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

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

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

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

  5. Humans

    Babies born by C-section have more potentially infectious bacteria in their guts

    Microbial mixes in babies’ guts differ depending on birth method.

  6. Humans

    Artists who paint with their feet have ‘toe maps’ in their brains

    Brain specialization comes with toe specialization in people who use their feet for painting, eating and writing.

  7. Tech

    A new prosthetic leg that senses touch reduces phantom pain

    A prosthetic leg that can sense foot pressure and knee angle helped two men walk faster and reduced phantom leg pain.

  8. Life

    Human meddling has manipulated the shapes of different dog breeds’ brains

    By analyzing the shape of different dog breeds’ brains, researchers show how humans have manipulated the animals’ brain anatomy.

  9. Neuroscience

    Clumps of cells in the lab spontaneously formed brain waves

    Nerve cells fired coordinated signals in brain organoids, 3-D clusters of cells that mimic some aspects of early brain development.

  10. Humans

    A historic opioid trial highlights what we know about the deadly drugs

    An Oklahoma judge finds that Johnson & Johnson must pay $572 million to the state for the company’s role in the epidemic.

  11. Neuroscience

    Honeybee brain upgrades may help the insects find food

    Changes in honeybee neurons may help the insects decode their fellow foragers’ waggle dances.

  12. Neuroscience

    What human and mouse brains do and don’t have in common

    A large comparison of human and mouse brain cells highlights key differences that could have implications for research on depression or Alzheimer’s.