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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Health & Medicine
Against all odds, 2020 featured some good health news
Good health news in 2020 included a first treatment for peanut allergies, a rare self-cure for HIV, and an Ebola outbreak ends.
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Neuroscience
Psilocybin may help treat depression, a small study finds
Researchers found that a compound in psychedelic mushrooms eased depression symptoms, but larger studies are needed.
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Neuroscience
FDA advisory panel declines to support a controversial Alzheimer’s treatment
The fate of an Alzheimer’s drug, developed by pharmaceutical company Biogen, remains up in the air.
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Anthropology
These human nerve cell tendrils turned to glass nearly 2,000 years ago
Part of a young man’s brain was preserved in A.D. 79 by hot ash from Mount Vesuvius’ eruption.
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Neuroscience
Your dog’s brain doesn’t care about your face
Comparing brain scans of people and pups shows that faces hold no special meaning to the brains of dogs, a new study suggests.
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Neuroscience
Tiny, magnetically controlled robots coax nerve cells to grow connections
Research using microrobots and nerve cells from rats could point to new treatments for people with nerve injuries.
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Health & Medicine
Treatments that target the coronavirus in the nose might help prevent COVID-19
Scientists are developing and testing ways to prevent the virus from settling in prime nasal real estate.
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Neuroscience
New guidance on brain death could ease debate over when life ends
Brain death can be a tricky concept. Clarity from an international group of doctors may help identify when the brain has stopped working for good.
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Health & Medicine
Five big questions about when and how to open schools amid COVID-19
Researchers weigh in on how to get children back into classrooms in a low-risk way.
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Neuroscience
Boosting a liver protein may mimic the brain benefits of exercise
Finding that liver-made proteins influence the brain may advance the quest for an “exercise pill” that can deliver the benefits of physical activity.
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Health & Medicine
Strokes and mental state changes hint at how COVID-19 harms the brain
In a group of people severely ill from the coronavirus, strokes, psychosis, depression and other brain-related changes come as complications.
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Neuroscience
How to make a mouse smell a smell that doesn’t actually exist
The ability to create a perception might lead to a deeper understanding of how the brain makes sense of the world.