The findings may help explain why some people who lead enriching lives are less prone to Alzheimer’s and age-related dementia Many people develop Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia as they get older. However, others remain sharp well into old age, even if their brains show underlying signs of neurodegeneration. Among these cognitively resilient people, …
To quickly express genes needed for learning and memory, brain cells snap both strands of DNA in many more places and cell types than previously realized, a new study shows The urgency to remember a dangerous experience requires the brain to make a series of potentially dangerous moves: Neurons and other brain cells snap open …
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences announced today that Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience and Director of The Picower Institute for Learning & Memory, is among 252 luminaries elected to join its esteemed membership. “We are honoring the excellence of these individuals, celebrating what they have achieved so far, and imagining what they …
Gene variant disrupts lipid metabolism, but in experiments the effects were reversed by choline supplements One of the most significant genetic risk factors for developing Alzheimer’s disease is a gene called APOE4, which is carried by almost half of all Alzheimer’s patients. A new study from MIT shows that this gene has widespread effects on …
When the brain forms a memory of a new experience, neurons called engram cells encode the details of the memory and are later reactivated whenever we recall it. A new MIT study reveals that this process is controlled by large-scale remodeling of cells’ chromatin. This remodeling, which allows specific genes involved in storing memories to …
In a new study, a team of scientists based at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research reveals evidence showing that the most prominent Alzheimer’s disease risk gene may disrupt a fundamental process in a key type of brain cell. Moreover, in a sign of how …
In a new video, MIT’s School of Science provides an inside look behind the Tsai lab’s discovery that stimulating 40Hz “gamma” frequency brain activity in mice can address Alzheimer’s pathology and symptoms, including memory loss and neuronal death. Part of the “Moments of Discovery” series, the video recreates former graduate student Hannah Iaccarino’s key early …
By developing a lab-engineered model of the human blood-brain barrier (BBB), neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have discovered how the most common Alzheimer’s disease risk gene causes amyloid protein plaques to disrupt the brain’s vasculature and showed they could prevent the damage with medications already approved for human use. About 25 …
MIT neuroscientists have discovered that an enzyme called HDAC1 is critical for repairing age-related DNA damage to genes involved in memory and other cognitive functions. This enzyme is often diminished in both Alzheimer’s patients and normally aging adults. In a study of mice, the researchers showed that when HDAC1 is lost, a specific type of …
The sweeping extent to which increasing 40Hz “gamma” rhythm power in the brain can affect the pathology and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in mouse models has been surprising, even to the MIT neuroscientists who’ve pioneered the idea. So surprising, in fact, they can’t yet explain why it happens. In three papers, including two this year …