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

    Brain gene activity changes through life

    Studies track biochemical patterns from just after conception to old age.

  2. Health & Medicine

    Teen brains’ growing pains

    Testing captures substantial changes in some youths’ IQs and gray matter.

  3. Health & Medicine

    A mind for optimism

    When predicting the risk of unfortunate events, people heed positive news better than ill tidings.

  4. Health & Medicine

    The mind’s eye revealed

    A new technology uses brain scans to see what a person is watching.

  5. Health & Medicine

    The Probabilistic Mind

    Human brains evolved to deal with doubt.

  6. Life

    XMRV tie to chronic fatigue debunked

    A virus that was tied to the mysterious syndrome by 2009 research appears to have been a laboratory contaminant.

  7. Health & Medicine

    Ringing in ears may have deeper source

    Tinnitus results from the brain’s effort to compensate for hearing loss, a study concludes.

  8. Life

    A new way to breach the blood-brain barrier

    Researchers working with rodents have found a drug that can temporarily open a door for treatments.

  9. Chemistry

    If that’s a TV, this must be the den

    In some situations, the brain identifies a location based on a checklist of objects.

  10. Humans

    Willpower endures

    A person's ability to resist temptation stays constant throughout life, study suggests.

  11. Life

    Antidepressants show signs of countering Alzheimer’s

    Human brain scans and mice data link serotonin-boosting drugs with reduced plaque density.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Lost in the periphery

    The human visual system discards information along the edges, a new study shows.