Joy Hirsch

Director
Brain Function Laboratory, Yale University

Joy Hirsch is director of the Brain Function Laboratory at the Yale School of Medicine.

From this contributor

Spectrum

Imaging of social brain enters real world

By James McPartland, Joy Hirsch
31 January 2017 | 5 min read

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Mice playing, engaged in learning and memory: some of their brains are yellow, and some are red, matching a red and yellow legend that runs through the image to underscore both memory and learning.
This paper changed my life

This paper changed my life: A technical breakthrough for memory studies

In a 2007 Science paper, Mark Mayford and his colleagues found that some neurons activated during learning are also recruited during memory retrieval. Noelia Weisstaub shares how this study and others drove an era of great progress in tool development.

By Noelia Weisstaub
14 August 2026 | 5 min read
Developmental neuroscience

Early experience reshapes zebrafish retinal cells, alters behavior

The cells undergo a classic form of plasticity previously thought to occur only in downstream visual circuits.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
13 August 2026 | 0 min watch
Research image of expression of MEIS2 in PV interneurons.
Spectrum

Loss of interneuron plasticity may be shared hallmark of neurodevelopmental conditions

Restoring an experience-dependent interneuron plasticity gene in adulthood improves memory and cuts seizures in CNTNAP2 knockout mice, a new study shows.

By Claudia López Lloreda
12 August 2026 | 5 min read