Neurotechnology

Picower Institute Neuroscientists don't just apply the latest technologies and methods for studying the brain, they also often invent them. To learn more about how researchers here work at, and expand, the frontiers of research, select them under Research Topics and you'll find relevant Picower people, discoveries and events.

Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot Assistant Professor of Biology

Brady Weissbourd uses jellyfish to study nervous system evolution, development, regeneration, and function.

Research Areas

Evolution, neural systems, Internal states, neuromodulation, development, Single Cell Transcriptomics and Epigenomics

August 14, 2026

Research Findings

The new technique could help scientists learn how the entire brain works to generate decisions and emotions.

April 20, 2026

Research Findings

Neural interaction with bacteria, e.g. in the gut microbiome, has important effects on brains of animals from worms to people. A new study investigates how neurons sense bacteria by revealing, in nematodes, the bacterial signals that a key neuron detects

April 14, 2026

Research Findings

Using advanced human cell cultures to model Rett syndrome, MIT researchers tracked how two different mutations alter neural circuit development and how each could be addressed with distinct potential therapeutics

February 24, 2026

Research Findings

Three new neural network-based tools enable fast, accurate alignment and annotation of images even in very wiggly subjects. The tools might offer a way to automate cell tracking in other imaging datasets, too.

February 17, 2026

Picower People

Linlin Fan uses innovative optical tools to precisely investigate how connections change among neurons during memory formation. With Sloan Foundation support, she plans to give the technology a significant upgrade

August 7, 2025

Research Findings

By combining several cutting-edge imaging technologies, a new microscope system could enable unprecedentedly deep and precise visualization of metabolic and neuronal activity, potentially even in humans.

July 22, 2025

Research Findings

MIT researchers employed a novel application of tools and analysis to show that astrocytes ensure neural information processing by maintaining ambient levels of the neurotransmitter chemical GABA.

April 22, 2025

Picower People

Assistant Professor Linlin Fan will apply her lab’s precise “all-optical” techniques to study how serotonin might influence plasticity in memory, and whether psychedelics affect that.

January 24, 2025

Research Findings

Tissue processing advance can label proteins at the level of individual cells across whole, intact rodent brains and other large samples just as fast and uniformly as in dissociated single cells.

December 10, 2024

Research Findings

Place cells are well known to encode individual locations, but new experiments and analysis indicate that stitching together a “cognitive map” of a whole environment requires a broader ensemble of cells, aided by sleep, to build a richer network over seve

November 13, 2024

Research Findings

System developed by MIT and Open Ephys team provides a fast, light, standardized means for combining multiple instruments with minimal hindrance of lab mouse mobility.

Brady Weissbourd

High-speed microscopy reveals electrical activity across the brain

How neurons sense bacteria in the gut

Rett syndrome study highlights potential for personalized treatments

As worms and jellyfish wriggle, new AI tools track their neurons

Sloan Fellowship will help Fan advance technology to study how brain circuits change amid learning

MIT imaging tech promises deepest looks yet into living brain tissue at single-cell resolution

Study finds key role for non-neural brain cells in processing vision

With Searle Scholar award, Fan will study serotonin role in memory

MIT method enables ultrafast protein labeling of tens of millions of densely packed cells in organ-scale tissues

Study suggests how the brain, with sleep, learns meaningful maps of spaces

Open technology platform enables new versatility for neuroscience research with more naturalistic behavior