SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report in a new study that they found a way to help rats recover neurons in the brain’s center of learning and memory. They accomplished the feat by blocking a molecule that controls how efficiently genetic instructions are used to build proteins. If the approach described in … Read more
The most engaging educational videos are correlated with similar brain activity across learners, according to research in young adults recently published in eNeuro. Yi Hu and colleagues at East China Normal University showed university students two-minute introduction clips for 15 online classes and monitored their brain activity via electroencephalogram. The students ranked the clips based on … Read more
The brain activity evoked from processing written or heard semantic information is almost identical, according to research in adults published in JNeurosci. These findings add to the understanding of how the brain processes written and oral language. Language is a complex process that involves many regions of the brain, and it was previously unclear if the … Read more
Pores at the surface of neurons and muscle cells control your every thought, movement; the very beating of your heart. The way the pores behave – that is open, close, or lock for a short time (inactivate) depending on voltage – shapes signals in the form of ions moving across the cell surface. For the first … Read more
Physical manifestations of negative memories in the hippocampus could underlie cognitive symptoms of depression, according to research in mice published in JNeurosci. Inhibiting these manifestations could be a future treatment route. Groups of neurons that are activated after an experience are thought to be the physical representation of memory. These so-called engrams in the hippocampus could … Read more
For centuries, the mental world of the mind and the physical world were treated as utterly distinct. While the movement of inanimate objects could be measured and ultimately predicted with the help of mathematics, the movement of organisms – their behavior – appeared to be shaped by different forces, under the control of the will. … Read more
Exposure to chronic, low dose radiation — the conditions present in deep space — causes neural and behavioral impairments in mice, researchers report in eNeuro. These results highlight the pressing need to develop safety measures to protect the brain from radiation during deep space missions as astronauts prepare to travel to Mars. Radiation is known to … Read more
Up to two decades before people develop the characteristic memory loss and confusion of Alzheimer’s disease, damaging clumps of protein start to build up in their brains. Now, a blood test to detect such early brain changes has moved one step closer to clinical use. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis … Read more
UNC School of Medicine scientists unveiled how a particular gene helps organize the scaffolding of brain cells called radial progenitors necessary for the orderly formation of the brain. Previous studies have shown that this gene is mutated in some people with autism. The discovery, published in Neuron, illuminates the molecular details of a key process in … Read more
Neuroscientists and machine learners from University of Zurich and ETH Zurich have introduced a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-based method to develop a brain atlas through deep learning. The researchers published their results on June 10, 2019 In Nature Machine Intelligence. Brain atlases for mice, humans and other species are not available for every developmental stages … Read more