By understanding how brain function changes with age, we can develop therapies to improve brain health and eradicate diseases like Alzheimer’s.

This is a global challenge. Dementias of aging now claim 46 million people worldwide, with the numbers poised to double every 20 years. The annual cost – now estimated at $604 billion – is growing faster than the number of sufferers. In the United States alone, care for Alzheimer's patients is estimated to total $1.1 trillion by 2050.

The Aging Brain Initiative is an interdisciplinary effort combining faculty expertise, knowledge, and technical resources from across MIT to solve the mysteries of the aging brain. MIT scientists are opening doors to an entirely new direction of brain research, building new tools to address the challenges of brain aging, and creating a better future for millions.

Neuroscientists discover roles of gene linked to Alzheimer’s

Rotating gif of neurons

APOE4 is three times more common among Alzheimer’s patients than it is among the general population, which has the common form of the gene, APOE3. Researchers found that APOE4 promotes the accumulation of the beta amyloid proteins that cause the characteristic plaques seen in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The researchers also found that they could eliminate the signs of Alzheimer’s in brain cells with APOE4 by editing the gene with CRISPR to turn it into the APOE3 variant.

Read it at MIT News →

How light and noise might banish Alzheimer’s, improve memory, and more

A growing body of evidence, including Aging Brain Director Li-Huei Tsai’s findings, hint at a meaningful connection between modulating brainwaves and affecting neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The work offers the possibility of forestalling or even reversing the damage caused by such conditions without using a drug.

Read about gamma waves at Nature →

Revising models of memory formation

A high magnification image shows hippocampal memory engram cells

In a study of mice with symptoms that mimic early Alzheimer’s disease, researchers found that while the mice had trouble recalling memories, those memories still existed and could be optogenetically retrieved for up to eight days. This study suggests that re-activating certain synapses could help restore some memory recall function in patients with early stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Read it at MIT News →
And I said, ‘Grandma, let’s go home.’ ... And she said, ‘Home?….Where is home?’

Li-Huei Tsai

Lead Investigator, Aging Brain Initiative and Picower Professor of Neuroscience

Mapping brain circuits

image of expanded brain tissue in the hippocampus

MIT researchers have developed a way to make extremely high-resolution images of tissue samples, at a fraction of the cost of other techniques that offer similar resolution. The resolution allows scientists to see the proteins that cluster together in complex patterns at brain synapses, helping neurons to communicate with each other.

Read it at MIT News →

Restoring Brain Function

colorful mouse brain with restored brain function

With 40-hertz light therapy, Alzheimer’s patients may one day be able to treat themselves—perhaps wearing a special headset that emits the flickering light. Here, we see a slice of a mouse brain exposed to light therapy causing a reversal of severe neurodegeneration.

Read it at Picower Institute →

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