David Boas, PhD
Biography: Boas is an internationally recognized expert in biomedical optics and is a pioneer in the emerging field of neurophotonics, which utilizes advances in photonics to further our understanding of the brain. He has recently joined BU from the radiology department at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his research led to breakthrough optical methods to study […]
Anna Devor, PhD
Biography: Devor has a broad background in cellular and systems-level neuroscience. Her research program is focused on real time detection of brain activity across scales. Devor and her collaborators assemble a suite of microscopic technologies that, collectively, allow precise and quantitative probing of a large number of concrete brain activity parameters. Then, they combine multimodal […]
Xue Han, PhD
Biography: Han joined the biomedical engineering faculty in 2010. She is a pioneer in the field of optogenetics, in which scientists reengineer nerve cells, or neurons, to respond to light, using molecules called opsins. By finding ways to implant opsins into neurons, Han has given researchers a simple tool to turn neurons on and off, […]
Michael Hasselmo, DPhil
Biography: A leading researcher in neuroscience, Hasselmo uses electrophysiological recording to study how the firing patterns of neurons may contribute to memory-guided behavior. As director of the Center for Systems Neuroscience, he supports collaborations among brain behavior researchers from the Charles River and Medical Campuses. He is the principal investigator of a new Multidisciplinary University […]
Marc Howard, PhD
Biography: Since joining the psychological & brain sciences department in 2011, Howard has worked on projects involving new mathematical models and behavioral and computational tools to better understand the mechanisms of memory and how the brain works. He is recognized as one of the top researchers in bridging cognition and systems-level neuroscience and is a […]
Mark Howe, PhD
Biography: Driven by questions of motivation and movement, Howe’s research is focused on gaining deeper understanding of neural mechanisms and circuitry. By studying functional and dysfunctional neural systems, Howe aims to inform treatment approaches for Parkinson’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction. Howe developed a novel approach to striatum imaging that contributed to groundbreaking findings in […]
Heidi Meyer, PhD
Biography: Meyer and her lab team study learning, behavior, and affective neurodevelopment during adolescence, focusing on interneuron tuning of prefrontal-based neural circuits. Their approach leverages behavioral, systems, and molecular neuroscience techniques to examine the cognitive and neurodevelopmental underpinnings of affective regulation. Meyer’s research aims to address how behavioral patterns are learned based on an individual’s […]
Tyler Perrachione, PhD
Biography: Perrachione directs the Communication Neuroscience Research Lab. He and his team are dissecting the brain’s capacity for communication and speech perception. How do we learn a new language? How do we recognize people by the sound of their voice? Why do some children struggle with reading? Dyslexia is one of Perrachione’s primary areas of […]
Steve Ramirez, PhD
Biography: Ramirez aims to “learn how memory works and then how to hijack it.” His research focuses on revealing the neural circuit mechanisms of memory storage and retrieval, and artificially modulating memories to combat maladaptive states. Using optogenetics, Ramirez has located memory traces in the mouse brain and has explored how to reactivate these traces, […]
Benjamin Scott, PhD
Biography: In 2018, Scott joined the psychological and brain sciences department, where he directs the Laboratory of Comparative Cognition. His research revolves around the development and application of new tools to study the neural basis of cognition and complex, learned behavior, with a focus on working memory, problem-solving, and decision-making. His team is delving into […]