Neuroscience
- Neuroscience
Newly identified brain circuit hints at how fear memories are made
A newfound set of brain connections appears to control fear memories, a finding that may lead to a better understanding of PTSD and other anxiety disorders.
- Neuroscience
Brain’s plumbing may knock out blood test for brain injury
The brain's waste-removal system may complicate scientists' attempts to create a blood test to diagnose traumatic brain injury.
- Neuroscience
To beat sleepiness of anxiety drugs, team looks to body’s clock
Studying basic functions, such as the body’s clock, has inadvertently led to a compound that relieves anxiety in mice.
- Neuroscience
Feedback
Readers discuss volcanoes and brain studies involving chocolate, and recommend some science-based options for game night.
- Neuroscience
Protectors of our nervous system play a role in pain
PET and MRI brain scans show that the cells that protect our central nervous system also play a role in chronic pain.
- Neuroscience
Soft brain implant helps paralyzed rats walk again
Scientists have made a soft, flexible electrical implant that mimics the elasticity of the brain and spine's protective tissue.
- Neuroscience
PET scans hint at brain’s reorganization after injury
Imaging monkeys’ brains after strokelike injury is giving scientists clues to how neurons reorganize themselves so the animals can move again.
- Neuroscience
Cold War collaboration probed possible viral cause of ALS
A mid-1960s collaboration between American and Soviet researchers explored a possible viral cause of ALS.
- Animals
Rock ants favor left turns in unfamiliar crevices
Rock ants’ bias for turning left in mazes, a bit like handedness in people, may reflect different specializations in the halves of their nervous system.
- Neuroscience
Smartphone users’ thumbs are reshaping their brains
Smartphones are forcing us to use our thumbs in new ways and reshaping the way our brains respond to touch.
- Animals
Crows may be able to make analogies
Crows with little training pass a lab test for analogical reasoning that requires matching similar or different icons.
- Neuroscience
Year in review: Memories vulnerable to manipulation
New experimental results in 2014 helped bring scientists closer to understanding how the brain manipulates memories to make sense of the world.
