NARSAD awards $720,000 to Harvard researchers
Twelve from Harvard are among 214 researchers named NARSAD Young Investigators. Young Investigators represent a new generation of researchers who will pioneer breakthroughs in mental health research....
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Eight weeks to a better brain
Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. In a study that will...
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Harnessing your creative brain
There are creative geniuses, and then there are the rest of us. We’re the ones Shelley Carson wants to help. Carson, an affiliate with Harvard’s Psychology Department and a lecturer at the Harvard...
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Web-crawling the brain
The brain is a black box. A complex circuitry of neurons fires information through channels, much like the inner workings of a computer chip. But while computer processors are regimented with the deft...
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Harvard Medical School researchers crawl a neural network
Scientists can finally look at circuits in the brain in all of their complexity. How the mind works is one of the greatest mysteries in nature, and this research presents a new and powerful way for us...
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Brain navigation
The brain of a mouse measures only 1 cubic centimeter in volume. But when neuroscientists at Harvard’s Center for Brain Science slice it thinly and take high-resolution micrographs of each slice, that...
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Neurons in youth
Have you ever wondered why infants can learn foreign languages easily, while older children and parents struggle? Or why your third-grader can fix your computer, but you can barely check your email?...
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Rebuilding the brain’s circuitry
Neuron transplants have repaired brain circuitry and substantially normalized function in mice with a brain disorder, an advance indicating that key areas of the mammalian brain are more reparable...
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Clues to addiction
Harvard scientists have developed the fullest picture yet of how neurons in the brain interact to reinforce behaviors ranging from learning to drug use, a finding that might open the door to new...
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Deciding to go left or right
For decades, scientists have associated binary decision making — opting to go left or right — with higher-ranking animals, including humans. A team of Harvard researchers, however, is rewriting that...
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The growing brain
Conventional wisdom suggests that the brain’s branches develop as a newborn begins to experience the world. With more experience, those connections are strengthened, and new branches emerge as the...
View ArticleResearchers awarded NARSAD grants
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation announced $11.9 million in new research grants, strengthening its investment in the most promising ideas to lead to breakthroughs in understanding and...
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Listening for clues
Baby songbirds learn to sing by imitation, just as human babies do. So researchers at Harvard and Utrecht University, in the Netherlands, have been studying the brains of zebra finches — red-beaked,...
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Controlling behavior, remotely
In the quest to understand how the brain turns sensory input into behavior, Harvard scientists have crossed a major threshold. Using precisely targeted lasers, researchers have been able to take over...
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Sniff mechanics
Harvard scientists are shedding light on a neural feedback mechanism that may play a key role in how the olfactory system works in the brain. The mechanism was first identified more than a century...
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First Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor is named
Jeff Lichtman, the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a world leader in using advanced imaging techniques to study the wiring of the brain and nervous system, has been...
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A look inside the lab
Anyone who’s ever wondered about the sort of cutting-edge research that takes place in Harvard’s labs will now have the chance to find out. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Science...
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The motivation to move
Suppose you had $1,000 to invest in the stock market. How would you decide to pick one stock over another? Scientists have made great progress in understanding the neuroscience behind how people...
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‘Brainbow,’ version 2.0
The breakthrough technique that allowed scientists to obtain one-of-a-kind, colorful images of the myriad connections in the brain and nervous system is about to get a significant upgrade. A group of...
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Advancing science and technology
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, and it is no accident that two of them will be based in Cambridge. Harvard...
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