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GABA

Featured Neuroscience Neuroscience Videos Open Neuroscience Articles

·August 13, 2020·4 min read

The Neuroscience of Getting and Staying Motivated

The key to performance and motivation lies within the ratio of glutamine and glutamate in the nucleus accumbens. The ratio of glutamine to glutamate relates specifically to stamina.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 17, 2020·4 min read

Scientists gain detailed images of how a protein that calms brain activity works

Cryo-electron microscopy captures detailed snapshots of the GABAB receptor protein contorts as it interacts with GABA.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Pain

·May 18, 2020·4 min read

Scientists find brain center that ‘profoundly’ shuts down pain

Researchers identified a distinct population of GABAergic neurons activated by general anesthetic in the central amygdala of mice. The findings point to central amygdala GABAergic neurons as a potential therapeutic target to alleviate chronic pain.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 4, 2020·4 min read

Exercise boosts motor skill learning via changes in brain’s transmitters

Neurons in the caudal pedunculopontine nucleus, an area of the brain that regulates motor coordination, switch neurotransmitters from acetylcholine to GABA as a result of exercise. The switch appears to provide feedback control that regulates motor coordination and skill learning.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Psychology

·April 2, 2020·5 min read

How T. gondii infection causes seizures, and psychiatric illness for some

Study shows how Toxoplasma parasitic infections promote the loss of inhibitory signaling in the brain by altering the behavior of microglia.

This shows the firing patterns of the neurons

Featured Neuroscience

·March 3, 2020·4 min read

How our brains create breathing rhythm is unique to every breath

Each breath begins with hundreds of individual neurons haphazardly firing at low levels, then quickly synchronizing. The synchronization prompts activity that signals diaphragm and chest muscles to contract, causing expansion and inhalation. As the signal subsides, exhalation occurs.

Auditory Neuroscience Autism Featured Genetics Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·March 2, 2020·5 min read

Why those on the autism spectrum are often hypersensitive to light and noise

Mice lacking the autism-associated SHANK3 gene were more sensitive to sensation, including touch. The mice also had overactive excitatory neurons in the somatosensory cortex, which may account for sensory hypersensitivity.

Electrophysiology Featured Neuroscience

·February 25, 2020·3 min read

Shining new light on the actions of key neurotransmitter in the brain

GABA can selectively regulate the excitability of neurons.

Autism Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·January 27, 2020·7 min read

Prescription drug improves symptoms of autism by targeting brain’s chemical messengers

A drug commonly prescribed for edema improves the symptoms for young children on the autism spectrum with no significant side effects. The drug, bumetanide, decreases the ratio of GABA to glutamate in the brain.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·January 1, 2020·3 min read

New Year’s anxiety hangover? Here’s what’s happening in your brain

Hangxiety, the feeling of waking up with anxiety the morning after heavy drinking, is a common symptom associated with a hangover. Researchers explain how a heavy night's drinking alters neurochemistry, leaving some of us prone to waking with anxiety.

This shows the location of the ventral pallidum in the brain

Featured Neuroscience

·December 31, 2019·3 min read

How the brain balances pleasure and pain

Different classes of neurons in the ventral pallidum control positive and negative motivations, sending opposing signals along a shared motivation-processing circuit.