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

    Brain chip enables injured rats to control movements

    Prosthesis bypasses damaged area to connect distant neurons.

  2. Health & Medicine

    TV linked with brain changes in kids

    A new study of Japanese children gives more reasons not to park kids in front of the tube.

  3. Neuroscience

    Fear can be inherited

    Parents’ and even grandparents’ experiences echo in offspring, a study of mice finds.

  4. Neuroscience

    Global neuro lab

    With more than 50 million users, the brain-training website Lumosity is giving scientists access to an enormous collection of cognitive performance data. Mining the dataset could be the first step toward a new kind of neuroscience.

  5. Health & Medicine

    Experiments in pasta

    In discovery mode, babies gather every bit of information they can about the world around them.

  6. Health & Medicine

    Exercise while pregnant may boost baby’s brain

    Babies born to moms who exercised during pregnancy showed higher levels of brain maturity.

  7. Neuroscience

    Brain reconstruction hints at dinosaur communication

    T. rex and other dinos might have understood complex vocal calls.

  8. Neuroscience

    Teenagers act impulsively when facing danger

    Brain activity may help explain why crime peaks during the teenage years.

  9. Neuroscience

    Bacteria may transfer mom’s stress to fetus

    Expecting mice under psychological pressure passed different mix of microbes to their pups, affecting the babies’ brains.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Too little noise is bad for newborns in intensive care

    Preemies housed in quiet private rooms during a NICU stay may be at risk for language problems.

  11. Neuroscience

    Autism may be detectable in baby’s first months of life

    Infants later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder lose tendency to gaze at others’ eyes during first half-year, researchers find.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Mice lose the blues quickly with experimental drug

    Studies in mice point to new, fast-acting antidepressants.