Latest

HHMI

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·September 22, 2023·6 min read

From Vinyl to Visions: Fruit Flies Showcase Decision-Making Prowess

Using a comparison to vinyl record collectors, researchers delve into the concept of matching—a behavior where decisions are based on reward expectations—observed from pigeons to humans. In a recent study, the team found that fruit flies also demonstrate this behavior, deciding based on their reward predictions.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 19, 2023·3 min read

How Flies Turn Memories into Upwind Food Hunts

Researchers revealed how the fruit fly brain transforms memories of past rewards into actionable behaviors, guiding the fly to food. A key brain region, the mushroom body, integrates olfactory information and assigns values to odors, but the link to motor actions was unclear.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 30, 2022·5 min read

Cosmological Thinking Meets Neuroscience in New Theory About Brain Connections

A new mathematical model that identifies essential connections between neurons reveals some neural networks in the brain are more essential than others.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·May 19, 2022·5 min read

Spying on Thousands of Neurons in the Brain’s Vision Center Simultaneously

A novel, custom-built microscope allowed researchers to track the activity of a single neuron across the entire visual cortex.

This cartoon shows mice looking at a vending machine

Featured Neuroscience

·May 5, 2022·5 min read

Cutting Calories and Eating at the Right Time of Day Leads to Longer Life in Mice

Restricting calories and eating only during the most active part of the day helped extend the lifespan of mice.

This shows the odontoblast containing the ion channel

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·March 27, 2021·5 min read

How Teeth Sense the Cold

The ion channel TRPC5 acts as a molecular cold sensor in teeth. Researchers report the TRPC5 could be a new target to help treat pain from toothaches and cold sensitivity.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 24, 2020·5 min read

Preventing ‘cytokine storm’ may ease severe COVID-19 symptoms

Treating coronavirus patients with alpha-blockers may help prevent the cytokine storm associated with severe COVID-19 infection. Alpha-blockers interfere with the cell signaling that triggers cytokine storms. Mice with bacterial infections that were treated with alpha-blockers experienced reduced cytokine storms and decreased death rates.

Featured Neuroscience

·April 15, 2020·4 min read

A gut-to-brain circuit drives sugar preference and may explain sugar cravings

Sweet tasting foods don't only trigger the taste buds, they also switch on a neurological pathway that begins in the gut. In the intestines, signals of sugar ingestion travel to the brain, sparking an appetite for more sweet foods. However, this pathway only responds to sugars, not artificial sweeteners.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·June 20, 2019·4 min read

Frustrated fish give up thanks to glia, not just neurons

Glial cells and radial astrocytes might control the decision to give up swimming against the current in Zebrafish.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·June 2, 2019·2 min read

Astrocytes protect neurons from toxic buildup

Stimulating mouse neurons in a dish lead to a build-up to fatty acids and lipid particle release. Astrocytes engulfed the particles and increased genetic activity associated with detoxification.