Li-Huei Tsai, Ph.D.

Director, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; Picower Professor of Neuroscience, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences; Senior Associate Member, Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Co-Director, Alana Down Syndrome Center


Professor Tsai is a leader in understanding the molecular pathophysiology and systems neuroscience of neurological disorders affecting cognition. Her work has brought new mechanisms for learning, memory and neurodegeneration to light and suggests new paths for combatting age-related memory loss.

Landmark discoveries include pinpointing major genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease among immune genes, identifying chromatin-modifiers and kinases that regulate brain flexibility and ways to target them to improve cognition in Alzheimer’s disease, discovering that genomic integrity is critical for neuronal protection during both aging and neurodegenerative disease, and showing that bolstering gamma rhythm power and coherence with non-invasive sensory stimulation promotes a neuroprotective response among multiple brain cell types including microglia and the vasculature.

In 2019, Dr. Tsai won the Hans Wigzell Prize in Medicine for her innovative research in trying to understand the etiology and possible treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.  She is a recipient of the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Neuroscience, Young Investigator Award, Metropolitan Life Foundation, Outstanding Contributor Award of the Alzheimer Research Forum, the NIH Cantoni Lecture Award and the Glenn Award For Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.

She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and of the National Academy of Inventors, and a member of the Neurodegeneration Consortium and Taiwan’s Academia Sinica.

Dr. Tsai has authored and co-authored more than 160 peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Nature, Cell, Neuron, Molecular Psychiatry, The Journal of Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Her research has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic and on National Public Radio

On Twitter: @DrLiHueiTsai

Newer related research stories:

https://curealz.org/news-and-events/auditory-stimulation-combined-with-light-improves-alzheimers-like-symptoms-in-mice/

https://curealz.org/news-and-events/a-blueprint-for-the-brain/

https://curealz.org/news-and-events/using-genome-editing-to-switch-apoe4-to-apoe3/

 

Funded Research

These projects were made possible from Cure Alzheimer's Fund support.

Selected Publications

These published papers resulted from Cure Alzheimer’s Fund support.

Nir Grossman, David Bono, Nina Dedic, Suhasa B. Kodandaramaiah, Andrii Rudenko, Ho-Jun Suk, Antonino M. Cassara, Esra Neufeld, Niels Kuster, Li-Huei Tsai, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Edward S. Boyden Noninvasive Deep Brain Stimulation via Temporally Interfering Electric Fields, Cell, 169(6), 1 Jun 2017, 1029-1041, Read More

L Ashley Watson, Li-Huei Tsai In the loop: how chromatin topology links genome structure to function in mechanisms underlying learning and memory, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 43, April 2017, 48-55, Read More

Rebecca G. Canter, Jay Penney, and Li-Huei Tsai The road to restoring neural circuits for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, Nature, 539(7628), 10 Nov 2016, 187–196, Read More