Brain regions that preferentially process faces, places, and words may emerge naturally from exposure to diverse images, without requiring built-in structures dedicated to specific categories. By training AI models to distinguish images based on visual differences alone, researchers found that brain-aligned category-selective neurons emerged spontaneously in the model.

Up to 10 percent of the population has dyslexia, yet many children are diagnosed only after struggling with reading for years. EarlyBird, a product that grew from research at Boston Children’s Hospital and incubated in the hospital’s Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA), can identify children at risk for dyslexia before they start formal reading instruction, then help them build the skills they need in a fun game format.

A lot is unknown about how brain circuits develop and mature in babies and toddlers. Carol Wilkinson shares new data on developmental trajectories of EEG activity from 0-3 years—revealing age-dependent, nonlinear changes in periodic alpha and beta brain waves that are suggestive of distinct milestones in circuit maturation.

Joe Kossowsky and colleagues (first author Danielle A Wallace) found that participants who spent more time in bright light had more regular sleep, and that more regular sleep was associated with lower depression symptoms and lower odds of mild or severe depression

Scientists create realistic virtual rodent with digital neural network to study how the brain controls complex, coordinated movement.

Chronic loneliness was associated with higher stroke risk independent of depressive symptoms or social isolation. Addressing loneliness may have an important role in stroke prevention, and repeated assessments of loneliness over time may help identify those particularly at risk.

Just talking to other people can stimulate different brain functions among socially isolated older adults, even when the interactions are internet-based, according to a new clinical trial out of Massachusetts General Hospital.

A hallmark of anorexia nervosa is the willful seeking and maintenance of a starvation state, potentially as a means to cope with stressful life experiences or trauma. Hakan Kucukdereli and Mark Andermann share their research on how they designed a virtual reality paradigm to study this phenomenon in mice.

A new study led by researchers at McLean Hospital and Washington State University used advances in digital testing to demonstrate that naturally occurring glucose fluctuations impact cognitive function in people with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

The Harvard Gazette profiles the work of the lab of Nadine Gaab, specifically their ongoing BabyBOLD study. Gaab’s team enrolls infants between 3 and 8 months with familial risk for reading disabilities. They found that some atypical brain characteristics involving white matter (where information and communication is exchanged), connectivity patterns, and other measurements found in older children are already present as early as infancy.

Deep brain stimulation is a powerful therapeutic approach for severe brain circuit dysfunctions that can effectively alleviate the heterogeneous symptoms characteristic of Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, Tourette’s syndrome, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Barbara Hollunder (Lab of Andreas Horn) explains what invasive brain stimulation can teach us about the circuit architecture of the brain’s dysfunction — and which commonalities it shares with a prism.

The mind can wander and uncouple from the present experience of the body, but how does it snap back into the present? Jordan Farrell shares new research that points towards a brain circuit phenomenon that may explain this shift.

Thyroid signaling plays a central role in metabolism. Ralph Lawton and Daniel Hochbaum of the Sabatini Lab share new research revealing it may regulate human behavior and other important components of health as well.

The Uchida lab used a genetically encoded glutamate sensor to examine the pattern of glutamate inputs to dopamine neurons in mice. Combining the results with existing knowledge about GABA signaling to these neurons, they gained a new understanding of how these two neurotransmitters collaborate to bring dopamine neurons the information they need to encode reward prediction error (RPE)—the difference between expected and received rewards.

Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital demonstrate how neurons in the human brain work together to allow people to think about what words they want to say and then produce them aloud through speech. The findings provide a detailed map of how speech sounds such as consonants and vowels are represented in the brain well before they are even spoken and how they are strung together during language production.

Yu-Tzu Shih, Jason Alipio, and Amar Sahay share new research on the autism linked gene Dyrk1a. They find that developmental differences in neural circuitry and social cognition observed in mutant mice with only one copy of the Dyrk1a gene can be rescued by targeting inhibitory neuron plasticity in adulthood.

Cognitive psychology researchers at Harvard University have discovered that creative writing involves the integration of semantically distant ideas with perceptually descriptive information. Furthermore, current large language models are able to generate short stories that are comparable in creativity to those written by humans.

The time of day influences cognition, but the molecular and synaptic mechanisms of this influence are elusive. We show that the circadian clock protein BMAL1 has a rhythm in synapses that is critical for corresponding rhythms in synaptic plasticity. Our findings point to local mechanisms for gating computations in anticipation of the time of day.

HMS News article on new research from Chris Harvey, Mike Greenberg, and colleagues, first author Jonathan Green. They identified a specific group of neurons in a brain region involved in navigation that undergo bursts of activity when mice running a maze veer off course and correct their error.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Sam Gershman and colleagues, first author Momchil Tomov, using fMRI and video games to test ideas about complex decision-making.

Harvard Gazette Q+A with JoAnn Manson, who along with Howard Sesso, co-led a collaboration between BWH and HSPH called the the COSMOS-Web Study. This study showed that among 3,500 subjects 60 and older, a daily multivitamin led to 3.1 years less cognitive aging than for those assigned a placebo. This clinical study was the second cognition trial in COSMOS to suggest that multivitamins can slow memory loss.

Uncertainty is a feature, rather than a flaw, and it can help us weigh internal beliefs against external sensory evidence. In this study, Anna Kutschireiter and colleagues in the Drugowitsch lab investigated how ring attractor networks, popular models for working memory, can represent and compute with uncertainties.

Rick Born shares new research where neural recordings in animals trained on perceptual tasks failed to reveal the “usual suspects” of task-related signals in early visual cortex. This surprising negative finding has forced us to re-think exactly what these signals mean.

Harvard MCB Department news article on new research from Venkatesh Murthy and colleagues, co-first authors Alice Berners-Lee and Elizabeth Shtrahman, examining how odor mixtures are represented in the piriform cortex of mice while they learn to discriminate a unique target odor mixture from hundreds of other odor mixtures. They found that with time the target mixture becomes over-represented--meaning more neurons of this brain region become selective for the target odor mixture than they were at

The lab of Nick Bellono, along with colleagues at UC San Diego and UT Southwestern Medical Center, recently published two papers in Nature describing the path of divergent sensing capabilities in cephalopods by tracking their evolutionary lineage from common ancestral neurons.

Harvard Gazette article profiling the research of postdoc Carolyn Elya (lab of Benjamin de Bivort) into how a parasitic fungus hijacks the nervous system of flies and uses mind control to manipulate behavior as the insects near death

The lab of Bob Datta was featured in the New York Times for their recent study finding that the behavior of male mice is more unpredictable than that of females, challenging century-old assumptions used to exclude females from research because of their hormones.

HMS News article on new research from Brad Manor and colleagues, co-first authors Junhong Zhou and Gabriele Cattaneo, finding that that the ability to dual-task when walking starts to decline by the age of 55, up to a decade before old age, as traditionally defined by the threshold of 65 years.

HMS News article on new research from Sharon K Inouye and colleagues suggesting that delirium — the most common postoperative complication in older adults — is associated with a 40 percent faster rate of cognitive decline in those who develop delirium over those who do not.

HMS News article on new research from Joseph DeGutis and colleagues suggesting that as many as one in 33 people (3.08 percent) may meet the criteria for face blindness, or prosopagnosia.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Yun Zhang and colleagues, co-first authors Taihong Wu and Minghai Ge, illuminating how pathogens — and pheromones — alter social behavior in animals.

HMS News article on new research from Aaron Baggish and the Football Players Health Study at Harvard University, first author Rachel Grashow. The odds that former professional football players will be diagnosed with high blood pressure — a known risk factor for cardiovascular and cognitive dysfunction — rises in step with the number of concussions the athletes sustained during their careers

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Jeremy Wolfe and colleagues, showing that while people often think their memory is terrible, they can recall where and when an object appeared with good, if not perfect, precision for a large number of objects.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Susan Carey and colleagues, first author Brian Leahy, on the developmental psychology of 3-year-olds. They found that they struggle to keep track of competing options and instead they "find one state that is merely possible and treat it as fact."

Harvard Gazette article spotlighting a new course taught by Erin Hecht investigating canine behavior and what it can tell us about ours.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Elizabeth A. Kensinger and colleagues, first author Tony Cunningham, validating the impact major political events can have on sleep and how it affects the public’s collective mood, well-being, and alcohol consumption.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Judith Owens and colleagues, first author Rebecca Robbins, surveying parents and caregivers and finding that more than two-thirds of those surveyed believed in the top three most salient myths about sleep.

HMS News article interviewing Margaret Livingstone about a recent publication highlighting observations of macaque mothers over 10 years, with surprising new insights into how the mothers form attachments to their newborns.

Harvard MCB News article on new research from Nao Uchida, Mitsuko Watabe-Uchida, and colleagues, first author Korleki Akiti, second author Iku Tsutsui-Kimura, identifying a neural circuit that plays a key role in deciding whether the animals engage with or avoid novel stimuli.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI Community

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Sydney Cash, Leigh R. Hochberg, and colleagues, first author Daniel B. Rubin, may help explain how humans form memories and learn, and could eventually aid the development of assistive tools for people affected by neurologic disease or injury.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Charles Czeisler and colleagues, first author Jeanne F Duffy, showing that administering a 5 mg dose of melatonin increased total sleep time compared to a placebo in a small group of healthy adults aged 55 and older.

Mass. General Hospital Advances in Motion article on new research from Randy Buckner and colleagues, co-first authors Constanza M. Vidal Bustamante and Garth Coombs III, determining in an intensive full-year study of elite first-year college students that frequent social stress is more likely than academic stress to be associated with subsequent psychological problems.

HMS News article on new research from Laura Barger and colleagues, first author Matthew Weaver, using national surveys of residents before and after a 16 hour shift limit on new medical residents was enacted in 2011, find that reported medical errors and adverse events dropped by more than a third, and medical errors resulting in patient death declined by almost two-thirds.

Harvard Gazette article on what language a bilingual or multilingual person is most likely to dream in and why.

Harvard Gazette Article on a recent conversation with author W.A Harris and Josh Sanes about Harris's book Zero to Birth: How the Human Brain Is Built. In his book, Harris elucidates how one cell develops into the complex operational centers that not only make us human, but also individuals, with entirely unique traits, behaviors, and malfunctions.

Harvard Health Publishing article on how a deluge of traumatic news is affecting us. Our responses to the pandemic and continuous uncertainty, fueled by doomscrolling and newsfeeds, range from hyperactivation (fight or flight) to numbness (freeze).

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Mohammad Jalali and colleagues, first author Tse Yang Lim (MIT), capturing how the interconnections between stages of prescription and illicit opioid use, from initiation and addiction treatment to relapse and overdose mortality, have evolved over time.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Elizabeth Spelke and colleagues at MIT, first author Ashley Thomas, suggesting infants view kissing or sharing food or utensils as social cues indicating close relationships.

Emotional eating is known to be a contributing factor to overeating and can potentially lead to obesity or disordered eating. Laura Holsen shares new research showing how differential responsivity to stress may increase the risk of developing maladaptive eating behavior.

Harvard Gazette article summarizing a recent online lecture by Carole Hooven on the wide-reaching effects of testosterone in the human body, and across society, powering acts of aggression, violence, and the large disparity in their commission between men and women.

Harvard MCB Department News article on new research from the lab Aravi Samuel, first author Vladislav Susoy, using whole-brain calcium imaging to examine the mechanisms behind the mating behavior of male worms at single-neuron resolution.

Harvard MCB News article on new research from the lab of Catherine Dulac, first author Anita Autry (Albert Einstein College of Medicine; former postdoc in the Dulac lab), identifying hypothalamic neurons activated during infant-directed attacks in males and females, but not other behaviors.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center press release on new research from the lab of Mark Andermann, first author Stephen X. Zhang, uncovering the precise hypothalamic neurons that regulate the drive to engage in mating behaviors in mice.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.

Stephen Zhang shares new research from the labs of Mike Crickmore and Dragana Rogulja showing that young male flies have functional courtship circuitry, but the motivation to mate is suppressed by a hormone until maturity.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Erin Hecht and colleagues from the U.S and Russia demonstrating that foxes bred to be tame saw similar increases in gray matter volume as foxes bred to be aggressive when compared to a control group. This suggests that selection for opposite behaviors can influence brain morphology in a similar way.

Harvard Gazette article announcing the founding of the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts General Hospital, to be led by Jerrold Rosenbaum.

Rachel Monyak and Edward Kravitz share new research characterizing a line of masculinized female flies that switches its style of fighting based on the sex of its opponent. This work furthers our understanding of factors that initiate fighting and offers clues as to why flies use male or female aggressive strategies.

Harvard Gazette Q+A with David R. Williams on the mental and physical tolls discrimination take on Black lives and what individuals can do to help mitigate them.

Harvard Gazette article profiling the research of Deirdre Barrett into how our dreams have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from a collaboration of more than 50 international scientists finding that Neanderthals and ancient humans adapted to eating starch-rich foods as far back as 100,000 years ago.

HMS News article on new research from the lab of Ziv Williams and colleagues at MIT, first author Mohsen Jamali, identifying the specific neurons critical for social reasoning. Also featured in the Harvard Gazette.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.