About

The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT focuses the talents of a diverse array of brain scientists on a single mission: unraveling the mechanisms that drive the quintessentially human capacity to remember and to learn, as well as related functions like perception, attention and consciousness.

Director's Message

The human brain is remarkably powerful and astonishingly adaptable. It is also fragile, subject to devastating symptoms stemming from disease and damage.

The human brain is remarkably powerful and astonishingly adaptable. It is also fragile, subject to devastating symptoms stemming from disease and damage. A marvel of biological engineering, the brain’s complexity is at once daunting and tantalizing. How does a conglomeration of cells and chemical signals enable us to think, feel and sense the world around us? This is the mystery neuroscientists confront daily.

Leadership

The Picower Institute’s internal leadership is comprised of a scientific component and an administrative/headquarters component, with Li-Huei Tsai as the Director of both components.

History & Mission

The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is an independent research entity within MIT's School of Science, with faculty members holding academic appointments in the Department of Brain and Cognit

In 1994, MIT first established a world-class, multidisciplinary neuroscience research center, initially with a grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation and then continued with long-term support from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health. 

The RIKEN-MIT Center

The RIKEN-MIT CNCG is lead by Nobel laureate Professor Susumu Tonegawa. Created on April 2008 by a joint MIT and RIKEN effort.

 

The objective of this research is to decipher molecular, cellular, circuits, and brain system mechanisms underlying learning and memory and decision-making by combining genetic techinques including transgenics, knockouts optogenetics, and virus vector-mediated genetic manipulations with a variety of analytical methods.

For this purpose, CNCG scientists use a highly interdisciplinary approach that includes molecular and cellular biology, immunohistology, confocal and multi-photon microscopy, in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology and behavioral paradigms.

Core Facilities & Resources

These core facilities integrate the various research goals of members of the Picower and McGovern Institutes, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Broad Institute.

Careers

We are hiring!

MIT-MGH Clinical Neuroscience Fellowship 2012-2013

The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Massachusetts General Hospital Clinical Neuroscience Fellowship Program

Available through the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute for Technology, this award will provide a fellowship stipend for one to two years, effective July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2013. One to two awards will be awarded.

Award

Contact & Directions

For a list of contacts and directions to the Picower Institute

General Information