One cell, the “midget retinal ganglion cell,” carries the vast majority of visual information from the eye to the brain in humans. It has been thought to be a primate-specific innovation, making it impossible to study in accessible model systems. Josh Sanes shares how, using molecular comparison of retinas from 17 vertebrate species, researchers from his team and that of former postdoc Karthik Shekhar, were able to trace back through evolution and identify mouse orthologues of midget cells.

The Engert lab found that in zebrafish, previous visual experience had no effect on the emergence of their optomotor response (OMR). Fish raised in the dark (no visual experience) and fish raised under a strobe light (irregular visual experience) both developed this visually-guided behavior normally.

By combining retinal imaging, genetics, and big data, physician-researchers from Harvard Medical School, Mass. Eye and Ear, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have found that they can estimate how likely a person is to develop eye and systemic diseases in the future.

Working with mice, HMS researchers have identified a potential new strategy for replacing retinal ganglion cells to treat glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide. Featured in HMS News From Petr Baranov and colleagues, first author Jonathan R. Soucy.

Josh Sanes shares new research from his lab using single cell RNA sequencing to determine the genes expressed by thousands of single cells to complete a cell atlas of the human eye. This now allows scientists to target specific genes when treating conditions such as glaucoma and other ocular diseases.

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.

Retinal axons convey parallel streams of visual features from the eye to the rest of the brain. A new study from the Andermann and Chen labs looks at how serotonin can filter this visual information at the level of retinal axons.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Kristen Koenig and colleagues, co-first authors Francesa R. Napoli and Christina M. Daily, applying a new live-imaging technique to watch the creation of neurons in squid embryos in almost real-time. Tracking these cells through the development of the nervous system in the retina they discovered that these neural stem cells behaved very much like those in vertebrates during nervous-system development.

HMS News article on new research from Bob S. Carter, Leonora Balaj, and colleagues, first author Syeda Maheen Batool, describing improvements in a blood test for gene mutations linked to gliomas, the most common type of adult brain tumors. The test previously focused on mutations in the TERT gene, and now has added capability to detect mutations in the EGFR gene.

Neurons called retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) send axons from the retina to the rest of the brain through the optic nerve. When the optic nerve is crushed, most RGCs die and few if any survivors regrow new axons. The labs of Josh Sanes (Harvard) and Zhigang He (Boston Children’s Hospital) recently published two papers defining gene expression programs that regulate RGC survival and regeneration.

Do face neurons respond to the semantic category of faces, or to visual features associated with faces? Alex Bardon and Will Xiao in the labs of Gabriel Kreiman, Marge Livingstone, and Carlos Ponce use generated images to find that face neurons are better described as tuned to visual attributes associated with faces.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI Community

HMS News article from Claude Desplan (NYU) and colleagues, co-first authors Nikolaos Konstantinides, Isabel Holguera, and Anthony M. Rossi, on new research uncovering factors that regulate neuron development in fruit fly visual system.

Each winner will receive $200. This year we received 27 submissions, of which the below six images were selected as voted on by the Harvard neuroscience community.

Harvard Health Publishing article comparing studies on the benefits and drawbacks of using mobile apps that claim to treat depression, anxiety, and other mental illness in lieu of a therapist.

Harvard Gazette article on a recent book talk by author Leonard Mlodinow on his new book, Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking, which argues that thinking and feeling are inextricably linked.

How are neuronal subtypes generated during development? Emma West and colleagues from the Cepko Lab propose a hierarchical model for bipolar interneuron genesis in the retina.

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

How does the brain represent the visual world around us? In this study from the lab of Carlos Ponce, led by Olivia Rose and James Johnson, visual cortex neurons “team up” with machine learning models to generate synthetic images—revealing the density of information in such representations.

Harvard Gazette article on the establishment of the Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard, launched with a $500M gift from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg. The Institute will be led by neurobiologist Bernardo Sabatini of Harvard Medical School and computer scientist Sham Kakade of the University of Washington, who will join the Harvard faculty in January 2022.

Aleena Garner, a new faculty member in the Department of Neurobiology at HMS, describes her latest research, together with Georg Keller of the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, on how neural circuits between auditory and visual cortex communicate learned associations and create predictions. They show that experience with an audio-visual stimulus reshapes direct input from auditory cortex to visual cortex—suppressing predictable visual input to amplify the unpredictable.

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

Harvard Gazette article on new research from the lab of Paul Shamble, first author Massimo De Agrò, demonstrating that jumping spiders can distinguish between animate and inanimate objects — an ability previously detected only in humans and other vertebrates.

Lili Xie shares new research from the lab of Larry Benowitz showing that the chemokine CCL5 promotes optic nerve regeneration and mediates many of the beneficial effects of Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) gene therapy.

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

HMS News article on new research from the lab of Connie Cepko, first author Yunlu Xue, marking an important first step in developing a gene therapy to treat retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, an inherited form of progressive blindness that affects around 20 million people worldwide.

Jing Peng and Ivan Santiago share new research revealing a temporally precise transcriptional cascade that orchestrates the assembly of synaptic layers in the fly visual system. This story is a special piece honoring the memory of their mentor Matt Pecot, who sadly passed away in 2019, with words of remembrance in addition to the scientific update.

MohammadMehdi Kafashan and Anna Jaffe share their work on the saturation of sensory information in larger neuronal populations, as well as on how this information is distributed across the many neurons in these populations.

Harvard Gazette article on new research from Naomi Pierce and colleagues, first author Marjorie A. Liénard, describing a novel method for isolating opsins, light-sensitive proteins found in the eyes of insects, and detailing their molecular history, structure, and function to determine what colors an insect can see.

Moira Dillon shares new research from the lab of Elizabeth Spelke on how infants respond to changes in 2D shapes, and specifically, which types of shape changes elicit the strongest responses. Their research provides new insight into how infants perceive everyday objects in their environments.

Johannes Bill of the Drugowitsch and Gershman labs explores how our brains might exploit hierarchical motion relations when solving perceptual tasks.

Michael Do shares new findings from his lab on the question of why humans and other primates see more sharply than other mammals.

Caroline Palavicino-Maggio writes about the Journal of Emerging Investigators Mini PhD Camp, a unique program introducing underserved middle and high school students to the sciences, how to conduct research, and how to write scientific papers.

Liang Liang, Mark Andermann and Chinfei Chen discuss new findings suggesting that the modulation of visual responses to certain stimuli can occur at very early stages of visual processing, when visual signals first enter the brain.

HMS News article on research from principal investigator Ula Jurkunas and colleagues on a new stem cell technique that offers hope for those with corneal damage.

Gwenaelle Geleoc shares her lab's new research into improving hearing and balance in mice. They targeted an Acadian human mutation in a gene essential for hearing and vision using local applications of antisense oligonucleotides.

Charles Zucker and John Dowling (Laboratory of Jeff Lichtman) share new research using a targeted high-throughput connectomics approach to investigate the underlying cause of a neurodegenerative disease of the retina.

Wenjun Yan shares three new papers from the lab of Josh Sanes using high throughput single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in order to better understand cell types in the anterior segment and the retina of the human eye.

HMS News and Harvard Gazette article on new research from the labs of Qiufu Ma and colleagues, first author Shenbin Liu, demonstrating that acupuncture activates inflammation-regulating pathways and tames cytokine storms in mice.

Harvard Gazette interview with David H. Rosmarin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, clinician at McLean Hospital, and director of McLean's Spirituality and Mental Health program, offering perspective on the pandemic’s raging effects.

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

Grigori Guitchounts shares new research from the lab of David Cox showing that movement information in the visual cortex is far richer than previously known.

MCB News article on new research from the lab of Jeff Lichtman, first author Josh Morgan, using serial section EM to map the hundreds of synaptic inputs and outputs of a single inhibitory interneuron in the mouse thalamus.

New research from the labs of Joshua Sanes, Zhigang He and colleagues provides novel insights into the CNS injury response of axons and how it might be improved.

HMS News article on new research from the lab of Rachel Wilson, first author Yvette Fisher, on virtual reality experiments that reveal how visual cues reorganize direction-sensing 'compass neurons' in fruit flies.

Artificial intelligence reveals what neurons in the visual cortex prefer to look at.

HMS News article highlighting new research from the lab of Kip Connor (first author Yoko Okunuki), on how unraveling microglia’s role in neuroinflammation could improve treatment for visual disorders like uveitis.

Harvard Gazette story on first cellular atlas of primate retina and its value in understanding blinding diseases, from the lab of Joshua Sanes and colleagues

BIDMC News Brief on study from the lab of Mark Andermann, suggesting there is a division of labor between intermingled ensembles of neurons in the visual association cortex which encode the potential value vs. identity of a visual stimulus

A new collaborative study from the labs of Charles Lieber and Josh Sanes reveals how injectable mesh electronics can revolutionize the way scientists study the retina

New work from the labs of Michael Greenberg and Chinfei Chen reveals role of the Fn14 protein in visual experience-dependent synapse refinement 

Earlier this year, 52 awards were made to students & fellows in neuro labs across Harvard, to support travel for advanced training & the sponsorship of visiting scholars. This month we highlight two awardees who hosted collaborators.

HMS News article on new work from the labs of Dragana Rogulja and Michael Crickmore, who use Drosophila courtship as a way to study the neurobiology of motivation

Postdoc Manuel Baizabal's synopsis of new research in the lab of Corey Harwell, on how the regulatory DNA landscape in neural stem cells contributes to architecture of cerebral cortex.

HMS News article on a new study from the lab of Amar Sahay, examining workings of Klf9, a stress-responsive transcription factor important in the hippocampus

HMS News article on a recent Molecular Psychiatry paper from the lab of C. Ronald Kahn on the connection between gut microbiota, depression, and anxiety in individuals who are obese or have type II diabetes.

Harvard Gazette article on new study from the lab of Sara Lazar, comparing the neural mechanisms underlying two popular mindfulness-based stress reduction programs

Harvard Gazette article on a recent Psychological Science paper from the lab of Dan Schacter suggesting that wandering minds are not always detrimental to completing a task.

BIDMC News Release on recent study from the labs of Mark Andermann and Chinfei Chen, examining functional logic of neural connections between the retina and thalamus.

HMS News article on magnetic resonance spectroscopy discoveries from the lab of Ovidiu Andronesi, interested in developing targeted new therapies for glioma patients

HMS News article highlights new collaborative study from the labs of Bob Datta and Bernardo Sabatini, on how the brain orchestrates 3D motion behaviors

HMS News article on a recent Neuron paper from the lab of Pascal Kaeser.

Eight faculty honored by the American Academy of Neurology at their annual meeting this past April.

HBI Congratulates Susan Dymecki, Wade Harper, Naomi E. Pierce, and Christopher A. Walsh on being elected as 2018 Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences!

Harvard Medicine News article about a recent Neuron paper from the labs of Jesse Gray (HMS), Mark Andermann (BIDMC), Ramendra Saha (University of California, Merced) and Serena Dudek (National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences).

Congratulations to Jasper Maniates-Selvin on winning an HBI Community Resource Award! This small grant is part of a newly launched Young Scientist Development program, supported by funding from the Office of the Provost at Harvard University.

Harvard Gazette article highlighting Ronald Walsworth's research using atom-scale impurities in diamonds read cell-sized magnetic resonance signals.

The Harvard Brain Science Initiative (HBI) Bipolar Disorder Seed Grant Program supports research relevant to the basic understanding and eventual treatment of bipolar disorder.

Harvard Gazette article on the launch of a the Quantitative Biology Initiative

HMS News article on this year's Bertarelli Symposium which showcased research on using gene therapy to treat sensory disorders.

HMS News article on a recent Nature paper from the lab of Christopher Walsh on the genes that regulate brain size.

HMS News article highlighting a recent Nature Neuroscience paper by Clifford Saper, William Todd, and colleagues' research on the relationship between the circadian clock and aggressive behavior of patients with Alzheimer's.

HMS News article highlighting Global Mental Health Day.

HMS News on a recent Nature paper from the labs of Gordon Fishell and Rahul Satija detailing the emergence and diversification of interneurons.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center researcher John Nelson Campbell, PhD is one of six recipients of the 2018 Pathway to Stop Diabetes (Pathway) grants awarded by the American Diabetes Association (ADA).

Bob Datta, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, was recently awarded an Edward N. And Della L. Thome Memorial Foundation Award in Alzheimer's Disease Drug Discovery research.

Frederick Alt, was recently awarded a 2018 Major Grant Award by the Charles Hood Foundation for his work on the role of recurrent DNA break cluster genes in brain development and disease.

Harvard Medicine News article on a recent Cell paper from the lab of Pascal Kaeser.

Harvard Medicine News article on a recent Cell Host and Microbe paper from the lab of Min Dong.

The program seeks to bolster the career development of neuroscience trainees by providing flexible small grants to support creative training endeavors not easily covered by other funding sources, including the building of community resources.

Dr. Paola Arlotta, Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, has been awarded the George Ledlie Prize by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Harvard Gazette article on a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper by Michael Fox.

Dr. Bruce Rosen, director of the MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Awarded by The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), the Bridge to Independence grants help talented early-career scientists with an interest in autism transition from mentored training positions to independent research careers.

Six Harvard scientists are among those receiving $150 million in Funding from the NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.

Congratulations to Lynne Chantranupong, PhD, Sabatini Lab; Yvette Fisher, PhD, Wilson Lab; and Molly Schumer, PhD, Reich Lab for being awarded 2017 HHMI Hanna Gray Fellowships.

On October 6th, the Department of Neuroscience celebrated Chengua Gu becoming a tenured Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School.

HMS News article about a recent paper from the lab of Michael Do.

Harvard Medicine News story about Molecular Cell paper from the lab of Charles Weitz, revealing the macromolecular organization of proteins in the mammalian circadian clock.

Harvard Medicine News story about Nature Neuroscience paper from the lab of Margaret Livingstone, revealing that the experience of seeing faces is necessary for the formation of face domains in the brain.

Harvard Gazette article on a Cell paper from the lab of Christopher Harvey, using a virtual reality task to reveal the flexibility of neural circuits that link sensory stimuli with behavioral actions.

Today the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group announced a $10M grant to launch the Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

In early July, the Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing at UW Medicine, in collaboration with labs at Caltech and Harvard, launched alongside the Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution at Boston Children’s Hospital and HMS.

Stanley Center member Paola Arlotta (left) and postdoctoral fellow Giorgia Quadrato have produced long-cultured brain organoids that have the potential to advance our understanding of brain development and disorders.

SMN protein (red) is necessary for the survival of spinal cord neurons (motor neurons) responsible for breathing and all movement. Harvard researchers have found a compound that stabilized this protein in mouse and human motor neurons.

To super-charge a specific virus as a gene carrier into the inner ear, the team used a form of the virus wrapped in protective bubbles called exosomes (tiny bubbles made of cell membrane).

Mammalian bone gene may be repurposed to fuel cognition in humans

In experiments echoing mice behavior, researchers emulate how brains recognize specific smells

New research reveals how some older adults appear to be “super-agers” with unusually resilient memories.

HMS News story highlights Science paper from HBI ALS Seed Grant Awardee Prof. Junying Yuan

HMS News story highlights Neuron paper from HBI Bipolar Seed Grant Awardee Prof. Pascal Kaeser

Mouse study suggests autism is not just a disorder of the brain