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brain+cognitive sciences news Fall 2006 NEW IMAGING CENTER was established between MGH and MIT NEWS FROM THE BRINGS POWERFUL TOOLS allowing freer access to the machines BENCH TO BCS RESEARCH for departmental investigators. As more faculty members with imag- Unraveling the Mysteries of Alzheimer’s The history of the new Martinos ing components to their research pro- Why do some people live to be 100 Imaging Center mirrors the history grams were recruited to BCS, demand without falling victim to Alzheimer’s of imaging at MIT. The longstanding for time on the MGH machines began disease? Li-Huei Tsai wants to know. interest in brain imaging at BCS began to strain their availability and the need Beta-amyloid (a protein fragment that with the early work of Suzanne Corkin, for an imaging facility at MIT became accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer’s whose research on neural mechanisms increasingly clear. In spite of the obvi- patients) is a telltale sign of the disease, of memory led her to analyze skull ous need, it took some years and the which affects 4 million Americans, most films and pneumoencephalograms convergence of multiple events for over age 65. Normally, the body man- of patients with brain damage, World the vision of a local imaging facility to ages to break down and eliminate these War II veterans, Alzheimer’s patients, be realized. The primary catalyst for fragments, but in the aging brain, they and, most significantly, patient HM. change came in the late 1990s when tend to form insoluble plaques. To add The methodological advances in Thanassis and Marina Martinos com- to the mystery, some people function Corkin’s work since those early days mitted to then-MIT President Chuck relatively normally with plaques nestled closely reflect the progress of new Vest that they would sponsor the among their neurons, while others scanning techniques, encompassing founding of an imaging science center. are virtually incapacitated. “There are first Computerized Tomography (CT) This center, named for their daughter, people with a significant plaque load and Positron Emission Tomography would focus on applications of imag- who can keep up with their daily lives,” (PET) scans, then functional Magnetic ing to understand mental illness and said Tsai, who has appointments in Resonance Imaging (fMRI). neuroscience. the Department of Brain and Cognitive As MIT initially had no facilities for this Initial funding from the Martinos Sciences and the Picower Institute type of work, Corkin was forced to look family was given in support of the for Learning and Memory. “Obviously, elsewhere, eventually conducting most MGH/Charlestown facility, which was other factors are determining whether of her brain scans at the Charlestown re-named the Athinoula A. Martinos they have full-blown Alzheimer’s.” Tsai, campus of the Massachusetts General Biomedical Imaging Center at MGH; who as a child in Taipei witnessed her Massachusetts Hospital (MGH). With the recruitment of and for a number of years, BCS grandmother’s descent into dementia, is Institute of Nancy Kanwisher and others in the late researchers continued the commute determined to unravel the thorny ques- Technology 1990s, BCS reached the needed criti- across town. Meanwhile, a team that tions associated with neurodegenerative cal mass in brain imaging research and included Martha Gray and Daniel and psychiatric disorders. things began to snowball. Members of Shannon of HST, Corkin, Kanwisher, Yes Virginia, There is LTP in Learning the Corkin and Kanwisher labs began Emilio Bizzi and Mriganka Sur of BCS, Researchers in Mark Bear’s lab report spending many hours in Charlestown, Bruce Rosen of MGH and HST, and in the August, 2006 issue of Science and in the year 2000, an agreement Continued inside . that certain key connections among neurons get stronger when we learn. “We show what everyone has always If you would like to believed, that long-term potentiation be put on the is indeed induced in the hippocampus newsletter mailing when learning occurs,” says Bear. “This list, or have is a big deal for neuroscientists because information you such evidence has been absent for the would like to have 30-plus years we have known about published, LTP.” please contact: Judith A New Approach to Imaging Brain Rauchwarger Activity Human Resources If you want to see precisely what the Administrator 10 billion neurons in a person’s brain are [email protected] doing, a good way to start is to track calcium as it flows into neurons when they fire. To that end, Alan Jasanoff has developed a new nano-sized calcium- sensing contrast agent that is detect- BCS Alumni Please able by magnetic resonance imaging Keep In Touch Denise Heintze (MRI) scanners. The new agent, which Academic incorporates extra-strength molecular- Administrator A technician from Siemens explains the workings of the new 3T human magnet to Magdalena Sauvage sized magnets, results in large MRI [email protected] and Technical Instructor Patricia Harlan. Continued inside . Fall 2006 Imaging Center ate new collaborations among fac- function relationships in the brain. Continued from Page 1 ulty in many areas. In July of this year, Martha Gray reiterates that both Rebecca Saxe, the newest addition to footprints of the Martinos Center, the MIT’s Dean Robert Silbey and Provost the BCS faculty, along with Gabrieli and one at MGH and the one at MIT, are Robert Brown worked to define a vision colleagues, submitted the first paper for unique. “We have here the opportunity for an on-campus facility. Convinced which brain scanning was entirely done to bring together the best biology, the that MIT was poised to make enormous on the MIT campus. best medicine and the best engineering progress in this field, the Martinos And there is much more to come. in the world. Biomedical imaging is an family provided a substantial initial gift Assistant Professor Chris Moore, along enormously important enabling technol- and the cornerstone of the facility in with lab members Junjie Liu and Mitul ogy, for biology as well as for medicine. Building 46 was thus laid. Desai, is already designing the next By bringing the horsepower of a place After 2000, one like MIT to bear on phase after another issues of brain imag- began to fall into ing, we can really place, and progress impact biomedical shifted into high research in ways gear. The facility that are not going to was included in the happen in industry. Building 46 program- The problems that ming providing a we can address, and committed space for the people who can Functional MRI images of the human brain can identify housing the MRI magnets. A address them, are com- centers of activity based on increased blood flow. year later, with the ground- pletely unparalleled at any Images courtesy of Rebecca Saxe breaking for the new build- other place.” generation of magnetic microcoils, ing, the Center had a clearly delineated When asked if the Center was the aimed at delivering resolution down to space within the McGovern Institute. major factor in his decision to come to less than a tenth of a millimeter. “It is a Leadership for the new Center came in MIT, Gabrieli pauses a moment, then really great tool to have in your tool-kit,” the form of Professor John Gabrieli who says with a laugh that he would have says Chris Moore, “this gives us a totally was recruited to MIT from Stanford in come anyway. “MIT’s explosion of neu- safe and non-invasive technique for 2005. Gabrieli wears many hats, hold- roscience opportunities is hugely attrac- imaging single layers in cortex, or even ing joint appointments in BCS and HST tive. It is a historically good moment single cortical columns.” Moore and as well as serving as co-Director of the to be here, because of the focus on his lab hope to combine physiological Clinical Research Center, Associate neuroscience.” He adds “But having the recordings, optical imaging and brain Director of the Martinos Center at MGH, Center makes it fun to wake up here in scanning to maximize resolution as well and Director of the Martinos Imaging the morning!” Center at MIT. The first magnet for as coverage, as they probe structure- human imaging at MIT was installed in 2005, going on line early in the sum- News From the Bench In this instance, the self-assembling mer of 2006 when Nancy Kanwisher Continued from Page 1 peptides served as an internal matrix on produced the first brain scan on the contrast changes capable of producing which brain cells could re-grow. Related machine. very high-resolution images. The work papers by the group appear in the The Center, housed on the ground is reported in the September, 2006 August, 2006 issue of Chemistry Today, floor Building 46, has three bays. One online edition of the Proceedings of the and October, 2006 issue of Current bay houses the first 3 Tesla human National Academy of Sciences. Pharmaceutical Design. magnet, while another has a 9.4 T mag- Nanotechnology Breakthroughs in Learning is in the Eye of the Beholder net (bought recently with a gift from an Medicine The artist’s trained eye can detect anonymous donor). The third bay is Jerry Schneider and Rutledge Ellis- distinctions others can’t; musicians currently empty, awaiting the develop- Behnke have recently reported several pick up subtle changes in tone lost on ment of new technology. The variety findings that illustrate the remarkable the nonmusical. Brain researchers call of machines reflects the diversity of potential for the use of nanotechnology these abilities perceptual learning. Mark research conducted in the Center. In in research and medicine. In the October Bear and colleagues have uncovered general, the higher T translates into 10, 2006 online edition of Nanomedicine a mechanism for this phenomenon.

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