Systems Neuroscience

Picower Institute scientists seek to understand the complex circuits and processes that the brain constructs and employs so that we can perceive, learn, think, plan, and feel. To learn more about these or other areas of inquiry, select them under Research Topics and you'll find relevant Picower people, discoveries and events.

September 27, 2023

Research Findings

Scientists have invested decades in piecing together how our vision is so good at recognizing what’s familiar. A new study overcomes an apparent discrepancy in data to reveal a new insight into how it works.

September 27, 2023

Research Findings

In C. elegans worms, a single neuron named HSN uses multiple chemicals and connections to orchestrate egg-laying and locomotion over the course of several minutes

September 14, 2023

Neural activity during sleep has a signature structure that the brain uses to make profound improvements in our thinking and wellness

August 21, 2023

Research Findings

MIT researchers model and map how neurons across the tiny brain of a C. elegans worm encode its behaviors, revealing many new insights about the robustness and flexibility of its nervous system

July 10, 2023

Research Findings

New research provides evidence that electric fields shared among neurons via “ephaptic coupling” provide the coordination necessary to assemble the multi-region neural ensembles (“engrams”) that represent remembered information.

June 22, 2023

Research Feature

Why studying simple organisms—none larger than the palm of your hand—is so integral to understanding nervous system health, disease and evolution.

April 19, 2023

Research Findings

Neurons that form part of a memory circuit are among the first brain cells to show signs of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.

March 15, 2023

Research Findings

Brain applies rhythms to physical patches of the cortex to selectively control just the right neurons at the right times to do the right things.

February 2, 2023

Research Findings

First detailed mapping and modeling of thalamus inputs onto visual cortex neurons show brain leverages “wisdom of the crowd” to process sensory information

December 29, 2022

Research Findings

Comparing models of working memory with real-world data, MIT researchers found that information resides not in persistent neural activity, but in the pattern of their connections

November 23, 2022

Recent Events

At a press conference at Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, young Picower scientist Takato Honda presented findings of key neurons involved in the neuropsychiatric disorder and sleep homeostasis

October 17, 2022

Picower People

Academy recognizes Mark Bear’s influential fundamental research on how experience shapes the brain and its relevance to neurodevelopmental diseases.

Resolving a seeming contradiction, study advances understanding of visual recognition memory

Study shows how a single neuron’s parallel outputs can coordinate many aspects of behavior

The Sleeping Brain

Cracking the code that relates brain and behavior in a simple animal

Brain networks encoding memory come together via electric fields, study finds

Petite & Profound

Neuroscientists identify cells especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s

‘Spatial Computing’ enables flexible working memory

Sparse, small, but diverse neural connections help make perception reliable, efficient

Holding information in mind may mean storing it among synapses

Research offers insights into mechanisms underlying bipolar mania, sleep homeostasis

Bear elected member of National Academy of Medicine