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Student Life Meet Duane Watson, a typical graduate student in brain and cognitive sciences.

Undergrads in Brain Research The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) offers MIT undergrads a range of research projects in brain and cognitive sciences.

Catching the Brain Wave

MIT has long been associated with brains. Big brains. Jokes aside, however, a wave of groundbreaking brain research is emerging from Institute departments and programs. Recent headlines tout MIT advances in distinguishing between seeing and imagining, identifying a learning molecule, electronically mimicking brain circuitry, and that's just the beginning.

Two of MIT's most distinguished faculty members, Phillip A. Sharp and Susumu Tonegawa--both Nobel laureates--have refocused their scholarship on neuroscience and are playing key roles in MIT's brain initiatives, including a world class neuroscience complex set to open in 2004. This month's openDOOR focuses on three aspects of this brain tsunami:

How does the brain work?
The Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences is the bedrock of brain and mind research with investigations ranging from the molecule to the module. At the Center for Learning and Memory, researchers probe the biological origins of complex brain functions.

What is intelligence and how can it be built?
The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory studies human intelligence and builds useful artifacts based on intelligence. And the Media Lab has its own ideas about what's "smart."

What's ahead for MIT's brainiacs?
A new neuroscience complex aimed at making MIT the world leader in brain research is in the works.

Neurosciences at MIT Get a quick overview of what's going on in neuroscience at MIT.

Brain Opera Lives The interactive Brain Opera, created by Tod Machover and over fifty artists and scientists at the MIT Media Lab in 1996, draws audiences into the interplay of sensory perception, musical structure, language, and emotion. It's evolved into the Future Music Blender and was installed this year in Vienna's House of Music.