Research Topics

As this gallery of featured people and projects illustrates, Picower Institute scientists study brain structure and function at scales from genes and molecules to cells, circuits and regions. They also study the behaviors and cognitive processes that result, and seek to uncover how disruptions at different scales can result in developmental, psychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders. They employ—and often invent—the newest technologies in their work. To learn more about any of these specific areas, click "Research Topics" above, select areas of interest, 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

September 29, 2025

Research Feature

Picower Institute studies reveal a number of ways moods emerge in the brain and therefore many potential paths to address depression, PTSD, anxiety and bipolar disorder.

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.

September 10, 2025

Research Findngs

Lipid metabolism and cell membrane function can be disrupted in the neurons of people who carry rare variants of ABCA7.

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.

July 1, 2025

Research Findings

A first-of-its-kind study in mice reveals that neurons add and shed synapses at a frenzied pace during development to integrate visual signals from the two eyes.

June 16, 2025

Research Feature

Rooted in fundamental curiosity about how the brain works, Picower scientists continue to break new ground in understanding autism and devising treatment strategies

May 12, 2025

Research Findings

MIT study finds that an easily measurable brain wave shift may be a universal marker of unconsciousness under anesthesia

April 28, 2025

Research Findings

Study shows how a dopamine circuit between two brain regions enables mice to extinguish fear after a peril has passed.

April 24, 2025

Research Findngs

Study provides new evidence that sensory stimulation of gamma-frequency brain rhythm may promote broad-based restorative neurological health response.

April 21, 2025

Research Findings

Clinical trial finds several outcomes improved for young children when an anesthesiologist observed their brain waves to guide dosing of sevoflurane during surgery.

Li-Huei Tsai

Many Mechanisms of Mood

How the brain splits up vision without you even noticing

Study explains how a rare gene variant contributes to Alzheimer’s disease

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

Connect or reject: Extensive rewiring builds binocular vision in the brain

Autism advances

Different anesthetics, same result: unconsciousness by shifting brainwave phase

Dopamine signals when a fear can be forgotten

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

In kids, EEG monitoring of consciousness safely reduces anesthetic use