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

    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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. Health & Medicine

    How dad’s stress changes his sperm

    Stress may change sperm via packets of RNA in the epididymis, a mouse study suggests.

  9. Neuroscience

    See these first-of-a-kind views of living human nerve cells

    A catalog of live brain cells reveals stunning diversity and intricate shapes, and may help scientists understand the abilities of the human brain.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Let most babies eat food containing peanuts. Really.

    Pediatricians are not yet peanut-savvy when it comes to convincing parents to feed babies food containing peanuts, a new survey suggests.

  11. Neuroscience

    Alzheimer’s protein can travel from blood to build up in the brain

    Experiments in mice show Alzheimer’s protein can travel from the blood of an affected mouse to the brain of a healthy animal.

  12. Health & Medicine

    C-sections lead to heftier mouse pups, but the implications for people aren’t clear

    Mice born via C-section gained more weight than mice born vaginally, adding to the body of research that hints at a link between birth mode and future health.