The laboratory of Mikhail Shapiro, assistant professor of chemical engineering and an affiliated faculty member of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, is showing how scientists and doctors might, in the future, use new noninvasive techniques for controlling brain circuits to help treat neurological conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.   […]

Ralph Adolphs, Director of the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, together with researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of Salerno has shown that their new computing tool can predict a person’s intelligence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of their resting state brain activity. Functional MRI develops a map of brain activity by […]

Scientists at Caltech have, for the first time, induced natural sensations in the arm of a paralyzed man by stimulating a certain region of the brain with a tiny array of electrodes. The work could one day allow paralyzed people using prosthetic limbs to feel physical feedback from sensors placed on these devices.   The […]

Watch this interview with Joe Parker, an entomologist, assistant professor of biology and affiliated faculty member of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech. Joe ‘s decades-long fascination with bugs and beetles led him to study a particular species of beetle that might help us answer some of the fundamental questions of evolution.   […]

Yuki Oka, an affiliated faculty member of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, has discovered the circuit of neurons in the mouse brain that regulates thirst by stimulating or suppressing the drive to drink water. His research also provides insight into how the human brain recognizes when a person is dehydrated […]

Dean Mobbs, Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and affiliated faculty member of the Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience had a paper published in the March 6 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Mobbs and his co-authors show for the first time that there are two areas of the brain involved in processing […]

In a paper appearing in the March 6 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Caltech Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience Dean Mobbs and his co-authors show for the first time that there are two areas of the brain involved in processing fear. The areas, which they call “fear circuits,” split up the responsibility for […]

Caltech researchers discover that neurons within the posterior parietal cortex gather information about our memories to help us make memory-based decisions.   News Source: Pasadena Now

Textbook theories in the field of brain science have not fully illuminated this complex, intriguing and profound subject. How do neurons talk to each other? How does sensation lead to perception that would in turn influence cognition and action?   In this episode, the Chens share how their curiosity in understanding brain functionality has fuelled […]

Source: Caltech   Adult male mice have a simple repertoire of innate, or instinctive, social behaviors: When encountering a female, a male mouse will try to mate with it, and when encountering another male, the mouse will attack. The animals do not have to be taught to perform these behaviors. This has led to the widespread […]