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.
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All Stories by Laura Sanders
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Calling neuroscience pointless misses the point
Despite the adage, there actually is such a thing as bad publicity, a fact that brain scientists have lately discovered. A couple of high-profile opinion pieces in the New York Times have questioned the usefulness of neuroscience, claiming, as columnist David Brooks did in June, that studying brain activity will never reveal the mind. Or […]
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Psychology
Blood marker may predict suicide
People who killed themselves had higher levels of a gene involved in cell death.
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Health & Medicine
Racial homogeneity in early childhood may affect brain
In lab study, kids who lived in single-race orphanages have difficulty interpreting emotions on faces with foreign features.
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Neuroscience
Caffeine shakes up growing mouse brains
When pregnant mice consumed caffeine, their offspring had altered neurons and faulty memory.
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Neuroscience
One sleepless night weakens resolve in the face of doughnuts
Sleep loss changes brain activity and food preferences.
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Health & Medicine
Space-mapping neurons found in human brain
Grid cells may orient people in Euclidean space.
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Life
Tigers meet, mix in forest corridors
In India, narrow strips of wild land connect small groups of cats.
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Health & Medicine
Smoking damages mouse brains
Signs of Alzheimer’s disease appear after the rodents breathe cigarette smoke.
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Health & Medicine
A surprise makes memories wobbly
Drug that interferes with recollection works only when people face the unexpected.
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Humans
Newborn babies walk the walk
Infants strut a runway wearing electrodes to show how the walking reflex works.
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Health & Medicine
To develop male behavior, rats need immune cells
Research reveals unexpected role for cells called microglia in shaping the brain.