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Brain+Cognitive Sciences News Spring 2005 1 brain+cognitive sciences news Spring 2005 1 MESSAGE FROM THE BCS IN THE NEWS Tech Review, and (soon) Popular Mechanics, BBC The World, NPR DEPARTMENT HEAD PD Associate Russell Tedrake, Mriganka Sur Day to Day, the Science Channel, and Teresa Zhang, Ming-fai Fong, Derrick NECN. Shortly, the Special Edition The Department of Brain and Tan, and Andrew Baines of Sebastian Terminator 2 DVD will also feature Cognitive Sciences is in an historic Seung’s lab were members of a team Toddler. phase. We expect our faculty size, that developed a robot that demon- Tomaso Poggio’s group at CBCL currently at 32, to reach 42 by 2010, strates a new learning system that has developed a quantitative model of double the size relative to 1995 allows it to continuously adapt to the the first few hundred milliseconds of – a growth made possible by the terrain as it moves. Named Toddler primate visual perception to account McGovern Institute and the Picower because of the way it walks, Russ for some of the basic properties of the Center. We are on the verge of mov- says it is “one of the first walking physiology and the psychophysics of ing to a new building that will house, robots to use a learning program, and object recognition. Computer simula- for the first time in 20 years, the entire it is the first to learn to walk without tions have shown the plausibility of department – including neuroscience any prior information built into the this scheme for visual recognition and and cognitive science, and the Picower controller.” Similar robots built at its consistency – so far! – with several Center and McGovern Institute. Cornell and Delft were simpler and data from the labs of colleagues in Moreover, the Singleton Fellowships focused on the control program, physiology and psychophysics. The while Toddler uses a customized have substantially strengthened the continued on page 6 department’s graduate program. learning software that exploits the This is a time for us to envision a future design. Toddler, which uses elec- that secures our place in our field, and tric motors that directly move the even in society as a whole. ankle, can teach itself to walk in Our first task as we go forward is to less than 20 minutes or 600 steps. bolster key areas of the department Toddler was introduced at the Feb. with strong faculty appointments. The 17 Annual Meeting of the American department’s core mission, of studying Association for the Advancement of the brain and mind at multiple levels Science, and its story will appear in of analysis, remains unique in the field. Science, co-authored by Prof. Andy By recruiting outstanding researchers Ruina of Cornell, Steven Collins Massachusetts and educators who anchor and bridge of the University of Michigan, and Institute of these levels through the questions they Martijn Wisse of the Delft University of Technology ask and the approaches they use, we Technology. Additional stories about ‘Toddler’ impresses passersby in the E25 atrium, should consolidate and expand our the robot have appeared in print, radio as Russ Tedrake (far right) demonstrates his skills. leadership position. and television, including features by Discovering basic mechanisms is the AP, Reuters, the NY Times, the fundamental not only for increasing our knowledge of how the brain and mind SPRING 2005 CALENDAR OF EVENTS If you would like to work but also for a range of applica- be put on the tions that stem from this knowledge. Mondays Brain Lunch newsletter mailing People have tremendous curiosity for Tuesdays Cog Lunch list, or have the discoveries of our field; addition- Wednesdays Brains & Machines Lecture Series information you ally, various kinds of applications that Alternate Thursdays Plastic Lunch would like to have impact people’s lives flow from our web.mit.edu/picowercenter/events published, work. First, new products that are please contact: useful to society get created. Indeed, Fridays BCS Colloquium followed by Reception Judy several of our researchers have con- web.mit.edu/bcs/newsevents/events Rauchwarger tributed importantly to developing Human Resources new products or machines that derive SPECIAL EVENTS Administrator and from principles of human brain func- Newsletter Editor tion or performance. MIT, with its Friday, April 1, Bidwell Lecture, [email protected] extraordinary resources in engineering 4:00 PM, E25-111 Speaker: Bruce Yankner, Ph.D., Professor of Neurology and and applied science, and encourage- Neuroscience and Director of the Program in Neurodegeneration, Harvard Medical ment of entrepreneurship, provides a School, Children’s Hospital. “DNA Damage and Gene Silencing in the Aging BCS Alumni Please particularly rich environment for such Brain” Keep In Touch applications. Second, new findings Denise Heintze about the brain and mind enable pos- Friday, April 22, Hans-Lukas Teuber Memorial Lecture Academic sible solutions to the huge problem 4:00 PM, E25-111 Speaker: Fernando Nottebohm, Ph.D., Professor, Laboratory Administrator of brain disorders and diseases. Our of Animal Behavior, Rockefeller University, Field Research Center. “Vocal Learning [email protected] continued on page 4 and the Natural History of Adult Neurogenesis and Neuronal Replacement” Spring 2005 2 BCSP IS PROGRESSING RAPIDLY Photo coursesy Andy of Ryan The atrium We have our own onsite transportation. Actually, the building has been constructed so that we won’t feel the movement of the train. Photo courtesy of David Conlon ERRATUM In the Fall issue, in the photo at the right, Prof. Ted Adelson (center) was erroneously identified as Arne Abramson, bcsp Project Manager. Mea culpa [ed.] NEW BEGINNINGS McGovern Institute Director Bob Desimone and his wife Chen Chen welcomed daughter An An (“peaceful”) on December 27. Postdoctoral Fellow Jill Crittenden and husband Kyle Copps welcomed son Oliver on November 8. Graduate Student Ben Balas and Erin Conwell (BCS ’03) were married on January 8 in Kansas City, Missouri. Graduate Student Thomas Serre and Alison Tovar were married in Bogotá, Colombia on January 15, 2005. Spring 2005 3 BOB DESIMONE experience taught him to appreciate Anne Victorian house, complete with the problems of the mentally ill and stained glass windows, that is full of clarified that he lacked the requisite history. While the house is in great skills to be a therapist. On the other shape, Bob and Chen Chen are mak- hand, he had a talent for lab work so, ing lists of improvements they would after graduation, he left for Charlie like to add. In his spare time, he Gross’s lab at Princeton. While there, mainly reads novels and historical fic- he volunteered at a local hot line for tion, though currently, he is finishing suicidal people in order to keep his a history of the early American repub- involvement with the mental illness lic. He is trying to learn Chinese by side of neuroscience. listening to CDs as he drives to work. In the Gross lab, he worked on Administrative responsibilities at primate neurophysiology, and was the NIH meant that he had to focus awarded an NIH/NRSA fellowship his research more, so his work on to continue this work with Peter memory was dropped in favor of Schiller at MIT. However, before concentrating on neural mechanisms starting at MIT, Mort Mishkin offered of attention. He is now expanding him an opportunity to establish his his human studies on attention, using own neurophysiology lab at the NIH, magnetoencephalography and brain and Peter advised him to accept the imaging. He would like to bridge position because it could lead to a research in animals and human Bob Desimone, the new director long-term research career there. As subjects and is thinking more about of the McGovern Institute for Brain a result, Bob never really did get projects that could have an impact Research and BCS Professor of postdoctoral training – something on brain disorders. Neuroscience, hails from an immi- unheard of today. Instead, he was At the McGovern Institute, a major grant Italian community outside of able to establish his own research thrust of his research will be based Philadelphia. His father, who entered program and get tenure at an earlier on the concept that selective atten- the family car business when he age than most people, and this fast tion depends on the synchronous returned from his World War II service, track to tenure gave him the freedom activity of large numbers of neurons was a great believer in education. to take more risks in his research. in distributed brain structures. He Though he only briefly attended col- Bob’s subsequent appointment as wants to understand how cells can lege himself, he and other family mem- the head of the intramural program cooperate with so many of their other bers encouraged Bob’s education from at the NIMH came at the behest neighbors in directing the path of the beginning and, by age 8 or 9, Bob of Steve Hyman (now provost at important signals in the brain, so that was already an amateur astronomer. Harvard) who was the Institute an important stimulus in the environ- Every weekend, Bob would take a train Director for NIMH at the time. Bob ment can trigger the focused behav- to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, felt that because of his indebtedness ior of the organism. For example, a science museum noted for its hands- to the NIH for the opportunities it when a student is trying to concen- on activities. It was there Bob built a had provided him, he should accept trate on a text, it requires that neu- telescope, first designing and polishing the offer. He believed he could help rons in the brain enhance and syn- the mirror, then building the housing to rebuild the clinical research sector of chronize their activity so the student hold the optics.
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