McGovern Institute for Brain Research

MIT cognitive neuroscientist Evelina Fedorenko will receive a 2025 Troland Research Award for her groundbreaking contributions toward understanding the language network in the human brain.

MIT researchers created the most comprehensive map yet of the functions of the brain's cerebral cortex. Using fMRI, the team identified 24 networks with different functions, which include processing language, social interactions, visual features, and other sensory input.

Two newly discovered brain pathways appear to relay emotional information that helps to shape the motivation to take action. The pathways arise in the striatum and connect to dopamine-producing neurons.

A new computational model analyzes the factors that help determine whether debunking efforts will persuade people to change their beliefs about the legitimacy of an election.

Professor Polina Anikeeva has been named the new head of MIT's Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE).

In a new study involving a group of polyglots, the brain activity of the participants was monitored using a method called functional magnetic resonance...

A new study involving participants from 15 countries, shed light on the universal preference for simple integer ratios in rhythms, revealing significant cultural variations in musical perception.

The MIT Simons Center for the Social Brain catalyzes multiperspective, multiscale research collaborations to understand the neural mechanisms underlying social cognition and behavior.

Researchers discovered a fascinating aspect of human memory: our recall becomes sharper following negative experiences.

Sentences with greater linguistic complexity are most likely to fire up a key brain language processing center, according to an MIT study that employed an artificial language network.

In the largest study of deep neural networks trained to perform auditory tasks, MIT researchers found most models generate internal representations that share properties of representations seen in the human brain when people are listening to the same sounds.

New MIT studies support the idea that the brain uses a process similar to a machine-learning approach known as "self-supervised learning." This type of machine learning allows computational models to learn about visual scenes based solely on the similarities and differences between them, with no labels or other information.

Scientists from MIT and IBM Research made a computer vision model more robust by training it to work like a part of the brain that humans and other primates rely on for object recognition.

MIT Professor Ila Fiete received the Society for Neuroscience's Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience for her breakthrough research modeling hippocampal grid cells.

Mitch Murdock, a doctoral student in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, explores the cellular and molecular basis of Alzheimer's to understand the causes and progression of the disease through new technology and fundamental biological techniques.

On September 2, Luo Dong-Gen and his research team from Peking University's School of Life Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Center for Quantitative Biology, and Center for Life Sciences jointly published a research paper titled "An extra-clock ultradian brain oscillator sustains circadian timekeeping" in Science Advances.

A team led by researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT has discovered that organisms across all three domains of life — bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes (which includes plants and animals) — use pattern recognition of conserved viral proteins to defend against pathogens.

A computational model developed by MIT neuroscientist could explain differences between autistic and neurotypical adults in recognizing facial emotions.

The new K. Lisa Yang Brain-Body Center at MIT, funded by a $38 million gift to the McGovern Institute for Brain Research from philanthropist K. Lisa Yang, aims to unlock the mysteries of the gut-brain relationship, aging, pain, and acupuncture.

MIT neuroscientist Ann Graybiel reports that mice need the cannabinoid receptor CB1R to establish connections within the brain's dopamine system that take shape soon after birth. The finding raises concern that marijuana use by nursing moms might interfere with brain development.