Featured Story:
What Can Mice Teach Us About Anorexia Nervosa?
April 24, 2024
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.
Community Stories
April 15, 2024
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.
Original article in: Nature Neuroscience >
March 22, 2024
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.
Original article in: Nature >
March 8, 2024
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.
Original article in: PNAS >
February 16, 2024
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.
Original article in: Nature >
In the News
April 22, 2024
Harvard’s Center for Brain Science has received a gift from the NTT Research Foundation to establish the Center for Brain Science-NTT Fellowship Program. The two-year gift, renewable for up to three more years, creates a fund that supports postdoctoral research in the physics of intelligence, an emerging field that uses physics to tackle fundamental questions in intelligence, bridging computer science, neuroscience and psychology.
April 22, 2024
A new study led by Mass. General Hospital researchers shows how a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model that can analyze the narrative accounts of women who have undergone recent childbirth can accurately screen for post-traumatic stress disorder (CB-PTSD).
Original article in: Scientific Reports >
April 22, 2024
Some infants who pass away from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are known to have had acute minor infections. Could these have played a role in their death? Using next-generation molecular tools, a new study provides evidence that undiagnosed inflammation and occult infection can contribute to SIDS and the brainstem pathology seen in some infants.
Original article in: JAMA Neurology >
Awards & Honors
March 27, 2024
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
March 14, 2024
Haim Sompolinsky, a professor in residence in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Department of Physics and a member of the Center for Brain Science, has received the Brain Prize for his pioneering contributions to computational and theoretical neuroscience.
Banner Image:
Spiral ganglion neuron density. Image courtesy of Isle Bastille (Lab of Lisa Goodrich, Harvard Medical School).