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. Neuroscience

    An on-off switch for eating

    By triggering or silencing certain brain cells, scientists can get mice to feed or stop feeding regardless of hunger.

  2. Health & Medicine

    It’s too soon to take coffee away from pregnant women

  3. Neuroscience

    Some schemes to boost brainpower are too clever by half

  4. Neuroscience

    Scented naps can dissipate fears

    People unlearned an odor's unpleasant accompaniment when they smelled it in their sleep.

  5. Humans

    Brain research goals laid out

    NIH details priority areas, including improving imaging technology and mapping brain structures.

  6. Neuroscience

    A beacon illuminates a key Alzheimer’s protein

    In PET scans, researchers can now see tau, which accompanies amyloid in diseased brains.

  7. Humans

    Chemical behind corked wine quashes other aromas

    Old sock smell signals contamination but doesn't belong to TCA, study proposes.

  8. Health & Medicine

    Szechuan pepper taps at nerve fibers

    The spice makes lips tingle at 50 beats per second, researchers find.

  9. Animals

    Rats induced into hibernation-like state

    Injection of compound causes animals to slow heartbeat, lower body temperature.

  10. Neuroscience

    Video game sharpens up elderly brains

    Adults over 60 who played for several hours a month beat untrained 20-year-olds in racing game.

  11. Health & Medicine

    Don’t stand so close to me

    Personal space has a measurable boundary, a study suggests.

  12. Life

    Tiny human almost-brains made in lab

    Stem cells arrange themselves into a version of the most complex human organ.