Press Releases

When you enter a room, your brain is bombarded with sensory information. If the room is a place you know well, most of this information is already stored in long-term memory. However, if the room [...]

Learning and memory are generally thought to be composed of three major steps: encoding events into the brain network, storing the encoded information, and later retrieving it for recall.

A new MIT study of the neural circuits that underlie this process reveals, for the first time, that memories are actually formed simultaneously in the hippocampus and the long-term storage [...]

Scientists have long believed that the central amygdala is linked with fear and responses to unpleasant events. However, a team of MIT neuroscientists has now discovered a circuit in the central [...]

Our emotional state is governed partly by a tiny brain structure known as the amygdala, which is responsible for processing positive emotions such as happiness, and negative ones such as fear and [...]

Mice have brain cells that are dedicated to storing memories of other mice, according to a new study from MIT neuroscientists. These cells, found in a region of the hippocampus known as the [...]

Neuroscientists retrieve missing memories in mice with early Alzheimer’s symptoms. In the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, patients are often unable to remember recent experiences. [...]

Neuroscientists identify a brain circuit that is critical for forming episodic memories. When you remember a particular experience, that memory has three critical elements — what, when, and [...]

Memories that have been “lost” as a result of amnesia can be recalled by activating brain cells with light. In a paper published today in the journal Science, researchers at MIT reveal that they [...]

Most memories have some kind of emotional association: Recalling the week you just spent at the beach probably makes you feel happy, while reflecting on being bullied provokes more negative [...]

MIT research sheds light on retrieving correct memories and how animals “think” when they self-correct their on-going behaviors. Mice running mazes sometimes go left when they should go right. [...]

Study reveals how the brain links memories of events that occur one after the other. Suppose you heard the sound of skidding tires, followed by a car crash. The next time you heard such a skid, [...]

MIT neuroscientists map neural circuits involving the CA2 region of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the region of the brain that is responsible for episodic memory. For decades, [...]

Neuroscientists discover neurological hyperactivity that produces disordered thinking. Schizophrenia patients usually suffer from a breakdown of organized thought, often accompanied by delusions [...]

MIT study also pinpoints where the brain stores memory traces, both false and authentic. The phenomenon of false memory has been well-documented: In many court cases, defendants have been found [...]

Picower Institute neuroscientists use single dose of experimental drug; could prove promising for treatment of autism symptoms. Neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory [...]

Simply activating a tiny number of neurons can conjure an entire memory. Our fond or fearful memories — that first kiss or a bump in the night — leave memory traces that we may conjure up in the [...]

Cambridge, Ma - Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report for the first time that neurons at different stages of their life cycles may perform two separate functions...

Cambridge, Ma - In the moments after lightning streaks through the sky, we wait for the clap of thunder that experience has...

Cambridge, Ma - Neuroscientists at MIT’s Picower Institute of Learning and Memory have uncovered why relatively minor details of...