iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Recap of the Alumni Talk Series: @nogazs.bsky.social gave career advice at an intimate lunch with the Collective community and discussed her research 𝗠𝗲𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱: 𝗟𝗼𝘀𝘀𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻, 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗹𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗟𝗟𝗠𝘀! 💬

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Join us for the Yang Tan Collective Alumni Talk Series featuring Noga Zaslavsky, a former ICoN Postdoc Fellow; she’s currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University. ⬇️ 🔗 For more information, please visit: yangtan.mit.edu/about-us/our...

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Former Yang ICoN Fellow and current assistant professor in the CMU School of Computer Science Aran Nayebi @anayebi.bsky.social talks about neuroscience + AI in Does Compute, a podcast presented by Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and GeekWire Studios. Watch ⬇️

youtube.com

Very Much Inspired By the Nervous System

YouTube video by GeekWire

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A gene therapy developed by Guoping Feng & team at the Tan-Yang Center for Autism Research is now in clinical trials for Phelan-McDermid syndrome. In this talk at the Phelan-McDermid Family Conference, Feng shares the science and journey behind the therapy ⬇️ 🔗📺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghUw...

youtube.com

Knowledge for the Climb: Genetics and Gene Therapy - 2026 PMSF Family Conference

YouTube video by Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Watch K. Lisa Yang ICoN Graduate Fellow Davy Deng discuss the topic of mind-uploading (or whole brain emulation) and how C. elegans, a 1 mm worm with an impressive resume, contributes to it in his TEDxMIT talk “What does mind-uploading actually require?” 💻⬇️

youtube.com

What does mind-uploading actually require? | Davy Deng | TEDxMIT

YouTube video by TEDx Talks

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Yang Tan Collective co-founder Hock Tan was recently featured as a prominent leader in TIME’s list of 100 Most Influential People in AI (TIME100 AI 2026). Congratulations! 👏 🔗 Read more about his work and partnerships: time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/hock-tan/

time.com

TIME100 AI 2026: Hock Tan

Find out why Hock Tan made TIME’s list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Ming Liu, a Yang ICoN Postdoctoral Fellow, imaged a cell's ultrastructure with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to be able to view essential organelles. 🔬 Wang lab and Dorkenwald lab at MIT + Lee lab at Harvard Medical School. Images were created together w/ Liu and a Harvard grad student ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

What if we could engineer scientific revolutions rather than wait for them to happen? Yang Tan Collective’s @eboyden3.bsky.social and Denisa Lepadatu explore a provocative new model for accelerating discovery in their Substack article. 📚 Read more: uniconq.substack.com/p/the-ground...

uniconq.substack.com

The Ground Truth Institute

Could we engineer scientific revolutions, then spin out radical improvements to everyday life?

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Ed Boyden & his team, including Zeguan Wang ('25-'26 J. Douglas Tan Postdoc Fellow), invented a microscope that can capture high-res images of a brain’s electrical impulses from individual neurons—allowing researchers to further study how the brain works in varied situations. ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Co-authors Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan introduce & discuss their new book 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝘆 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 (released on August 11 🎉) on Harvard Business Review IdeaCast; “The Innovation Strategy Most Companies Miss” ep 1091. 🎧 Listen: hbr.org/podcast/2026/08/the-innovation-strategy-most-companies-miss

hbr.org

The Innovation Strategy Most Companies Miss

A conversation with Dartmouth’s Vijay Govindarajan and MIT’s Amos Winter on why designing for emerging markets before developed ones can yield benefits.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Virus-like nanoparticles can transmit gene-editing tools into “muscle and help restore a critical protein in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy,” according to Feng Zhang's new preprint. Read about it on The Transmitter ⬇️

thetransmitter.org

Nanoparticles deliver gene-editing tools into Duchenne mice

The approach uses a protein found in fruit flies to ferry the gene editor Cas9 into muscle cells.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Your next read is here thanks to co-authors Amos Winter (director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center) & Vijay Govindarajan! Their upcoming book releases on August 11, 2026 🎉 ➡️📚 Pre-order now on Amazon: a.co/d/00DBxwnn

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

In his recent Foresight Institute Vision Weekend talk, @eboyden3.bsky.social argues that breakthrough tools — and the therapies they enable — depend on long-term support for unconventional ideas. 💻 ⬇️ Watch: Ed Boyden | Incentives in Science @ Vision Weekend UK 2026 #YangTanCollective

youtube.com

Ed Boyden | Incentives in Science @ Vision Weekend UK 2026

YouTube video by Foresight Institute

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Read Lampoon Magazine's interview with Hugh Herr: Despite tragedy, his ambitions for himself allowed him to bring light into the “dark ages of prosthetics” by working on allowing people to not only move again, but to sense and feel once more. lampoonmagazine.com/hugh-herr-in...

lampoonmagazine.com

Hugh Herr builds the cyborg: prostheses the brain feels and controls as its own

After losing both legs at seventeen, Hugh Herr turned limitation into design, engineering prostheses that seamlessly connect flesh, skin, nerves and circuits through bidirectional neural interfaces

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

So proud of Soha for this well-deserved recognition! The Yang Tan Collective community at Harvard is stronger because of her leadership, thoughtfulness, and unwavering commitment. She makes great science possible every day!

thetransmitter.org

Making an impact through academic administration

As executive director of research at Harvard Medical School, Soha Ashrafi supports more than 300 scientists, students and staff members.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Congrats, Dr. Francesca Riccio-Ackerman!🎓 We're so proud of Francesca for completing her doctoral work in the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics at MIT where she focused on strengthening Sierra Leone’s prosthetics and orthotics sector and expanding access to high-quality care...⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Does logical reasoning require language? According to new research from @evfedorenko.bsky.social, @hopekean.bsky.social, and collaborating neuroscientists, study participants were able to solve various complex logic games and puzzles without language, showing that: no, language is not necessary. ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

The Yang Tan Collective is excited to welcome and collaborate with the newly announced K. Lisa Yang Centre for Autism Research at Cambridge, which was established to support autism research aimed at improving the health and well-being of autistic people and their families!

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Evelina Fedorenko and her team, including Aaron Wright, a Yang Post-Bacc scholar, have analyzed fMRI data from 700+ people and discovered that language processing may occur in 17 additional regions of the brain, not just in the left hemisphere of the brain 🧠💬 ⬇️

news.mit.edu

The brain’s language network is more extensive than previously thought

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from more than 700 people, MIT researchers identified 17 brain regions outside of the canonical language-processing centers that are also involv...

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Congratulations to Hock E. Tan, co-founder of the Yang Tan Collective, for being honored as part of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation @carnegie.org's 2026 Class of Great Immigrants, Great Americans! 🇺🇸 🎉 Congrats to him and all the honorees 👏 #YangTanCollective #GreatImmigrants

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

🗓️ Don't miss "Body Alchemy" at @pioneerwork.bsky.social in Brooklyn on 7/19, feat Hugh Herr & Ana Rajčević from the Yang Center for Bionics. This event will explore how breakthroughs in bionics, neural interfaces, and embodied design are redefining the future of the human body. RSVP ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Congratulations to Carolina Warneryd and Duncan Lee of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics on their success at the 2026 MIT Mechanical Engineering De Florez Awards! 👏👏 🔗 www.media.mit.edu/posts/two-biomechatronics-researchers-are-among-the-winners-of-de-florez-awards-at-mexpo-2026/

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

In a new Frontiers for Young Minds article, Y. Eva Tan Professor Ed Boyden explains optogenetics 🔆🧠 This article was edited with young reviewers, Elizabeth (age 13) and Klara (age 13), who provided feedback to ensure their peers and young audiences could understand the article. ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Congratulations to Yang ICoN fellow Andrea de Varda @andreadevarda.bsky.social, who has been named a winner of the prestigious Glushko Dissertation Prize! 👏👏 🔗 cognitivesciencesociety.org/glushko-dissertation-prize/ @cogscisociety.bsky.social

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

(1/2) More than 150 scientists attended the 2026 Yang ICoN Center Symposium hosted by Ila Fiete on May 21. Eight leading faculty shared insights on how neural structure and function emerge during development, spanning both experimental and theoretical perspectives.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

(1/2) A fascinating @science.org feature highlights the breadth of newly identified bacterial defense systems, including groundbreaking work from the Yang Tan Collective led by Feng Zhang. ⬇️ (cont.)

science.org

Ancient wars between microbes gave us key immune defenses

A better understanding of battles between bacteria and viruses could inspire new medicines

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

The Mexican Press Agency spotlights Yang Center for Bionics postdoc Guillermo Herrera-Arcos, who is developing incredible “living” implants that could one day restore movement and function to paralyzed organs. Read the feature linked below! @mitmedialab.bsky.social #YangTanCollective

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

‼️ POSTER SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED UNTIL MAY 8! (Check out post for more information) Register for the 2026 ICoN Center Symposium and submit your poster here: www.eventbrite.com/e/2026-icon-center-symposium-self-organization-and-emergence-in-development-tickets-1982815550688

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

The zona incerta has a lot of unknowns, but Guoping Feng and his team, including Ryan Kast (a former J. Douglas Tan Postdoctoral Fellow), have been researching how “different types of neurons within the zona incerta contribute to the region’s many functions.”

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

The Yang Tan Collective celebrates two faculty members for being elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Congratulations Michale Fee and Fan Wang! 👏🎉

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Breakthrough work from Harvard Medical School scientists funded by the Yang Tan Collective: the first-ever “smell map” reveals how the nose organizes 1,000 odor receptors in precise patterns and rewrites how we understand scent perception.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Happy #DNADay26! Today, we celebrate the discovery of DNA’s double helix & over 70 years later, we now know that more than 20,000 diseases have roots in our genes...but what will we do about it? The discovery of the double helix gave us the blueprint. Now we're writing the cure.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

How is AI being used at MIT? Scientists and researchers at MIT, including Ila Fiete (director of the Yang ICoN Center), discuss their usage of AI, its impact on their research, and its still-developing potential for further insights and discoveries in this @technologyreview.com article ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

From math → mind. Collective alum Alex Negrón (K. Lisa Yang Postbac Scholar ’23–’25) turned a SURFiN fellowship into a neuroscience path—modeling brain circuits, exploring AI + neural networks at MIT, and now pursuing a PhD at Princeton. Read here⬇️

simonsfoundation.org

How SURFiN Fellowships Jump-Started These 3 Neuroscience Students’ STEM Careers

The Simons Foundation revisits several previous members of its Shenoy Undergraduate Research Fellowships in Neuroscience (SURFiN).

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Quilee Simeon, a Yang ICoN Fellow, was recently featured in an article on MIT Spectrum, which details his research into AI, the nervous system, and the brain! Read more about Quilee and his research here ⬇️

betterworld.mit.edu

Unlocking AI’s Mysteries Using Insights from Brain Research

Quilee Simeon ’21, SM ’25, a K. Lisa Yang Computational Neuroscience Fellow, studies nervous systems to better understand animals and machines

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Congratulations to Yang Tan Collective alumna Yeji Kim on being named a Schmidt Science Fellow! 👏 Read more here ⬇️ schmidtsciencefellows.org/fellow/yeji-...

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Submit your poster abstracts for a chance to present during the 2026 Yang ICoN Center Symposium poster session! Interested? Indicate your interest when registering for the event and follow the instructions. Deadline to submit interest is May 1 (Friday).

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Registration for the 2026 Yang ICoN Center Symposium is now live! This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please register by May 13. Register in the link below ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

This World Autism Awareness Day, we look back at some of the research and studies recently published by the scientists at the Tan-Yang Centers for Autism Research at MIT & Harvard! Read more below ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

A new paper by Hugh Herr, Guillermo Herrera-Arcos, & Hyungeun Song recently published in Nature Communications has introduced a “living” implant by repurposing existing muscle in the body; they are hopeful that their new developing technology can help those affected by organ dysfunctions. Read ⬇️

news.mit.edu

Turning muscles into motors gives static organs new life

A new biohybrid system reprograms living muscles into fatigue-resistant, computer-controlled motors that can be implanted inside the body to restore movement in organs. Development of the myoneural ac...

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Two major Yang Tan Collective projects recently received the MIT HEALS (MIT Health and Sciences Collaborative) MIT-Mass General Brigham Seed Program grants! heals.mit.edu/mit-mgb-seed... See the projects and Collective faculty below ⬇️

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

According to new research, studying an identified gene mutation that “impairs the function of a brain circuit that is responsible for updating beliefs based on new input” may help scientists alleviate symptoms seen in people with schizophrenia. 🔗 news.mit.edu/2026/brain-c...

news.mit.edu

Brain circuit needed to incorporate new information may be linked to schizophrenia

MIT neuroscientists identified a gene mutation, found in some patients with schizophrenia, that impairs the function of a brain circuit responsible for updating beliefs based on new input.

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

The South Coast Chinese Cultural Center spotlights former Yang Bionics Fellow Robin Hsieh, who is continuing his mission to help people walk again by launching a startup developing intelligent mobility technologies. ⬇️ Read more: www.sccca.org/news/2026/03...

sccca.org

Stepping Out of the Lab : Robin Hsieh Helps People with Disabilities Walk Again - South Coast Chinese Cultural Association

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Amos Winter, director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center, and fellow MIT educator Nikolai Zeldovich were recently named 2026 MacVicar Faculty Fellows! Congratulations 👏⚙️👨‍🏫 Read more: news.mit.edu/2026/macvicar-faculty-fellows-named-0312

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

MIT student Kanna Pichappan ‘26 shares a few lessons she learned "about living well after four years of college” in her column published in MIT's newspaper The Tech, with one lesson coming from a quote shared by Fan Wang, co-director of the Yang-Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics ☺️🌷

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Congratulations to David Ginty, director of the Yang Brain-Body Center at Harvard, on receiving the The Brain Prize, the world’s largest prize for brain research 🧠👏

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Feng Zhang, co-director of the K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics, was recently introduced as part of the National Inventors Hall of Fame 2026 Inductee Class 👏👏 ⬇️ View links below to learn more!

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Happy World Engineering Day 2026 🌟 Yang Tan Collective is proud of all the engineers within the Collective who are innovating, researching solutions, and working tirelessly to improve the world; we caught up with a few of them for a quick Q&A! Watch the video on our LinkedIn!

linkedin.com

Q&A with Yang Tan Collective Engineers for World Engineering Day 2026 | Yang Tan Collective

Happy 🌟World Engineering Day 2026 🌟 Yang Tan Collective is proud of all the engineers within the Collective who are innovating, researching solutions, and working tirelessly to improve the world 🌎 W...

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

“How do you measure consciousness?” Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology @eboyden3.bsky.social goes deep on simulating brains and what it might actually mean to engineer a mind on Core Memory. www.corememory.com/p/the-grand-...

corememory.com

The Grand Quest To Simulate Life - EP 57 Ed Boyden

It's time to go deep

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Yang Tan Collective @yangtancollective.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

How does the brain know which neurons to adjust during learning in order to optimize behavior? MIT researchers discovered that brains can use cell-by-cell error signals to do this — surprisingly similar to how AI systems are trained via backpropagation. yangtan.mit.edu/neurons-rece...

yangtan.mit.edu

Neurons receive precisely tailored teaching signals as we learn - Yang Tan Collective at MIT

New work suggests that the brain can deliver neuron-specific feedback during learning—resembling the error signals that drive machine learning. When we learn a new skill, the brain has to decide—cell ...

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