The McGovern Institute for Brain Research is a research institute within

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

. Its mission is to understand how the brain works and to discover new ways to prevent or treat brain disorders. The institute was founded in 2000 by Patrick McGovern and Lore Harp McGovern with a gift to MIT that is expected to total $350M over 20 years.

Role

The McGovern Institute conducts research into all aspects of brain function, including perception, cognition and action. It also conducts clinical and translational research on a wide range of brain disorders. The institute's core facilities include the Martinos Imaging Center, which provides neuroimaging technologies for human and animal research, including

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio waves ...

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

and MEG. The McGovern Institute occupies approximately 85,000 sq ft (net) within the MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex. This building, which was completed in 2005, also houses the

Picower Institute for Learning and Memory The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is, along with the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, one of the three neuroscience groups at MIT. The institute is focused on studying all aspect ...

and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and is among the largest neuroscience research buildings in the world. The building was designed by Indian architect

Charles Correa Charles Mark Correa (1 September 1930 – 16 June 2015) was an Indian architect and urban planner. Credited with the creation of modern architecture in post-Independent India, he was celebrated for his sensitivity to the needs of the urban p ...

in collaboration with the Boston-based firm Goody, Clancy & Associates, Inc. It is one of the most distinctive landmarks on the MIT campus, notable especially for the

Grand Junction railroad Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and c ...

that runs through the center of the building.

Faculty

Robert Desimone Robert Desimone is an American neuroscientist who currently serves as the director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The McGovern I ...

is the current director of the McGovern Institute and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Prior to joining the McGovern Institute in 2004, he was director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute for Mental Health, the largest mental health research center in the world. The 24 current faculty members include a Nobel laureate (

H. Robert Horvitz Howard Robert Horvitz ForMemRS NAS AAA&S APS NAM (born May 8, 1947) is an American biologist best known for his research on the nematode worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'', for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, t ...

), a winner of the US National Medal of Science (

Ann Graybiel Ann Martin Graybiel (born 1942) is an Institute Professor and a faculty member in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research ...

Ila Fiete Ila Fiete is an Indian-American physicist and computational neuroscientist as well as a Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences within the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fie ...

and seven members of the US National Academy of Sciences (Desimone, Horvitz, Graybiel, Boyden, and Feng Zhang, along with

Emilio Bizzi Emilio Bizzi (born February 22, 1933) is a neuroscientist and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an investigator of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a faculty member in the Department of Brain an ...

and

Nancy Kanwisher Nancy Gail Kanwisher FBA (born 1958) is the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. She s ...

). The founding director (2000-2004) was

Phillip Sharp Phillip Allen Sharp (born June 6, 1944) is an American geneticist and molecular biologist who co-discovered RNA splicing. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Richard J. Roberts for "the discovery that genes in eukaryo ...

, also a Nobel Laureate.

Public art

SCIENTIA

McGovern Institute for Brain Research Schwerpunkt

SCIENTIA by

Ursula von Rydingsvard Ursula von Rydingsvard ( née Karoliszyn; born 1942) is a sculptor who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for creating large-scale works influenced by nature, primarily using cedar and other forms of timber. Early life an ...

is a sculpture permanently put on display in front of the McGovern Institute. It is MIT's 52nd piece of public art. The sculpture was commissioned by Lore Harp McGovern, co-founder of the McGovern Institute. The sculpture is roughly tall and . It was constructed out of

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

using

sand casting Sand casting, also known as sand molded casting, is a metal casting process characterized by using sand as the mold material. The term "sand casting" can also refer to an object produced via the sand casting process. Sand castings are produced i ...

and

lost-wax casting Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is ...

Schwerpunkt

Schwerpunkt (

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

for "Center of mass or gravity") is a sculpture by

Ralph Helmick Ralph Helmick (born 1952) is an American sculptor and public artist. Early life and education Helmick was born in Pittsburgh, PA, the middle of three sons of an electrical engineer and a homemaker. While in elementary school he partook in the ...

. The sculpture consists of one hundred

3D printed 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer co ...

metal

neuron A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

s suspended above the McGovern Institute lobby. When viewed from a specific focal point on the building's third floor atrium, the neurons take on the shape of a

human brain The human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the ...

References

External links

*
Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at McGovern Institute Views of MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex on Goody Clancy web site
{{authority control Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cognitive science research institutes Neuroscience research centers in the United States Research institutes in Massachusetts