November 5, 2024
HMS News and the Harvard Gazette profiles the work of David Walt, who is operating at a microscopic level, observing cell abnormalities that may contribute to depression, and Diego Pizzagalli, who is taking a bigger-picture approach, using MRIs and other methods to identify potential treatments by tracking activity in key brain regions. Their work is supported by a major grant from the nonprofit Wellcome Leap.
November 5, 2024
New research from Anne O'Donnell-Luria, Gemma L. Carvill (Northwestern) and colleagues, first authors Vijay S. Ganesh and Kevin Riquin (Nantes Université). diagnoses for the the first time a patient with a rare genetic disorder caused by changes to the CHASERR gene and highlights the need to examine the non-coding parts of the genome in rare diseases.
November 5, 2024
Boston Children's Hospital Answers profiles the work of Ed Smith and his team at the Cerebrovascular Surgery and Interventions Center (CSIC) at Boston Children’s Hospital. They are conducting pioneering research and guidelines to enhance diagnosis and treatment of cavernous malformations, focusing on genetics and advanced interventions for better care and outcomes for families.
November 5, 2024
Harvard MCB News profiles the research of Lichtman lab postdoc Daniel Berger who uses cutting-edge imaging techniques to better understand the basic principles of neuron-neuron connectivity and neuron-glia interactions in mammalian cortex.
October 24, 2024
New research in mice from Pascal Kaeser, Nao Uchida, and colleagues, first authors Xintong Cai and Changliang Liuexplains why levodopa, a drug commonly used to treat Parkinson's Disease, works to alleviate some symptoms but not others.
October 24, 2024
The Dana Foundation announces the launch of Neurotech Justice Accelerator at Mass General Brigham. The five-year $8.6 million initiative aims to improve equitable access to beneficial neurotechnologies and to mitigate the associated risks in medical and legal settings. It is jointly led by neurosurgeon Theresa Williamson (MGH/HMS), bioethicist Gabriel Lázaro-Muñoz (MGH/HMS), and law professor Francis Shen (Univ of Minnesota & MGH/HMS).
October 24, 2024
Leslie Valiant argues that educability, which incorporates both the ability to generate new knowledge by learning from experience and also the ability to transfer that knowledge directly to others, is more important than intelligence when it comes to understanding human cognition.
October 11, 2024
New research from Molly P. Jarman and colleagues, first author Alexander J. Ordoobad, finds that dementia is more frequently diagnosed within one year of a fall compared to other types of injuries.
October 11, 2024
A new study from Aaron Baggish and colleagues, first author Rachel Grashow, of nearly 2,000 former NFL players shows that about one-third believe they have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neuropathological condition linked to repeated head trauma that can only be diagnosed through a postmortem examination of the brain.
October 11, 2024
New research from Corey Allard, Nick Bellono, and colleagues suggests the scuttling sea robin may serve as evolutionary model for trait development, including in humans.
October 11, 2024
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.
September 25, 2024
Harvard Magazine profiles Catherine Dulac, her research into the social behavior of mice, and what this research suggests about the relative importance of sociality in humans and other organisms.
September 25, 2024
New research from From Michael D. Fox and colleagues, first author Shan H. Siddiqi, suggests that using neurostimulation therapies on a specific brain network could treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in veterans. By evaluating 193 participants in the Vietnam Head Injury Study with penetrating traumatic brain injury, the team found those with damage connected to their amygdala, the fear center of the brain, were less likely to develop PTSD.
September 25, 2024
New research from Dost Ongur and colleagues, first author Lauren V. Moran suggests that patients taking a high dose of a prescription amphetamine face more than a five-fold increased risk for developing psychosis or mania.
September 25, 2024
New research from From Lee Rubin and colleagues, first author Feodor D. Price has pioneered a groundbreaking method for generating large numbers of adult skeletal-muscle satellite cells, or "muscle stem cells", in vitro. This development could help speed up our understanding and treatment of a range of skeletal muscular disorders, including muscular dystrophy (MD) and (ALS).
September 13, 2024
HMS news profiles PhD student Olúmídé Fagboyegun (lab of Beth Stevens). Olúmídé shares his journey from Kenya to community college in Maryland, to his current PhD research at Harvard, and future mentoring work.
September 13, 2024
A new study from Trisha S. Pasricha and Subhash Kulkarni, first author Jocelyn Chang (Tufts) finds that the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease was 76 percent higher among those with damage to the lining of their upper gastrointestinal tract than among those without.
September 13, 2024
New research in lab models from Stephen Gomperts and colleagues, first author K. N. Rose, indicates that low doses of carbon monoxide — comparable to that experienced by smokers — protected against neurodegeneration and prevented the accumulation of a key Parkinson’s-associated protein in the brain.
August 29, 2024
When tested for “hidden consciousness,” one in four patients with severe brain injury who appeared unresponsive were able to respond to instructions covertly. From Nicholas D Schiff and colleagues, first author Yelena G Bodien.
August 29, 2024
New research from Sharon G Curhan and colleagues (first author Tian-Shin Yeh) has found that an episode of shingles is associated with about a 20 percent higher long-term risk of subjective cognitive decline, one of the earliest noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
August 29, 2024
Technological advances allow scientists to more rapidly create in vitro models of Parkinson’s disease using stem cells, in ways that could provide more personalized diagnostic and treatment methods. From Vikram Khurana and colleagues, co-first authors Isabel Lam and Alain Ndayisaba.
August 29, 2024
New research from Eleonora Tamilia and colleague (first author Georgios Ntolkeras) shows that a noninvasive technique combining EEG readings, MRI data, and machine learning can identify the most epileptogenic brain regions much faster than previous methods which required multiple days of invasive monitoring.
August 29, 2024
New research in tadpoles from Donald E. Ingber and colleagues (first author Maria Plaza Oliver) shows that Donepezil, a widely administered FDA-approved drug used to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, can potential buy patients more time to survive critical injuries and diseases, even when disaster strikes far from a hospital.
August 6, 2024
Susan Dymecki and colleagues (First author Giacomo Maddaloni) have identified a mouse brain circuit with multiple groups of neurons that together recognize, decode, and drive behavioral adaptation to changes in the amount of daylight.
August 6, 2024
Jill Goldstein, professor of psychiatry and medicine at Harvard Medical School and the founder and executive director of the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine at Mass General, discusses what science has revealed about sex differences in the brain.
August 6, 2024
Tianyi Huang and colleagues (first author Sina Kianersi), analyzed the sleep patterns of study participants over seven nights and then followed them for more than seven years. The researchers found those with the most irregular sleep patterns had a 34 percent higher chance of developing diabetes.
August 6, 2024
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
August 6, 2024
David Perez and colleagues (first authors Christiana Westlin and Andrew J Guthrie) used machine learning algorithms to compare the brains of patients with functional neurological disorder (FND) and healthy subjects or participants with psychiatric disorders that do not have FND, They found that structural brain MRI has the potential to be a clinically useful tool for diagnosing FND.
July 18, 2024
In a first, neuroscientists have created a microscopic “brain thesaurus” that reflects how the meaning of words is represented. Using a novel technology to record the activity from single neurons in the human brain, the team was also able to predict the meaning of words heard in real-time speech. From Ziv Williams and Colleagues, co-first authors Mohsen Jamali and Benjamin Grannan.
July 18, 2024
New research suggests intensive diet and lifestyle changes may not only forestall cognitive decline related to Alzheimer’s disease but possibly bring some improvement to those in early stages.
From Steven Arnold, Rudolph Tanzi, and colleagues. Read more at the Harvard Gazette.
July 18, 2024
New research finds that the tendency of people’s arousal to wane over the course of brain scans has been distorting the brain connection maps produced by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The team developed a new technique called RIPTiDe that can filter out these distortions enhancing the validity and reliability of fMRI findings.
From Amy C. Janes and Blaise B. Frederick, first author Cole Korponay.
July 18, 2024
Boston Children's Hospital Answers profiles the research of clinician-scientists Tamar Katz and Kinga Tomczak, studying potential differences in the microbiomes of individuals with these disorders.
July 3, 2024
In a commentary published on June 20 in the journal Cell's 50th Anniversary Focus Issue on Developmental Biology, Hyun argues that despite huge advances, we are a long way off from developing technologies that would enable embryo models or organoids to achieve personhood.
July 3, 2024
Harvard Medicine News article on ongoing research on the subject of interoception (the perception of internal signals from the body). Wen Chen, Stephen Liberles, and Mark Andermann discuss how we perceive what’s happening inside our bodies, and what that means for our health.
July 3, 2024
Until relatively recently, research on touch has lagged behind other senses like hearing and vision. However, new research tools and greater scientific appreciation has led to a "touch renaissance". David Ginty, April Levin, and Lauren Orefice discuss current research on touch, it's role in development, and potential therapies to help those suffering from touch dysfunction.
July 3, 2024
In a new study, researchers asked whether an artificial agent could improve behavior in an animal, by learning to control a living nervous system. Using optogenetics to allow the RL agent to control C. elegans worm neurons, they were able to help the worms find food better. The team also gained clues as to how different parts of the C. elegans nervous system were involved in generating directed movement.
July 3, 2024
Scientists create realistic virtual rodent with digital neural network to study how the brain controls complex, coordinated movement.
July 3, 2024
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.
July 3, 2024
Using imaging reports to back up their findings, researchers have concluded that reports from patients and their partners about cognitive decline can be an early indicator of an accumulation of tau tangles, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
June 11, 2024
Using mouse and computer model experiments, researchers identified thousands of molecular interactions — most not previously known — between pain-initiating neurons, or nociceptors, and different types of immune cells. These interactions could help explain why pain hypersensitivity sometimes occurs during inflammation — and could also help researchers resolve it.
June 11, 2024
New research finds that gas released by some gut bacteria stimulates other gut bacteria to produce a hormone involved in pregnancy and in an FDA-approved treatment for postpartum depression.
June 11, 2024
Harvard Gazette interview with Reisa Sperling discussing her teams' recent paper finding that genetics may be a direct cause of a specific form of Alzheimer’s disease and not merely a risk factor.
June 11, 2024
The Harvard Gazette profiles the research of Yilai Shu, Zheng-Yi Chen, and colleagues at Fudan University and Mass. Eye Ear who recently developed a new gene therapy for a type of genetic deafness. The story was first reported in January, with a trial of six children, and now a successful expanded trial of this therapy (given to five more children) suggests the treatment could become available within three to five years.
May 22, 2024
Harvard researchers, along with colleagues at Google Research, have created the largest 3D human brain reconstruction to date, showing in vivid detail each cell and its web of connections in a piece of temporal cortex about half the size of a rice grain.
May 21, 2024
HMS News profiles the work of Chirag Patel, others at Harvard, and the Human Exposome Project—which aims to discover the role of various environmental exposures in human disease and health. One such avenue of inquiry showing promise is using AI to help analyze how a lifetime of environmental exposures affects the onset and progression of complex neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's.
May 21, 2024
New research exploring the genome of the fly-infecting fungus Entomophthora muscae reveals it has one of the largest known genomes in the fungal kingdom. The fungus is best known for turning its insect victims into “zombies,” forcing the flies to climb up high, and then exploding out of their bodies.
May 21, 2024
New research using functional MRI data finds that how adolescents’ brains were wired — before COVID-19 — predicted their stress, negative emotions, and overall mental health during the height of the pandemic, making them more vulnerable or more resilient.
May 9, 2024
Results from a small proof-of-concept study indicate that CRISPR gene editing is safe and can improve vision in some people with inherited blindness. In the multicenter clinical trial, 11 of the 14 individuals treated had measurable improvements on at least one key vision test, while six people experienced improvement on two or more vision outcomes.
May 9, 2024
Connie Cepko shares her team's approach to developing a gene therapy that aims to preserve vision in people with RP and certain other forms of genetic blindness, including some cases of macular degeneration, by counteracting damage to the retina caused by any of hundreds of different genetic mutations.
May 9, 2024
New research reveals that certain visual neurons in the brain simply see what’s in front of the eyes, in real time — a departure from prior thinking that neurons use prediction of future images or analysis of past images to achieve stability.
May 9, 2024
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.
May 9, 2024
New research uncovers how inflammation damages excitatory synapses in an experimental model of MS. While there is a constant turnover of synapses in the healthy brain, inflammation accelerates this turnover so that synapses were gained and lost at higher rates. This widespread instability impacts the entire neuron and leading to important changes in the incoming inputs to individual neurons.
May 9, 2024
In a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study that integrated ultra-high resolution structural and functional connectivity data, researchers mapped a subcortical brain network that is believed to integrate arousal and awareness in human consciousness.
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).
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.
April 22, 2024
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).
April 22, 2024
Researchers investigated factors associated with psychosocial functioning in borderline personality disorder. In this study they share preliminary evidence that one key factor is reflective functioning, the capacity to consider one’s own and others’ mental states.
April 22, 2024
AI technology can be a powerful assistive tool for people like Kempner research fellow Naomi Saphra with non-apparent disabilities — physical or mental conditions that are not immediately obvious to others. But disability advocates say these tools have a long way to go to become truly accessible. Experts say including disabled people in conversations on AI fairness and the development process is key.
April 22, 2024
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.
March 27, 2024
Preliminary results of a first-in-human trial for a new CAR T-based treatment targeting two different sites on glioblastoma tumors result in dramatic, but transient, reductions in tumor size.
March 27, 2024
Topiramate — an antiseizure medication prescribed to treat epilepsy as well as migraines and bipolar disorder — does not appear to increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) among children exposed to it prenatally, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
March 27, 2024
A simple skin biopsy test has shown a high accuracy rate in detecting an abnormal form of alpha-synuclein, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson’s disease, according to neurologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
March 27, 2024
Q+A with David H. Rosmarin about his team's research into why patients being treated for anxiety weren’t reporting the worsening symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a cohort of 764 individuals, they found that cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy appear to have been protective against pandemic-related anxiety.
March 27, 2024
In 1966, Ed Kravitz, David Potter, and a handful of other professors founded the HMS Department of Neurobiology. The first of its kind in the world, the department brought together specialists who, in Kravitz’s words, “worked in a whole lot of very different fields, but soon began talking and collaborating with each other.” In an interview with HMS News, Kravitz shares his thoughts on how far the field has come — and what’s next.
March 14, 2024
New research From Beth Stevens and colleagues, first author Dan Wilton, shows how the process of Huntington’s disease begins well before symptoms appear — and shows that in mice, the process can be blocked to prevent cognitive problems related to Huntington’s Disease.
March 14, 2024
Brain tissue samples from people with schizophrenia and from older adults have strikingly similar sets of changes in gene activity in two types of brain cells, suggesting a common biological basis for the cognitive impairment often seen in people with schizophrenia and in older people, according to new research from Steve McCarroll, Sabina Berretta, and colleagues. First author Emi Ling.
March 14, 2024
New research from Peter Aungle and Ellen Langer finds that an individual’s perception of how much time has elapsed substantially impacts the speed at which minor bruising fades. This is the first study to demonstrate this psychological effect on the physical healing process.
March 14, 2024
New research Erin Hecht and colleagues, first author Katherine L. Bryant (Aix-Marseille Université) puts fermentation, not fire, as pivot point behind our ancestors’ increasing cranial capacity.
March 14, 2024
Menopause has long been thought to cause psychological distress, but a new review suggests that this is not always the case. Hadine Joffe and colleagues found no evidence that menopause universally caused a rise in risk of mental health conditions—including depressive symptoms, major depressive disorder, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and psychosis—across all women.
February 23, 2024
Researchers from the Wilson Lab gain new insights into how two distinct brain regions — the seat of the compass and the steering center — communicate during navigation.
February 23, 2024
From the team of Rajat M. Gupta and colleagues. Co-first authors Gavin R. Schnitzler and Helen Kang (Stanford). Featured in HMS News.
New research from Rajat M. Gupta and colleagues, co-first authors Gavin R. Schnitzler and Helen Kang (Stanford), uncover how genetic changes in cells that line blood vessels fuel cardiac disease and brain vessel malformations.
February 23, 2024
New research from Joseph Giacino and colleagues may upend the widely held view of traumatic brain injury as a permanently debilitating condition. The findings indicate that electrical stimulation can reawaken quiescent brain circuitry, leading to functional improvements that have the potential to restore work and social activities to patients’ lives.
February 8, 2024
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.
February 8, 2024
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.
February 8, 2024
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.
February 8, 2024
A novel gene therapy approach has given five children who were born deaf the ability to hear. The method, which overcomes a roadblock presented by large genes, may be useful in other treatments, according to researchers.
February 8, 2024
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.
February 2, 2024
Harvard Medical School researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Wyss Institute have developed a molecular test that successfully detected and quantified telltale protein clumps in tissue and fluid samples obtained from patients with Parkinson’s disease.
February 2, 2024
An international team of researchers have found that the main predictors of language development globally are age, clinical factors such as prematurity or dyslexia, and how much speech children receive from the world around them. No effects were found related to gender, multilingualism, or socioeconomics, contrasting with previous research.
February 2, 2024
Researchers from Harvard and Boston University have used a soft, wearable robot to help a person living with Parkinson’s walk without freezing. When individuals with Parkinson’s disease freeze, they suddenly lose the ability to move their feet, often mid-stride, resulting in a series of staccato stutter steps that get shorter until the person stops altogether. These episodes are one of the biggest contributors to falls among people living with Parkinson’s disease.
February 2, 2024
Researchers from Mass. General Hospital, University College London, and the University of the Republic in Uruguay found a two-way association between anorexia-related genes and those associated with the morning chronotype (waking early/going to bed early). This contrasts with disorders such as depression, binge eating disorder, and schizophrenia, which are associated with an evening chronotype.
December 7, 2023
By focusing on a list of 12 steps covering modifiable behaviors, adults can greatly reduce their risk of developing brain diseases such as dementia and stroke, according to a new study featured in the Harvard Gazette. From the team of Thomas Littlejohns and colleagues, first author Sanjula D. Singh.
December 7, 2023
Researchers have identified at least one potential link that locks sleep deprivation and chronic pain in an endless loop. Featured in the Harvard Gazette. From Shiqian Shen and colleagues, co-first authors Weihua Ding and Liuyue Yang.
December 7, 2023
Using mouse and human models, HMS researchers have shown for the first time that a common skin bacterium — Staphylococcus aureus — can cause itch by acting directly on nerve cells. Featured in HMS News and the Harvard Gazette. From Isaac Chiu and colleagues, first author Liwen Deng.
December 7, 2023
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.
December 7, 2023
Erin Hecht and the Canine Brains Project at Harvard were profiled in the Harvard Gazette. The article also briefly summarizes a talk she gave for HBI called "Dog Brains 101". You can see a recording on our events page or YouTube channel.
November 14, 2023
Has your research uncovered something breathtaking in the nervous system? An image you’d love to share with the world? Send it to HBI! You could win a $200 cash prize.
November 13, 2023
HMS News article on new research from the lab of Beth Stevens, first author Dan Wilton, showing how the process of Huntington’s disease begins well before symptoms appear — and revealing that in mice, the process can be blocked to prevent cognitive problems thought to be relevant in Huntington’s disease, studied with visual discrimination learning and cognitive flexibility tasks.
November 13, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from an international team co-led by Bruce Fischl (MGH/Harvard) and Patrick Hoff (Mount Sinai School of Medicine). By combining different noninvasive imaging techniques such as MRI, optical coherence tomography, and light-sheet fluorescence microscopy, their team created a comprehensive cellular atlas of a region of the human brain known as Broca’s area, critical for producing language.
November 13, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from David Mischoulon and colleagues, first author Maren B. Nyer, showing that in a randomized controlled clinical trial of adults with moderate-to-severe depression, those who participated in heated yoga sessions experienced significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms compared with a control group.
November 13, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Martin Kathrins and colleagues, first author Zachary Walker, assessing the effects of anxiety and depression in men on fertility and IVF outcomes. They found no correlation between anxiety, regardless of antidepressant use, and IVF outcomes or live birth rate.
October 27, 2023
Harvard Gazette article highlighting the work of Jeff Lichtman, who along with partners at Princeton University, MIT, Cambridge University and Johns Hopkins has received $30 million from the National Institutes of Health and an additional $3 million from Harvard and Princeton toward the goal of reconstructing, for the first time, all the neural wiring inside a mouse brain.
October 27, 2023
Harvard MCB Department news article on new research from the lab of Amanda Whipple, first author Daniel Loftus, finding that differences in maternal and paternal genomes in embryonic stem cells shape gene expression in neurons.
October 27, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers profile on HMS Neuro/Boston Children's Hospital faculty member Brielle Ferguson and her lab's goal to open a path to better treatments for psychiatric disorders, especially those like schizophrenia that cause cognitive dysfunction.
September 27, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on the creation of a prototype two-armed, joystick-controlled neurosurgical robot. This was engineered by Pierre Dupont, chief of Pediatric Cardiac Bioengineering at Boston Children’s, in consultation with neurosurgeon Scellig Stone, and others. The robot was able to perform a series of two-handed neurosurgical tasks involved in tumor resection and tumor debulking in lab-created models.
September 27, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from Charles Nelson and colleagues at HMS, Boston Children's Hospital, The University of San Francisco, and the University of Minnesota, suggesting a possible way to detect anxiety disorders in children before they become apparent clinically using electroencephalograms (EEGs).
September 27, 2023
HMS News and the Harvard Gazette profile a new Harvard-Mass. General Hospital center providing clinicians with lab-tested tools for identifying and treating those most at risk. This center launched in August 2023 is co-directed by Matthew Nock and Jordan Smoller.
September 27, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Ross Zafonte and colleagues, first author Saef Izzy, finding that people who sustain a brain injury have an increased risk of developing chronic cardiovascular disease than people without a brain injury.
September 27, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Tianyi Huang and colleagues, first author Sina Kianersi, finding that people with later sleep and wake times had less-healthy lifestyles and were at greater risk of developing diabetes than those with early bird habits.
September 27, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on the creation newly designed device that can help test treatments in patients with gliomas, a type of tumor that originates in the brain or spinal cord. This device is the shape and size of a grain of rice, and is designed to be used during standard of care surgery and can conduct dozens of experiments at once offering unprecedented insight into the effects of drugs on glioma tumor. From the team of Oliver Jonas and colleagues, first author Pierpaolo Peruzzi.
September 27, 2023
Harvard MCB News profile on Rachelle Gaudet, who began serving as chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology Department in July
September 27, 2023
Harvard MCB News spotlights growth of the undergrad neuro concentration and welcomes new staff member, Kristina Penikis, to the team.
September 13, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Mike Greenberg and colleagues, co-first authors Xin Gu and Christopher Nardone, identifying a protein called midnolin that plays a key role in degrading many short-lived nuclear proteins. The study shows that midnolin does so by directly grabbing the proteins and pulling them into the cellular waste-disposal system, called the proteasome, where they are destroyed.
September 13, 2023
HMS News article on new research from David Ginty and colleagues, first author Charalampia Koutsioumpa. Studying mice, they found that sensory neurons develop customized nerve endings based on cues from the skin.
September 13, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Tracy Young-Pearse and colleagues using stem cells from patients with Alzheimer’s. They studied the disease risk gene SORL1 and found that loss of normal SORL1 function leads to a reduction in two other key proteins known to be involved in Alzheimer’s -- providing a mechanistic link between strong genetic risk factors.
September 13, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Sharon K. Inouye and colleagues from Harvard Medical School and Hebrew SeniorLife, pinpointing several risk factors that contributed to older adults’ likelihood of experiencing loneliness, including older age, inability to complete daily activities, vision impairment, depression, and anxiety.
August 30, 2023
HMS News article on new research from David Ginty and colleagues, first author Rachel L. Wolfson, defining five types of colon neurons that are specialized for sending different signals to the brain. These findings may eventually lead to the development of better therapies for a variety of gastrointestinal problems.
August 30, 2023
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.
August 9, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Francisco Quintana and colleagues, first author, Liliana M. Sanmarco, designing a probiotic suppressing autoimmunity in the mouse brain, a condition that occurs when the immune system attacks the cells of the central nervous system. This technique offers a more precise way to target brain inflammation and minimizes negative side effects when compared with standard therapies.
July 31, 2023
HMS News article on a new large-scale study from the team of Ronald Kessler (HMS), John McGrath (Univ. of Queensland), and colleagues from 27 other countries. The results of this study demonstrate the high prevalence of mental health disorders worldwide, with 50 percent of the population developing at least one disorder by the age of 75.
July 21, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Sean Megason, Chenghua Gu, Allon M. Klein, and colleagues, first author Natasha O'Brown, using mice and zebrafish to discover a signal produced by neurons that helps the blood-brain barrier form and maintain its protective properties.
July 21, 2023
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.
July 21, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Haiden A. Huskamp and colleagues, first author Lindsay Overhage, finding that the number of young people in the United States visiting hospital emergency departments for mental health crises increased sharply during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
July 21, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Kun-Hsing Yu and colleagues, co-first authors MacLean P. Nasrallah (Penn) and Junhan Zhao, creating an AI tool that can rapidly decode a brain tumor’s DNA to determine its molecular identity during surgery — critical information can take a few days and up to a few weeks with current approaches.
June 30, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from, Alberto Ascherio, Merit E Cudkowicz, and colleagues, first author Kjetil Bjornevik, finding that consuming omega-3 fatty acids — particularly alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a nutrient found in foods including flaxseeds, walnuts, and chia, canola, and soybean oils — may help slow the progression of disease in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
June 30, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from Melissa Christino and colleagues explore the links between an athlete’s mental and emotional state and their physical recovery from injury.
June 16, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on a Mass. General Brigham led clinical trial (first author Amit Anand). Of the 403 patients studied, they found that 55 percent of those receiving ketamine treatment experienced a sustained improvement in depressive symptoms without major side effects.
June 16, 2023
Harvard Gazette Q+A with Fangyun Tian who was the first author of a recent MGH study tracing the effects of ketamine, a fast-acting antidepressant with potential for abuse due to its dissociative effects, to three regions of the human brain. The prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are believed to have a role in the drug’s effectiveness as an antidepressant, while the posteromedial cortex, in the back portion of the brain, is a likely site for dissociative effects.
June 16, 2023
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.
June 16, 2023
Harvard Gazette Q+A with Scott McGinnis, an Alzheimer's disease expert from Brigham and Women's hospital about the results of a clinical trial published in January, identifying for the first time a drug (lecanemab) that can slow the cognitive decline characteristic of the disease, and his own work on a new clinical trial investigating this drug's potential as a preventative treatment when given to cognitively normal individuals who have elevated brain amyloid.
May 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, Yakeel Quiroz, and colleagues. They studied the extraordinary case of a patient with strong genetic predisposition for early-onset Alzheimer’s disease who remained cognitively intact more than two decades beyond the expected age of memory impairment. This led to the discovery of a protective variant, a pathway for ‘resilience’ to dementia, and the identification of a brain region to target with therapies.
May 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Christopher A. Walsh and Kristopher T. Kahle, co-first authors Sattar Khoshkhoo and Yilan Wang, examining the role of somatic mutations — DNA alterations that occur after conception — in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) and suggesting the potential of using existing cancer therapies to treat TLE that is resistant to anti-seizure medications.
May 25, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from from the teams of Maria Lehtinen, Mark Andermann, Hanno Steen, and clinician colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital and Mass General Hospital, co-first authors Cameron Sadegh and Huixin Xu, suggesting that gene therapy targeting the brain’s choroid plexus could help prevent or ameliorate hydrocephalus in premature newborns with brain bleeds.
May 11, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Matthew Nock and colleagues, first author Daniel Coppersmith, using smartphones to capture the duration and frequency of suicidal thinking. Their research revealed that suicidal thinking changes rapidly and on far shorter timescales than previously thought. They also gained new understanding of when suicidal desire is most predictive of future intent—knowledge which could lead to more effective prevention.
May 11, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Vadim N. Gladyshev and colleagues, first author Jesse R. Poganik, finding that in preclinical models and in humans, stress from surgery, pregnancy, and severe COVID-19 increased signs of biological age, which were reversed following recovery.
May 11, 2023
Brigham and Women's Hospital press release on new research from Laura D Kubzansky, Yang-Yu Liu, and colleagues, first author Shanlin Ke, linking specific bacteria in the gut to positive emotions like happiness and hopefulness and healthier emotion management skills. Also featured in the Harvard Gazette.
May 11, 2023
HMS News article on new research from David Corey, Artur A Indzhykulian, and colleagues, first author Maryna Ivanchenko. Using mice, the team designed a “mini gene” that could in the future be developed into a therapy for Usher Syndrome type 1F, a severe genetic condition that causes blindness and deafness.
May 11, 2023
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
May 11, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Katie A. McLaughlin and colleagues, first author David G Weissman (a recipient of the HBI Young Scientist Transitions Award). They found that robust aid programs may buffer young minds from the effects of anxiety and depression. Benefits like cash assistance and access to Medicaid were found to be especially beneficial.
April 20, 2023
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.
April 20, 2023
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
April 20, 2023
HMS News interview with Dragana Rogulja on her research and the unexpected connections between the brain and gut.
April 20, 2023
HMS News animation showing how bacteria hijack crosstalk between nerve and immune cells to cause meningitis. Animation illustrates recent research by the lab of Isaac Chiu shared in a previous article.
April 20, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Marc G. Weisskopf and colleagues, first author Elissa H. Wilker, finding consistent evidence associating fine particulate air pollutants and cognitive decline.
April 20, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Rebecca Robbins and colleagues finding that in-person interactions with friends, family, and health care providers were associated with fewer mental health concerns. In contrast, interactions using digital technologies, including emails and video calls, were associated with feelings of depression and anxiety about COVID-19.
April 20, 2023
Harvard Crimson article highlighter a recent joint talk between Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics and Massachusetts General Hospital's Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior on the scientific and legal perspectives on criminally trying children as adults.
March 31, 2023
The lab of Stephen Liberles was featured in Science News for their recent paper illuminating how the brain becomes aware that there is an infection in the body.
March 31, 2023
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.
March 31, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Roy H. Perlis and colleagues, first author Andrea G. Edlow, finding that male but not female babies born to women who tested positive for SARS‐CoV‐2 during pregnancy were more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder in their first 12 months.
March 31, 2023
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.
March 31, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Chi-Fu Jeffrey Yang and colleagues, first author Alexandra L Potter, revealing elevated suicide rates among adults undergoing surgery for cancer, with half of the suicides occurring during the first three postoperative years.
March 31, 2023
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.
March 31, 2023
HMS News on a new study from Isaac Chiu, Judy Lieberman, and colleagues, co-first authors Dylan V. Neel and Himanish Basu, suggesting that inflammatory proteins in innate immune system may damage neurons and could lead to ALS.
March 31, 2023
HMS News article highlighting the collaboration of Peter Park and Tim Yu and their work developing novel therapy for specific form of frontotemporal dementia.
March 9, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Isaac Chiu and colleagues, first author Felipe Pinho-Ribeiro, showing that bacteria hijack crosstalk between nerve and immune cells to cause meningitis.
March 9, 2023
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.
March 9, 2023
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from Siddharth Srivastava, Annapurna Poduri, and colleagues confirming a previous study finding that about 1 in 4 children with cerebral palsy (CP) who had DNA testing had genetic variants likely to have caused or contributed to their condition.
March 3, 2023
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.
March 3, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Hyungsoon Im, Sudeshna Das, and first author Matthew Leming. Using a new deep-learning model trained on tens of thousands of routine brain scans, and they spotted disease risk with 90% accuracy.
March 1, 2023
HMS Neurobiology professor David Ginty is succeeding Harvard Brain Science Initiative (HBI) founder Michael Greenberg as chair of the Department of Neurobiology and as co-director of HBI. Ginty’s duties as co-director include spearheading a vision of neuroscience at Harvard that captures the University’s incredible ecosystem of multidisciplinary scholars.
February 24, 2023
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
February 24, 2023
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.
February 24, 2023
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."
February 24, 2023
In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, Amanda Baker discusses her recent paper comparing the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction to that of a commonly prescribed anxiety drug.
February 24, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Kathryn Rexrode and colleagues, first author Alexandra C Purdue-Smithe, finding that women with pre-pregnancy migraines have a greater risk of complications, including preterm delivery, gestational hypertension, and pre-eclampsia.
February 24, 2023
Harvard MCB Department news article on new research from Sharad Ramanathan and colleagues, first author Giri Anand. They cultivated stem cells to mirror the process of axial elongation in the developing embryo allowing them to see how the neural tube develops into the spinal cord.
February 24, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Nathaniel Harnett and Kerry Ressler, first author Nathalie M. Dumornay, highlighting how structural racism may affect brain development and psychiatric disease in Black and white children.
February 24, 2023
HMS News interview with Wei-Chung Allen Lee discussing the field of connectomics, which which aims to comprehensively map connections between neurons in the brain.
February 24, 2023
MCB news article on new research from Jeff Lichtman and colleagues, first author Neha Karlupia, describing a method where small samples of human medical biopsies made available at the time of neurosurgery are rapidly preserved and then stained with heavy metals and embedded in a hard resin for connectomic studies.
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Frank J. Slack, Maria Mavrikaki (co-first author with Jonathan lee) and colleagues, finding for the first time the molecular signatures of brain aging in patients with severe COVID-19.
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Sandeep Robert Datta, David Brann, Tatsuya Tsukahara, and colleagues at Duke Health and UC San Diego, finding that long-term loss of smell may be linked to an ongoing immune assault on olfactory nerve cells and an associated decline in the number of those cells.
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Olivier Pourquié and colleagues, first author Yuchuan Miao, on the creation of organoids that mimic early spine development in humans. These organoids include a ticking “segmentation clock” like those they previously identified in the embryos of several species and replicated in human stem cells.
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Khalid Shah and colleagues, first author Kok-Siong Chen, on the development of a new cell therapy approach engineered to eliminate established tumors and to train the immune system to prevent cancer recurrence.
January 25, 2023
Harvard Gazette article on new research from the labs of Xiaowei Zhuang and Catherine Dulac, first author William E. Allen. They used the imaging method MERFISH to examine the relationship between inflammation and cognitive impairment as we age. Their results suggest this may be due to a cellular chain reaction.
January 25, 2023
HMS News article on new research from Tamara Fong, Sharon Inouye, and colleagues, finding that the modified and extended version of the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP-ME), a well-established and highly successful delirium prevention program, is both feasible and acceptable to hospital staff and patients.
December 8, 2022
HMS News article on two new research papers from David Ginty, Chris Harvey, and colleagues, first authors Josef Turecek, Anda Chirila, and Genelle Rankin, suggesting the spinal cord and brainstem are essential for processing touch signals as they travel to the brain.
December 8, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Sharon K. Inouye, and colleagues, co-first authors Tammy Hshieh and Ray Yun Gou, analyzing one-year health care costs for older hospitalized patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. They found costs were higher for those who had delirium than for those who did not.
December 8, 2022
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.
December 8, 2022
Harvard Gazette article spotlighting a new course taught by Erin Hecht investigating canine behavior and what it can tell us about ours.
December 8, 2022
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.
November 28, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Wade Harper, Tobias Walther, Robert Farese Jr, and colleagues, co-first authors Sebastian Boland, Sharan Swarup, shedding light on the basic biology of frontotemporal dementia caused by a particular genetic mutation.
November 28, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Michael Prerau and colleagues, extracting tens of thousands of electrical events from the brain waves of a sleeping person, creating a picture of brain unique for each person and consistent from one night to the next in order to better identify potential biomarkers in the brain activity of people with schizophrenia and other brain conditions.
November 28, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Isaac Chiu and colleagues, first author Daping Yang, illuminating how pain neurons shield the gut from damage.
October 14, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from Maria Lehtninen, Naama Kanarek, and colleagues, first author Ahram Jang, on the feasibility of targeting the cerebrospinal fluid and choroid plexus to treat "chemo-brain"-- a side effect of chemotherapy that makes it harder to remember things, maintain attention, and learn new information.
October 14, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Frank Scheer and colleagues, first author Nina Vujović, providing experimental evidence that late eating may increase hunger and obesity risk.
October 14, 2022
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.
September 29, 2022
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.
September 29, 2022
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.
September 29, 2022
Brigham and Women's Hospital press release on new research from Frank Sheer, Sarah Chellappa, and colleagues, first author Jingyi Qian, adding new evidence that meal timing may affect mental health, including levels of depression- and anxiety-related moods. Also featured in HMS News.
September 29, 2022
Brigham and Women's Hospital research brief on new research from Tamar Sofer and colleagues, first author Einat Granot-Hershkovitz, finding in diverse study populations that blood metabolites related to sugars were associated with older adults’ global cognitive health.
September 29, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital Answers article on new research from Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, David Glahn, and colleagues, co-first authors Catherine Brownstein and Elise Douard (Université de Montréal) finding that children with early-onset psychosis have similar rates of deleterious copy number variants (CNVs) as children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The new study suggests that all children and adolescents with a psychotic diagnosis might benefit from undergoing genetic screening.
September 20, 2022
HMS News article on new research from the labs of Christopher Harvey and Michael Greenberg, first author Noah Pettit, and second author Lynn Yap, finding that a gene called Fos is a key player in spatial mapping. It helps the brain use specialized navigation cells to form and maintain stable representations of the environment.
September 20, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Matthew Crowson, Christopher Hartnick, and colleagues at HMS and Mass. Eye and Ear. They built an artificial intelligence model that they have shown to outperform clinicians in diagnosing pediatric ear infections.
September 20, 2022
Harvard Gazette article highlighting recent research from Michael Barnett, Arno Cai, and colleagues showing how much the mental health system increasingly relies on psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) to meet the psychiatric needs of Medicare patients.
August 1, 2022
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.
August 1, 2022
HMS News article profiling the research of Bruce Bean and Clifford Woolf, who are studying how CBD inhibits pain-sensing neurons in order to develop more effective pain medicines.
August 1, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Samuel Mehr and colleagues, co-first authors Courtney Hilton and Cody J. Moser. They studied 21 cultures, from San Diego to East Africa and found striking similarities in infant-directed speech and song.
July 15, 2022
Harvard MCB Department news article on new research from the team of Mitsuko Watabe-Uchida and Nao Uchida, first author, Ryunosuke Amo, finding evidence that rodent brains exhibit a specific form of learning called temporal difference (TD) learning, widely used in both animal learning models and artificial intelligence.
July 15, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Hadine Joffe and colleagues, first author Alexandra Z. Sosinsky, showing that females are underrepresented in key disease clinical trials, with the largest gap observed in psychiatric clinical trials.
July 15, 2022
HMS News article on the development of a new word-score model from Stéphane Maison and colleagues, first author Kelsie J. Grant, which leads to better evaluations of cochlear nerve damage.
July 15, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Winston Hide and colleagues, first author Sarah Morgan, involving text-mining of over 200,000 publication abstracts that revealed that broad effects of the disease are reflected in immune, metabolic, and depression-related pathways.
July 15, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Zhongcong Xie and colleagues, first author Feng Liang, revealing that two newly identified plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease can predict postoperative delirium, one of the most common postoperative complications in older patients.
June 30, 2022
HMS News profiling PiNBAC, a new post-bac program that seeks to increase diversity in neuroscience by providing research experience and professional development to college graduates from underrepresented groups. PiNBAC is led by Tari Tan and Bob Datta of the Dept of Neurobiology at HMS.
June 30, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Stephen Liberles and colleagues, first author Chuchu Zhang, using mice to describe how different cell types in the brain work together to suppress nausea.
June 30, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Michael D. Fox and colleagues, co-first authors Juho Joutsa, Khaled Moussawi, Shan H. Siddiqi, using a new lesion network mapping technique to map addiction remission to entire brain circuits rather than specific brain regions.
June 30, 2022
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.
June 30, 2022
Harvard MCB News article on new research from the lab of Venki Murthy, first author Nuné Martiros, providing insight into the workings of neural circuits in the ventral striatum’s olfactory tubercle during odor association learning.
June 30, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on soaring alcohol use during the pandemic. Marisa Silveri, Scott Hadland, Joji Suzuki, and Kevin Hill discussed alarming drinking trends, safe weekly limits, and approaches for cutting back or quitting.
June 15, 2022
Harvard Dept. of MCB News article on new research from Catherine Dulac and colleagues, first author Jessica Osterhout, showing how neurons in the brain directly read signals from the body’s immune system and how those signals alter neural circuit activity to trigger symptoms of sickness.
June 15, 2022
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.
June 15, 2022
Boston Children's Hospital Answer article on new research from Christopher A. Walsh and colleagues, co-first authors August Yue Huang and Michael B. Miller, revealing that that people with Alzheimer’s have an abundance of newly acquired mutations in their neurons — more than people of the same age without Alzheimer’s, and enough to disable genes important to brain function.
June 15, 2022
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.
June 15, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Kira Bona, Puja J. Umaretiya, and colleagues, showing that race, ethnicity, and poverty are linked to worse outcomes in children treated for high-risk neuroblastomas.
June 15, 2022
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.
June 15, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on what language a bilingual or multilingual person is most likely to dream in and why.
June 15, 2022
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.
June 15, 2022
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).
June 15, 2022
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.
May 24, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Yakeel Quiroz and colleagues, co-first authors Edmarie Guzmán-Vélez and Ibai Diez, showing that the accumulation of amyloid-beta and tau proteins can disrupt brain connectivity years before Alzheimer's symptoms emerge.
May 24, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Matthias Nahrendorf and colleagues, co-first authors Fadi E. Pulous and Jean C. Cruz-Hernández, finding that cerebrospinal fluid (also known as “brain water”) can exit the brain into the skull’s bone marrow through tiny channels in the skull, and this may be key to detecting infection and injury.
May 24, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Rishi Wadhera, Michael Liu, and colleagues, showing worse mental health outcomes and higher rates of substance abuse among adolescents experiencing homelessness.
May 24, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Christopher J. Hartnick and colleagues, first author Phoebe K. Yu, demonstrating that a surgically implanted device that moves the tongue forward during sleep can safely and effectively reduce sleep apnea in adolescents with Down syndrome.
May 24, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Christopher J. Hartnick and colleagues, first author Phoebe K. Yu, demonstrating that a surgically implanted device that moves the tongue forward during sleep can safely and effectively reduce sleep apnea in adolescents with Down syndrome.
May 24, 2022
HMS News profile on Josefina del Marmol, a newly hired assistant professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, who studies how animals detect and identify scents.
May 24, 2022
Harvard Health Publishing article outlining LATE (limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy), the third most common cause of dementia in older individuals.
May 4, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Yun Zhang and colleagues, co-first authors He Liu and Taihong Wu, showing that forgetting generates a novel brain state that is different from the one before learning happened or the one that exists after a memory is formed.
May 4, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Michael A. Lodato, Eunjung Alice Lee, Christopher A. Walsh, Michael B. Miller, and colleagues, demonstrating that somatic mutations accumulated in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease at a faster rate, potentially explaining why brain cells die and revealing new pathways to target for treatment.
May 4, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Benjamin Neale and colleagues at the Broad Institute, first author Duncan Palmer, revealing new insight into the condition’s molecular underpinnings.
May 4, 2022
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.
May 4, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Sharon Inouye, and colleagues on the development of a novel measure of delirium severity that could help improve patient-centered care for delirium.
May 4, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Pascal Kaeser and colleagues, first author Changliang Liu, identifying a new mechanism that underlies dopamine release in the brain.
April 21, 2022
HMS News article on new research from the lab of Chenghua Gu, first author Swathi Ayloo, identifying a new mechanism regulating the permeability of the blood-brain barrier in mice.
April 21, 2022
Harvard Medicine News Q+A with Aleena Garner about her research, focusing on how memory affects perception of visual and auditory information.
April 21, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on a recent conversation with between Harvard’s Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative with Professor of Psychology Jesse Snedeker and Professor and author Avi Loeb. This panel discussed the potential challenges of communicating with aliens who may be much more intelligent than us.
April 21, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on new research from Anne Oaklander and colleagues, suggesting that that some patients with long COVID have lasting nerve damage that appears to be caused by a potentially treatable infection-triggered immune dysfunction.
April 21, 2022
Harvard Health Publishing article discussing recent research suggesting that cataract surgery may protect against dementia.
March 8, 2022
HMS News article on a new report on depression commissioned by the Lancet and World Psychiatric Association. The report included recommendations for how health care practitioners, policymakers, community members, and people with depression can work together to build sustainable solutions in response to the ongoing mental health crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 8, 2022
Erin Hecht answers this question as part of Harvard Gazette's Wondering, a new series of random questions answered by Harvard experts.
March 8, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Marco Loggia and colleagues, first author Ludovica Brusaferri, suggesting that pandemic-related stressors may lead to brain inflammation in people not infected with SARS-CoV-2.
March 8, 2022
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.
February 24, 2022
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.
February 24, 2022
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.
February 24, 2022
Harvard Gazette article on a recent panel sponsored by the Harvard Mind Brain Behavior Initiative featuring Kirk R. Daffner, Daniel L. Schacter, and Susanna C. Siegel using the plot of the film Memento to discuss memory, amnesia, and personality.
February 7, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Siddharth Srivastava, Annapurna Poduri, Mustafa Sahin, and colleagues, first author Maya Chopra, finding that up to 1 in 4 patients with CP have an underlying genetic condition.
February 7, 2022
HMS News article on new research from Roy Perlis and colleagues showing links between depressive symptoms and belief in false statements.