Fernanda De La Torre went through a long journey before becoming a doctoral student in BCS. She grew up in Mexico and crossed the border to the United States by foot at the age of 12. For years she was unhoused and undocumented, trying to navigate her education and path to citizenship. Today De La Torre is a PhD student working in two different labs: Josh McDermott’s lab, where she works on multisensory perception, and Robert Yang’s MetaConscious Lab, where she uses neural networks to explore questions about self-awareness.

A pair of early-stage clinical studies testing the safety and efficacy of 40-hertz sensory stimulation to treat Alzheimer’s disease has found that the potential therapy was well-tolerated, produced no serious adverse effects, and was associated with some significant neurological and behavioral benefits among a small cohort of participants.

MIT neuroscientists have discovered that the adult brain contains millions of “silent synapses” — immature connections between neurons that remain inactive until they’re recruited to help form new memories. It was believed that silent synapses were present only during early development, when they help the brain learn the new information. However, the new MIT study revealed that in adult mice, about 30 percent of all synapses in the brain’s cortex are silent.