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Science fiction or science fact? This review of a 2015 paper by Dr. Haruo Kasai explains how a group of scientists hacked the brain with light - and explores an assumption most neuroscientists have made for decades.
Read MoreHumans often work together to accomplish complex tasks, including language learning, or singing harmonies. How does the brain support that kind of complex, coordinated group behavior? A species of duetting birds offers some clues - and suggests your brain may have a bigger backstage role than you might think.
Read MoreFor years, we thought we had one advantage over the jumping spiders: the ability to hear. Now, fascinating new research suggests that Mother Nature leveled the playing field by giving some spiders a bizarre way to sense its enemies. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Read MoreAs a graduate student, I would give my right arm to be a fully functioning human being with little to no sleep. Alas, even Aristotle in 350 BCE observed a seemingly simple truth -- all animals sleep. Much to the frustration of sleep scientists, we still do not fully understand why we need sleep or why there is so much variation between species in sleep behavior. We are, however, beginning to gain an understanding of what may be regulating sleep and how it may have evolved over time, in some cases even making use of unusual model organisms such as Astyanax mexicanus, or the Mexican cavefish.
Read MoreMore than five million individuals are affected by Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the United States. This dementia is the sixth leading cause of death nationwide, and one of every three seniors dies from AD or a related dementia…
Research has primarily sought to understand the biology underlying early-onset familial Alzheimer’s, using genes with well-defined autosomal dominant mutations. However, familial early-onset AD occurs in less than ten percent of Alzheimer’s Disease cases. The majority of cases are sporadic, late-onset, and associated with “risk genes”, particularly APOE.
Read MoreWhen we’re walking from place to place, we have full control of when and how fast to go. But how does the brain tell the leg muscles to start walking? Speed up? Slow down?
Read MoreAnxiety is a feeling we all face on a daily basis about our jobs, our relationships, and even the meaning of our lives. But when normal anxiety gets so severe that it interferes with daily functioning it becomes generalized anxiety disorder, a psychiatric diagnosis that 28% of people in the United States will suffer from during some period in their life, costing the economy billions of dollars annually. But where is the seat of anxiety in the brain? In this article (Tae et al. 2011 Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09820) we will explore one of the first studies to ever identify a possible circuit for this important and pervasive feeling...
Read MoreFilm directors, photographers, and architects alike use forced perspective techniques to make people look bigger or smaller. Could male bowerbirds be doing the same thing?
Read MoreAs humans, we have a natural ability to remember the specifics of individual experiences (e.g. where I parked my car today) and rapidly learn rules across those experiences (e.g. where in the parking lot spaces tend to be open). The Complementary Learning Systems (CLS) [1] theory offers a computational framework for how we are able to accomplish, both seemingly disparate tasks, by positing that the brain uses different brain circuits to solve these two different problems, specifically the cortex and the hippocampus.
Read MoreHumans are r--lly g--d at filling in th- bl-nks... but can cuttlefish do the same? It’s very common for objects to be partially hidden from view, but we perceive them clearly even when only bits and pieces are actually visible. If a rock is partially covered in sand, it’s easy for us to see that the different bits poking out all belong to a single bigger rock. In perception research, this is called ‘filling-in’. Scientists have shown that other animals can do this too - including rodents, birds, fish and even bees! A study by Zylinski et al asked whether cuttlefish could.
Read MoreHome of NeuWrite West and the Stanford Neuroblog.
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