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

    Little jet-setters get jet lag too

    Help young children fight jet lag with a few simple steps.

  2. Health & Medicine

    A ban on screens in bedrooms may save kids’ sleep

    Screens are associated with worse sleep in kids, and not just because of their lights and noises.

  3. Health & Medicine

    Motherhood might actually improve memory

    Having a baby changes all sorts of things, including a mother’s brain.

  4. Neuroscience

    Pregnancy linked to long-term changes in mom’s brain

    Pregnancy can sculpt a mother’s brain in a way that may help her tune in to her baby.

  5. Neuroscience

    Year in review: Alzheimer’s drug may clarify disease’s origins

    Researchers will now test whether a treatment that swept away amyloid brain plaques also improves cognitive performance.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Number of teens who report doing drugs falls in 2016

    Drug use is down among teens, survey finds.

  7. Neuroscience

    Brain waves show promise against Alzheimer’s protein in mice

    Flickers of light induce brain waves that wash amyloid-beta out of the brain, mouse study suggests.

  8. Animals

    Dogs form memories of experiences

    New experiments suggest that dogs have some version of episodic memory, allowing them to recall specific experiences.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Old blood carries risks for brain

    Young blood may not save the brain, by one measure at least.

  10. Neuroscience

    Despite Alzheimer’s plaques, some seniors remain mentally sharp

    Plaques and tangles riddle the brains of some very old and very healthy people.

  11. Neuroscience

    Protein linked to Parkinson’s travels from gut to brain

    Parkinson’s protein can travel from gut to brain, mouse study suggests.

  12. Neuroscience

    Sounds and glowing screens impair mouse brains

    Too much light and noise screws up developing mice’s brains.