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Magazine
In the Feb. 16 SN: Robots roll into the classroom, brain zaps for severe depression, particle colliders of the future, how to walk like a tetrapod, sleepless nights boost Alzheimer's proteins and more.
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News in Brief
Brain cells combine place and taste to make food maps
02/18/2019 - 13:00 NeuroscienceSometimes a really good meal can make an evening unforgettable. A new study of rats, published online February 18 in the Journal of Neuroscience, may help explain why. A select group of nerve cells in rats’ brains holds information about both flavors and places, becoming active when the right taste hits the tongue when the rat is in a certain location. These double-duty cells could help...
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Editor's Note
Brain discoveries open doors to new treatments
For centuries, scientists have strived to figure out the workings of the human brain, but that blob of matter tucked inside a bony shell long resisted efforts to divine its secrets.02/10/2019 - 07:00 Neuroscience, Mental Health, BiomedicineTechniques invented in the early 1900s, including angiography and electroencephalography, made it possible to examine some characteristics of the brain without invading the skull. But it wasn’t until the...
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News
Brain scans decode an elusive signature of consciousness
02/08/2019 - 12:23 NeuroscienceA conscious brain hums with elaborate, interwoven signals, a study finds.
Scientists uncovered that new signature of consciousness by analyzing brain activity of healthy people and of people who were not aware of their surroundings. The result, published online February 6 in Science Advances, makes headway on a tough problem: how to accurately measure awareness in patients who can’t...
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News
No, we don’t know that gum disease causes Alzheimer’s
01/31/2019 - 07:00 NeuroscienceDo you floss regularly? A study published January 23 in Science Advances — and the news stories that it inspired — might have scared you into better oral hygiene by claiming to find a link between gum bacteria and Alzheimer’s disease.
Those experiments hinted that the gum disease–causing bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis was present in the brains of a small number of people who died with...
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News
Rocking puts adults to sleep faster and makes slumber deeper
01/24/2019 - 11:00 NeuroscienceBabies love to be rocked to sleep. It turns out that we never quite grow out of it.
Grown-ups tucked into a gently swaying bed for the night fell asleep faster and slept deeper, scientists report in the Feb. 4 Current Biology. What’s more, these rocked adults had sharper memories the next morning. Aside from hinting at the next great sleep aid, the results offer clues about how the brain...
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News
The cerebellum may do a lot more than just coordinate movement
01/23/2019 - 07:00 NeuroscienceIts name means “little brain” in Latin, but the cerebellum is anything but. The fist-sized orb at the back of the brain has an outsized role in social interactions, a study in mice suggests.Once thought to be a relatively simple brain structure that had only one job, coordinating movement, the cerebellum is gaining recognition for being an important mover and shaker in the brain.
Early...
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News
New ways to image and control nerve cells could unlock brain mysteries
01/17/2019 - 14:00 Neuroscience, TechnologyUsing laser light, ballooning tissue and innovative genetic tricks, scientists are starting to force brains to give up their secrets.
By mixing and matching powerful advances in microscopy and cell biology, researchers have imaged intricate details of individual nerve cells in fruit flies and mice, and even controlled small groups of nerve cells in living mice.
The techniques,...
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News
Nerve cells from people with autism grow unusually big and fast
01/11/2019 - 06:00 NeuroscienceYoung nerve cells derived from people with autism are precocious, growing bigger and developing sooner than cells taken from people without autism, a new study shows.
The results, described January 7 in Nature Neuroscience, hint that in some cases nerve cells veer off course early in brain development to ultimately cause the disorder.
As a proxy of brain growth, researchers led by...
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Year in Review
The battle over new nerve cells in adult brains intensifies
Just a generation ago, common wisdom held that once a person reaches adulthood, the brain stops producing new nerve cells. Scientists countered that depressing prospect 20 years ago with signs that a grown-up brain can in fact replenish itself. The implications were huge: Maybe that process would offer a way to fight disorders such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease.12/20/2018 - 07:00 NeuroscienceThis year,...
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Year in Review
Zapping the spinal cord helped paralyzed people learn to move again
12/17/2018 - 08:19 NeuroscienceThe spinal cord can make a comeback.
Intensive rehabilitation paired with electric stimulation of the spinal cord allowed six paralyzed people to walk or take steps years after their injuries, three small studies published this year showed.
“There’s a capacity here of human spinal circuitry to be able to regain significant motor control and function,” says Susan Harkema, a...