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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.

When we have a new experience, the memory of that event is stored in a neural circuit that connects several parts of the hippocampus and other brain structures. Each cluster of neurons may store [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Artificially reactivating positive memories could offer an alternative to traditional antidepressants. MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can cure the symptoms of depression in mice by [...]

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, [...]

The vagaries of human memory are notorious. A friend insists you were at your 15th class reunion when you know it was your 10th. You distinctly remember that another friend was at your wedding, [...]

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 [...]

MIT researchers identify, label and manipulate the neuronal network encoding a memory. Memory is one of the enduring mysteries of neuroscience. How does the brain form a memory, store it, and [...]

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...