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

    How the brain shops

    Using implanted electrodes, researchers find individual neurons associated with attaching value to objects.

  2. Life

    Neandertal relative bred with humans

    Known only through DNA extracted from a scrap of bone, a Siberian hominid group suggests a much more complicated prehistory for Homo sapiens.

  3. Health & Medicine

    No fear

    A woman who lacks a basic brain structure, the amygdala, couldn’t be frightened no matter how hard researchers tried. And they tried.

  4. Health & Medicine

    Salvia says high

    Laboratory researchers show that the psychoactive substance in a popular, largely legal recreational drug causes a short but intense period of hallucination.

  5. Health & Medicine

    A protein’s ebb and flow

    Buildup in the brain of a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease may be due to reduced clearance rather than overproduction of the protein.

  6. Physics

    Light can generate lift

    Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects perpendicularly.

  7. Chemistry

    Snot has the power to alter scents

    Enzymes in mice's nasal mucus can alter certain odors before the nose can detect them, a new study finds.

  8. Health & Medicine

    A few stray hairs

    Brain regions that sense the world can also flick a whisker, research in mice shows, suggesting that the organ’s division of labor is not so clear-cut.

  9. Health & Medicine

    Jet lag makes hamsters dumb

    A new study highlights the perils of shifting time zones.

  10. Health & Medicine

    Flick of a whisker can prevent stroke damage in rats

    A new study in animals suggests sensory stimulation could potentially provide a nondrug method for protecting human patients.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Pain-free pianists use their backs

    Pianists who use smaller arm and finger muscles are more prone to injury than players who activate their back and neck muscles.

  12. Health & Medicine

    Cocaine trumps food for female rats

    A study in rats finds that males prefer food over cocaine while females prefer the drug, a step toward better understanding of sex differences in addiction.