Disorders

Picower Institute scientists investigate the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying complex disorders of the brain that affect emotion and cognition. To learn more about research in these or other areas, select them under "Research Topics" and you'll find relevant Picower people, discoveries and events.

Mark Bear

Picower Professor of Neuroscience
Bear’s lab studies how experience and deprivation modify synaptic connections in the brain. Experience-dependent synaptic plasticity is the physical substrate of memory and sculpts connections during postnatal development to determine the capabilities and limitations of brain functions.
Research Areas
mGluR5, LTD, LTP, monocular deprivation, habituation, potentiation, amblyopia, visual cortex

Emery N. Brown

Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience
Brown lab research contributes to understanding the neuroscience of how anesthetics act in the brain to create the states of general anesthesia. Brown has developed signal processing algorithms to solve important data analysis challenges in neuroscience.
Research Areas
anesthesia, arousal, consciousness, neural systems, fMRI, motor cortex, EEG, MEG, microdialysis, epilepsy

Gloria Choi

Mark Hyman Jr. Career Development Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Choi’s lab studies the interaction of the immune system with the brain and the effects of that interaction on neurodevelopment, behavior and mood.
Research Areas
autism, neuroimmunology, cortex, proprioception, neurodevelopmental disorders

Steven Flavell

Investigator in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Neural operations occur in milliseconds, yet the brain generates behaviors that can last hours. Flavell’s lab studies how neural circuits generate sustained behavioral states, and how physiological and environmental information is integrated into these circuits.
Research Areas
neuromodulation, behavior, calcium imaging, C. elegans, gut-brain signaling, feeding states, serotonin

Myriam Heiman

Investigator in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
Many neurodegenerative diseases begin with the loss of select groups of cells. Understanding select group vulnerability may help identify root causes and novel therapeutic targets. Heiman’s lab studies selective vulnerability and pathophysiology in Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Research Areas
TRAP, neurotechnology, striatum, CAG, medium spiny neurons, neuronal identity, Huntington's Disease, neurodegeneration, Single Cell Transcriptomics and Epigenomics

Laura Lewis

Athinoula A. Martinos Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Lewis develops multimodal approaches for imaging the human brain, and applies them to study the neural circuitry that controls sleep, and the consequences of sleep for brain function.
Research Areas
Sleep, fMRI, EEG, attention, depression, aging, neurodegeneration, thalamus

Troy Littleton

Menicon Professor in Neuroscience
Littleton studies how neurons form synaptic connections, how synapses transmit information, and how synapses change during learning and memory. The research combines molecular biology, protein biochemistry, electrophysiology, and imaging approaches with Drosophila genetics.
Research Areas
synapse formation, synaptic transmission, glia, epilepsy, neurological disorders, NMJ

Earl K. Miller

Picower Professor of Neuroscience
Miller’s lab studies the neural mechanisms of attention, learning, and memory needed for voluntary, goal-directed behavior. The lab explores prefrontal function by employing a variety of techniques including multiple-electrode neurophysiology, psychophysics, pharmacological manipulations, and computational techniques.
Research Areas
oscillations, cognitive control, prefrontal cortex, bayesian modelling, gamma, cognition, working memory

Elly Nedivi

William R. (1964) & Linda R. Young Professor of Neuroscience
Nedivi’s lab investigates the cellular mechanisms of activity-dependent plasticity through studies of synaptic and neuronal remodeling, identification of participating genes, and characterization of the cellular functions of the proteins they encode.
Research Areas
synaptic plasticity, synapse assembly, synapse disassembly, plasticity genes, CPG15, Neuritin, CPG2, SYNE1, visual system, In vivo cellular imaging, inhibitory circuits, Bipolar Disorder

Mriganka Sur

Newton Professor of Neuroscience
The goal of the Sur laboratory is to understand long-term plasticity and short-term dynamics in circuits of the developing and adult cortex, and to utilize this understanding to discover mechanisms underlying disorders of brain development.
Research Areas
cerebral cortex, plasticity, development, circuits, attention, autism spectrum disorders, Rett syndrome, organoids, neurotechnology, multiphoton imaging, astrocytes

Susumu Tonegawa

Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience
With cutting-edge neuroscience techniques, the Tonegawa lab unravels the molecular, cellular, and neural circuit mechanisms that underlie learning and memory. Studies bridge basic science and disease models to causally dissect how memory works and breaks down.
Research Areas
hippocampus, memory consolidation, circuit mapping, neuromodulation, engram, neurotechnology, inception, depression, place cells, amygdala, valence

Li-Huei Tsai

Picower Professor of Neuroscience
The Tsai lab is interested in elucidating the pathogenic mechanisms underlying neurological disorders that impact learning and memory by taking a multidisciplinary approach to investigate the molecular, cellular, and circuit basis of neurodegenerative disorders.
Research Areas
Alzheimer's dementia, Down syndrome, Single Cell Transcriptomics and Epigenomics, iPSCs, Brain Rhythms, Neuroimmune interactions, myelination, ApoE, lipid metabolism, Neuronal DNA damage
From: https://picower.mit.edu/research-topics/disorders