Neuroscience

Neuroscience

These windpipe cells trigger coughs to keep water out of the lungs

Neuroendocrine cells can sense substances on the way to the lungs and prompt reactions such as coughing and swallowing, experiments in mice show.

Neuroscience

Tiny treadmills show how fruit flies walk

A method to force fruit flies to move shows the insects’ stepping behavior and holds clues to other animals’ brains and movement.

Science & Society

In ‘Get the Picture,’ science helps explore the meaning of art

Journalist Bianca Bosker infiltrates the secretive art world to understand the science and psychology of why art matters to the human experience.

Neuroscience

Chickadees use memory ‘bar codes’ to find their hidden food stashes

Unique subsets of neurons in a chickadee’s memory center light up for each distinct cache, hinting at how episodic memories are encoded in the brain.

Neuroscience

Here’s how magnetic fields shape desert ants’ brains

Exposure to a tweaked magnetic field scrambled desert ants’ efforts to learn where home is — and affected neuron connections in a key part of the brain.

Neuroscience

Dogs know words for their favorite toys

The brain activity of dogs that were expecting one toy but were shown another suggests canines create mental concepts of everyday objects.

Neuroscience

Ancient viruses helped speedy nerves evolve

A retrovirus embedded in the DNA of some vertebrates helps turn on production of a protein needed to insulate nerve cells, aiding speedy thoughts.

Artificial Intelligence

How do babies learn words? An AI experiment may hold clues

Using relatively little data, audio and video taken from a baby’s perspective, an AI program learned the names of objects the baby encountered.

Neuroscience

A new device let a man sense temperature with his prosthetic hand

A device that can be integrated into prosthetic hands capitalizes on phantom sensations to enable users to sense hot and cold.

Health & Medicine

Under very rare conditions, Alzheimer’s disease may be transmitted

Alzheimer’s isn’t contagious. But contaminated growth hormone injections caused early-onset Alzheimer’s in some recipients, a new study suggests.

Neuroscience

Handwriting may boost brain connections more than typing does

Students asked to write words showed greater connectivity across the brain than when they typed them, suggesting writing may be a better boost for memory.

Neuroscience

Electrical brain implants may help patients with severe brain injuries

After deep brain stimulation, five patients with severe brain injuries improved their scores on a test of cognitive function.