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

    Itch-busting nerve cells could block urge to scratch

    A group of nerve cells in the spinal cord keep mechanical itch in check.

  2. Neuroscience

    Nets full of holes catch long-term memories

    Tough structures that swaddle nerve cells may store long-term memories.

  3. Neuroscience

    Sex influences ability to assess crowd’s emotion

    New analyses explain how people detect an angry mob or a happy party.

  4. Life

    Genetic tweaks manipulate DNA’s loops

    Scientists have changed the loops and curls of DNA as it packs into a nucleus.

  5. Neuroscience

    Signs of Huntington’s show up in the brain in childhood

    Hints of Huntington’s disease show up in the brain long before symptoms do.

  6. Neuroscience

    Adolescent brains open to change

    Adolescent brains are still changing, a malleability that renders them particularly sensitive to the outside world.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Why kids look funny when they run

    Kids’ short legs give them little time to push high off the ground, a constraint that leads to the jerky toddler trot.

  8. Science & Society

    Neurological condition probably caused medieval scribe’s shaky handwriting

    By scrutinizing a medieval scribe’s wiggly handwriting, scientists conclude that the writer suffered from essential tremor.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Nobel medicine prize won for drugs from natural sources

    Nobel Prizes in medicine or physiology awarded for drugs that combat roundworms and malaria

  10. Neuroscience

    Kavli Foundation gives more money for the brain

    The Kavli Foundation will provide $100 million toward solving the mysteries of the brain.

  11. Genetics

    Brain cells’ DNA differs

    Every nerve cell may hold different DNA, a new study suggests.

  12. Neuroscience

    Separate cell types encode memory’s time, place

    Cells called ocean cells help store a memory’s “where,” while other cells called island cells help store a memory’s “when.”