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 …
The National Academy of Inventors has selected MIT neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience and director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, as a member of its 2019 class of new fellows. NAI fellows “have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a …
Long before symptoms like memory loss even emerge, the underlying pathology of Alzheimer’s disease, such as an accumulation of amyloid protein plaques, is well underway in the brain. A longtime goal of the field has been to understand where it starts so that future interventions could begin there. A new study by MIT neuroscientists at …
In a new video we summarize the recent developments in our GENUS research. We have found that sensory stimulation of 40Hz gamma-frequency rhythms in the brain can help reduce Alzheimer’s disease pathology and improve memory in multiple mouse models of the disease. We are continuing to study the mechanisms of how that works and whether …
Several years ago, MIT neuroscientists showed that they could dramatically reduce the amyloid plaques seen in mice with Alzheimer’s disease simply by exposing the animals to light flickering at a specific frequency. In a new study, the researchers have found that this treatment has widespread effects at the cellular level, and it helps not just …
MIT researchers have performed the first comprehensive analysis of the genes that are expressed in individual brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The results allowed the team to identify distinctive cellular pathways that are affected in neurons and other types of brain cells. This analysis could offer many potential new drug targets for Alzheimer’s, …
By exposing mice to a unique combination of light and sound, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can improve cognitive and memory impairments similar to those seen in Alzheimer’s patients. This noninvasive treatment, which works by inducing brain waves known as gamma oscillations, also greatly reduced the number of amyloid plaques found in the brains …
The Hans Wigzell Research Foundation announced Jan. 23 that neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor and director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, is the winner of Hans Wigzell´s Prize in Medicine for 2018. Tsai will travel to Stockholm to receive the prize and deliver a lecture on her research Feb. 14. …
Growing up, Joel Blanchard watched his grandfather remain cognitively sharp past the age of 90 but his grandmother develop Alzheimer’s in her 70s. The difference sparked an interest in brain aging that motivates him today as a postdoc in MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. As the new recipient of a 2018 Glenn Foundation …