Neuroscience
- Neuroscience
Boosting a gut bacterium helps mice fight an ALS-like disease
Gut bacteria may alter ALS symptoms for good or ill.
- Health & Medicine
Manipulating nerve cells makes mice ‘see’ something that’s not there
Using optogenetics to stimulate about 20 nerve cells causes mice to perceive nonexistent vertical or horizontal lines.
- Health & Medicine
Tiny glasses help reveal how praying mantises can see in 3-D
Newfound nerve cells in praying mantises help detect different views that each of the insects’ eyes sees, a mismatch that creates depth perception.
- Neuroscience
Both fish and humans have REM-like sleep
Sleeping zebrafish have brain and body activity similar to snoozing mammals, suggesting that sleep evolved at least 450 million years ago.
- Neuroscience
A 100-hour MRI scan captured the most detailed look yet at a whole human brain
Researchers report ultraprecise imaging of a postmortem human brain.
- Planetary Science
Readers wanted to know about asteroids, lithium batteries and more
Readers had questions and comments about asteroids, lithium batteries, and pyroclastic flows.
- Health & Medicine
Rogue immune cells can infiltrate old brains
Killer T cells get into older brains where they may make mischief, a study in mice and postmortem human brain tissue finds.
- Neuroscience
This brain region may be why some robots send chills down your spine
Scientists may have traced the source of the “uncanny valley” sensation in the brain.
- Health & Medicine
Vision cells can pull double duty in the brain, detecting both color and shape
Neurons in a brain area that handles vision fire in response to more than one aspect of an object, countering earlier ideas, a study in monkeys finds.
- Health & Medicine
In mice, a high-fat diet cuts a ‘brake’ used to control appetite
A fatty diet changes the behavior of key appetite-regulating cells in a mouse brain.
- Neuroscience
Mice and bats’ brains sync up as they interact with their own kind
The brain activity of mice and bats aligns in social settings, a coordination that may hold clues about how social context influences behavior.
- Neuroscience
Female rats face sex bias too
In neurobiological studies, male lab animals tend to outnumber females, which are considered too hormonal. Scientists say it’s time for that myth to go.
