MIT
News
"The Inner Workings Of Autism,"
Chemical & Engineering News, March 5, 2012.

"New MIT center to fund autism research: Grants to focus on experimental ideas,"
Boston Globe, December 14, 2011.

"Two MIT scientists elected to the Institute of Medicine; Sur, Tsai among the 65 new members,"
MITnews, October 18, 2011.

"Picower: Development of the brain’s visual cortex depends on experience with light,"
MIT media relations, September 7, 2011.


Changes in brain structure in MeCP2 mutant mice and the effects of IGF-1 treatment

Cortical Development, Plasticity, and Dynamics
Plasticity, or the adaptive response of the brain to changes in inputs, is essential to brain development and function. The developing brain requires a genetic blueprint but is also acutely sensitive to the environment. The adult brain constantly adapts to changes in stimuli, and this plasticity is manifest not only as learning and memory but also as dynamic changes in information transmission and processing. The goal of the Sur laboratory is to understand long-term plasticity and short-term dynamics in networks of the developing and adult cortex. In addition, we aim to use insights from brain development to understand mechanisms of developmental brain disorders.

Latest Publications

Banerjee A, Castro J, Sur M.
Rett syndrome: genes, synapses, circuits and therapeutics.
Front. Psychiatry 2012 March; 3:34. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00034


Jarosiewicz B, Schummers J, Malik WQ, Brown EN, Sur M.
Functional Biases in Visual Cortex Neurons with Identified Projections to Higher Cortical Targets.
Current Biology 2012 February 21; 22: 269–277. [PDF]


Yu H, Majewska AK, Sur M.
Rapid experience-dependent plasticity of synapse function and structure in ferret visual cortex in vivo.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Dec 27;108(52):21235-40. [PDF]


Mower AF, Kwok S, Yu H, Majewska AK, Okamoto K, Hayashi Y, Sur M.
Experience-dependent regulation of CaMKII activity within single visual cortex synapses in vivo.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Dec 27;108(52):21241-6. [PDF]


Mellios N, Sugihara H, Castro J, Banerjee A, Le C, Kumar A, Crawford B, Strathmann J, Tropea D, Levine SS, Edbauer D, Sur M.
miR-132, an experience-dependent microRNA, is essential for visual cortex plasticity.
Nature Neuroscience 2011. doi:10.1038/nn.2909. [PDF]


Mao R, Schummers J, Knoblich U, Lacey CJ, Van Wart A, Cobos I, Kim C, Huguenard JR, Rubenstein JL, Sur M.
Influence of a Subtype of Inhibitory Interneuron on Stimulus-Specific Responses in Visual Cortex.
Cereb Cortex. 2011 Jun 24. PMID: 21666125 [PDF]


Malik WQ, Schummers J, Sur M, Brown EN
Denoising Two-Photon Calcium Imaging Data.
PLoS ONE 2011 6(6):e20490. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020490 [PDF]


Wilson NR, Sur M
Determinants of Synaptic and Circuit Plasticity in the Cerebral Cortex.
In: Cerebral Plasticity: New Perspectives (Chalupa LM, ed, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 75-88, 2011. [PDF]