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.

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

Doherty 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

Sherman Fairchild Professor in Neurobiology

Research in the Wilson laboratory focuses on the study of information representation across large populations of neurons in the mammalian nervous system, as well as on the mechanisms that underlie formation and maintenance of distributed memories, and the role of sleep in memory.

Research Areas

hippocampus, place cells, LFP, oscillations, functional connectivity, synchronization, replay, reverse replay

November 25, 2025

Research Findngs

A new MIT study illustrates how areas within the brain’s executive control center tailor their messages in specific circuits with other brain regions to influence them with information about behavior and internal feelings.

November 25, 2025

Research Findngs

MIT researchers have discovered how an immune system molecule triggers neurons in a specific brain circuit to shut down social behavior in mice modeling infection.

November 19, 2025

Research Findngs

Temporarily anesthetizing the retina briefly reverts the activity of the visual system to that observed in early development and enables growth of responses to the amblyopic eye, new research shows

November 3, 2025

Research Findngs

To get back on track after a distraction, the cortex appears to employ a rotating traveling wave, a new study by MIT neuroscientists finds.

November 3, 2025

New Research

Assistant Professor Sara Prescott and Research Affiliate Ravikiran Raju are key collaborators in a new Broad Institute research project to better understand physiological and medical effects of acute and chronic life stressors.

October 20, 2025

Research Findngs

When spotting what’s changed from one scene to the next, performance will depend on a low-frequency “theta” brain wave that scans the mental image, a new MIT study shows.

October 16, 2025

Research Findngs

MIT neuroscientists show in a new study that loops of RNA can strongly influence how neurons build circuit connections, or synapses, during the development of the visual system in young mice.

October 14, 2025

Research Findngs

By carefully tracking the formation and maturation of synaptic active zones in fruit flies, MIT scientists have discovered how neural activity helps circuit connections become tuned to the right size and degree of signal transmission

September 22, 2025

Research Findngs

As an object moves across your field of view, the brain seamlessly hands off visual processing from one hemisphere to the other like cell phone towers or relay racers do, a new MIT study shows.

Li-Huei Tsai

Brady Weissbourd

Matthew Wilson

Prefrontal cortex reaches back into the brain to shape how other regions function

Too sick to socialize: How the brain and immune system promote staying in bed

MIT study shows how vision can be rebooted in adults with amblyopia

After distractions, rotating brain waves may help thought circle back to the task

Q&A: Picower researchers join effort to investigate the ‘Biology of Adversity’

Like radar, a brain wave sweeps a cortical region to read out information held in working memory

Study finds circular RNA helps drive brain development

Neural activity helps circuit connections mature into optimal signal transmitters

How the brain splits up vision without you even noticing