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

    Sounds and glowing screens impair mouse brains

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

  2. Neuroscience

    Zap to the head leads to fat loss

    Stimulating the vestibular nerve led people to shed fat in a small trial.

  3. Life

    Website turns Alzheimer’s research into a game

    A new game assists Alzheimer’s researchers in the hunt for stalled blood vessels in the brains of mice.

  4. Health & Medicine

    What not to do when your kid tells a lie

    We teach children that lying is naughty, but it’s actually a sign of good brain development.

  5. Neuroscience

    Giggling rats help reveal how brain creates joy

    Rats relish a good tickle, which activates nerve cells in a part of the brain that detects touch.

  6. Neuroscience

    Shape-shifting molecule aids memory in fruit flies

    A prionlike protein may store long-term memories in fruit flies, a new study suggests.

  7. Neuroscience

    Eyes offer window into brain’s timekeepers

    In new experiments of time perception, when pupils were large, monkeys underestimated a second.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Training for parents may lessen some autism symptoms in kids

    Training parents may help with some autism symptoms, a new study suggests.

  9. Neuroscience

    Frequent liars show less activity in key brain structure

    Brain activity changed as people lied more, a new study finds.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Screen time guidelines for kids give parents the controls

    New recommendations for children’s media use are more nuanced than earlier guidelines, a change that reflects the shifting technology landscape.

  11. Health & Medicine

    ‘Three-parent baby’ boy healthy so far

    A baby boy born with donor mitochondrial DNA seems to be healthy, researchers report at a meeting.

  12. Neuroscience

    Mice smell, share each other’s pain

    Pain can jump from one mouse to another, presumably through chemicals detected by the nose.