Robert Desimone, Ph.D.Director, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchDoris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience

desimone@mit.eduhttp://mcgovern.mit.edu

• Founded in 2000 by Patrick & Lore Harp McGovern• Mission is to understand brain and to discover ways to prevent and treat brain

disorders• 19 faculty members and >200 researchers• Faculty include Nobel Laureate and 5 members of National Academy of Sciences• Part of MIT neuroscience complex, among the largest in the world• Many collaborations within and outside MIT, including Picower Institute, Broad

Institute, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and many other institutions worldwide

Our founders: Patrick & Lore Harp McGovern

McGovern Institute Faculty Members

Our mission: Understanding the brain in health and disease

Disorders once thought to be distinct….

……are now known to overlap

President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative

White House, April 2, 2013

A technology revolution: genome sequencing

Tracing connections in the living human brain

Zeynep Saygin (MIT)

Imaging human brain activity during social interactions

Rebecca Saxe (MIT)

CLARITY: a new method for visualizing the brain

Kwanghun Chung (MIT)

Optogenetics: controlling brain activity with light

Ed Boyden (MIT)

A unique environment: MIT and Kendall Square

MIT

What’s the road map?

NHGRI

Mice are the most common genetic model….

• Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity

• More talkative than usual

• Flight of ideas

• Distractibility

• Feelings of worthlessness

• Recurrent thoughts of death

…but it is not easy to model brain disorders in mice

CRISPR: a new technology for genome editing

Feng Zhang (MIT and Broad Institute)

Jiahao Sha, Nanjing Medical University (Cell, Jan 2014)

CRISPR used to make targeted gene mutations in monkeys

RIKEN

The common marmoset as a genetic model for brain research

A brain-inspired computer vision system

Tomaso Poggio; Center for Brains, Minds & Machines (MIT)

Italian Institute of Technology

A learning humanoid robot

Understanding ourselves and our place in the universe

Robert Desimone, Ph.D.Director, McGovern Institute for Brain ResearchDoris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience

desimone@mit.eduhttp://mcgovern.mit.edu