Laura Sanders

Laura Sanders

Senior Writer, Neuroscience

Laura Sanders reports on neuroscience for Science News. She wrote Growth Curve, a blog about the science of raising kids, from 2013 to 2019 and continues to write about child development and parenting from time to time. She earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she studied the nerve cells that compel a fruit fly to perform a dazzling mating dance. Convinced that she was missing some exciting science somewhere, Laura turned her eye toward writing about brains in all shapes and forms. She holds undergraduate degrees in creative writing and biology from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where she was a National Merit Scholar. Growth Curve, her 2012 series on consciousness and her 2013 article on the dearth of psychiatric drugs have received awards recognizing editorial excellence.

All Stories by Laura Sanders

  1. Neuroscience

    Some people with half a brain have extra strong neural connections

    Brain scans of six people who had half their brains removed as epileptic children show signs of compensation.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Full intestines, more than full stomachs, may tell mice to stop eating

    A new description of stretch-sensing nerve endings in mice’s intestines could lead to ways to treat obesity.

  3. Health & Medicine

    New details on immune system ‘amnesia’ show how measles causes long-term damage

    Measles wipes the memories of immune cells in the body.

  4. Neuroscience

    Sleep may trigger rhythmic power washing in the brain

    Strong, rhythmic waves of cerebrospinal fluid wash into the human brain during sleep and may help clean out harmful proteins.

  5. Neuroscience

    Lab-grown organoids are more stressed-out than actual brain cells

    Compared with real brain tissue, organoids show big differences.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Algae inside blood vessels could act as oxygen factories

    Two types of light-responsive algae make oxygen inside tadpoles’ blood vessels.

  7. Neuroscience

    Light from outside the brain can turn on nerve cells in monkey brains

    An extra-sensitive light-responsive molecule allowed nerve cells to be switched on or off with dim light.

  8. Neuroscience

    Alzheimer’s may scramble metabolism’s connection to sleep

    Mice designed to have brain changes that mimic Alzheimer’s disease have altered reactions to blood sugar changes.

  9. Neuroscience

    Organoids offer clues to how brains are made in humans and chimpanzees

    Three-dimensional clumps of brain cells offer clues about how brains get made in humans and chimpanzees.

  10. Neuroscience

    Dueling brain waves during sleep may decide whether rats remember or forget

    In a slumbering rat, two distinct kinds of brain waves have opposite jobs.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Seth Shipman recorded a movie in DNA — and that’s just the beginning

    Seth Shipman is developing tools that may reveal hidden biological processes.

  12. Mice fidget. Those motions have big effects on their brains

    Unnecessary motion has a profound and widespread effect on nerve cell behavior in mice.