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Albert Lin working on a microscope in Aravi Samuel's lab

Community Stories

Accessible summaries of recent research papers written by HBI scientists.Learn more >

Faculty Directory

Learn more about the 100s of faculty members in our network.Learn more >

attendees of 2024 HBI Bipolard Disorder symposium

HBI Events

Check out our upcoming and past events!Learn more >

Humans of HBI

Interviews profiling faculty, fellows, students, and staff working in the Harvard neuroscience community.Humans of HBI

Human brain organoid showing the integration of excitatory (magenta) and inhibitory neurons (green) of the cerebral cortex

Seeding Solutions for Bipolar Disorder

The Harvard Gazette spotlights the HBI Bipolar Disorder Seed Grant Program and the projects of 2025 grantees Paola Arlotta, Nao Uchida, and Louisa Sylvia.Read more

Community Stories

Accessible summaries of recent research papers written by HBI scientists.Learn more >

Faculty Directory

Learn more about the 100s of faculty members in our network.Learn more >

attendees of 2024 hbi bipolar disorder symposium

HBI Events

Check out our upcoming and past events!Learn more >

Humans of HBI

Interviews profiling faculty, fellows, students, and staff working in the Harvard neuroscience community.Humans of HBI

Seeding Solutions for Bipolar Disorder

The Harvard Gazette spotlights the HBI Bipolar Disorder Seed Grant Program and the projects of 2025 grantees Paola Arlotta, Nao Uchida, and Louisa Sylvia.Read more

2025 BIPOLAR DISORDER SEED GRANT AWARDEES

Supported by the Dauten Family Foundation and Sandra Lee Chen and Sidney Chen, the HBI Bipolar Disorder Seed Grant Program funds research relevant to the basic understanding and treatment of bipolar disorder at Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals. We are delighted to announce the 2025 awardees! Click here to learn more about their projects.

Paola Arlotta
Harvard University

Catherine Dulac
Harvard University

Susan Dymecki
Harvard Medical School

Michael E. Greenberg
Harvard Medical School

Jun Huh
Harvard Medical School

William A. Carlezon Jr.
McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Jordan Farrell
Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Christopher Harvey
Harvard Medical School

Daniel Hochbaum
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School

Bernardo Sabatini
Harvard Medical School

Louisa Sylvia
Mass. General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Community Stories

A Silent Spinal Pathway Awakens in Chronic Pain

New research reveals that acute and chronic insults both reshape how pain signals are sent to the brain, but through distinct mechanisms. By using long-term calcium imaging in mice, researchers from the Woolf lab tracked the same spinal cord neurons over time and found that acute pain temporarily increases sensitivity, while chronic nerve injury recruits a previously ‘silent’ group of neurons – offering a potential key to understanding chronic pain.

Resting to Learn

Bryan Baxter and Dara Manoach share a new study on the brain basis of motor learning. When learning a typing task, epilepsy patients show higher rates of “hippocampal ripples”--an electrical activity pattern in the brain associated with memory formation--during brief rest breaks than during the typing itself. These ‘offline’ ripples predict gains in speed, suggesting that ripples contribute to motor learning during wakeful rest.

Advancing Metabolic Neuropsychiatry

Dost Öngür introduces a perspectives piece arising from a meeting he recently organized, bringing together experts in neuroscience, psychiatry, and metabolism to discuss how disruptions in brain energy metabolism may contribute to psychiatric disorders—and what might be done to develop innovative therapeutics.

Upcoming Events

Memorable Smells: The Science and Art of Fragrance

September 2, 2025
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Location: Northwest Building, Room 243

Venki Murthy will explore the relationship between scents, memories, and feelings in an informal conversation with artist and perfumer Lilja Birgisdottir and musician Kjartan Holm.

The Brain Body Dialogues in Health and Disease Symposium

September 17, 2025
9:45 am to 5:00 pm
Location: Merck Auditorium

Hosted by the HMS Department of Neurobiology, the Harvard Brain Science Initiative, and the K. Lisa Yang Brain Body Center.