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. Health & Medicine

    Babies’ kicks in the womb are good for their bones

    A new study adds to the evidence that fetal workouts are important for strong bodies.

  2. Neuroscience

    Somewhere in the brain is a storage device for memories

    New technology and new ideas spur the hunt for the physical basis of memory.

  3. Neuroscience

    Cilia in the brain may be busier than previously thought

    A hairlike appendage sticking out of brain cells may be much more important in the brain than scientists realized.

  4. Neuroscience

    Protein helps old blood age the brains of young mice

    Increased levels of one protein in old blood may contribute to its aging effects on the brain, a mouse study suggests.

  5. Health & Medicine

    The science behind kids’ belief in Santa

    Children’s belief in Santa is strong — until it isn’t anymore, usually at around age 8.

  6. Neuroscience

    Specks in the brain attract Alzheimer’s plaque-forming protein

    Globs of an inflammatory protein can spur the formation of amyloid-beta clumps, a study in mice shows.

  7. Neuroscience

    In a tally of nerve cells in the outer wrinkles of the brain, a dog wins

    Among some carnivores, golden retrievers rate at the top for numbers of nerve cells, study finds.

  8. Health & Medicine

    An abundance of toys can curb kids’ creativity and focus

    Too many toys may lead to more shallow play for toddlers, a new study suggests.

  9. Neuroscience

    Brains of former football players showed how common traumatic brain injuries might be

    Examinations of NFL players’ postmortem brains turned up chronic traumatic encephalopathy in 99 percent of samples in large dataset.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Staring into a baby’s eyes puts her brain waves and yours in sync

    Brain waves line up when adults and babies lock eyes.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Six-month-old babies know words for common things, but struggle with similar nouns

    Young babies know a cup of juice from a car, but have a hard time distinguishing more similar nouns, a new study finds.

  12. Neuroscience

    Study casts doubt on whether adult brain’s memory-forming region makes new cells

    An examination of 54 human brains suggests that adults don’t grow new neurons in the hippocampus, contrary to several widely accepted studies.