise of AI, is reshaping nearly every industry sector, discipline, and area of research, such innovations often expose unexpected consequences that involve new norms, new expectations, and new rules and laws. …

When interacting with another person, you likely spend part of your time trying to anticipate how they will feel about what you’re saying or doing. This task requires a cognitive skill called theory of mind, which helps us to infer other people’s beliefs, desires, intentions, and emotions. MIT neuroscientists have now designed a computational model that can predict other people’s …

Your brain is powered by 400 miles of blood vessels that provide nutrients, clear out waste products, and form a tight protective barrier — the blood-brain barrier — that controls which molecules can enter or exit. However, it has remained unclear how these brain vascular cells change between brain regions, or in Alzheimer’s disease, at single-cell resolution. To address this …

Twenty-four individuals and one team were awarded MIT Excellence Awards — the highest awards for staff at the Institute — at a well-attended and energetic ceremony the afternoon of June 8 in Kresge Auditorium. In addition to the Excellence Awards, two community members were honored with the Collier Medal and Staff Award for Distinction in Service. The Excellence Awards, Collier …

Imagine sitting on a park bench, watching someone stroll by. While the scene may constantly change as the person walks, the human brain can transform that dynamic visual information into a more stable representation over time. This ability, known as perceptual straightening, helps us predict the walking person’s trajectory. Unlike humans, computer vision models don’t typically exhibit perceptual straightness, so …