Using optogenetics, researchers endow mice with greater touch sensitivity.
Researchers solved an important piece of one of neuroscience's outstanding puzzles: how progenitor cells in the developing mammalian brain reproduce themselves while also giving birth to neurons that will populate the emerging cerebral cortex, the seat of cognition and executive function in the mature brain.
Frequently, as many as one thousand signals rain down on a single neuron simultaneously. To ensure that precise signals are delivered, the brain possesses a sophisticated inhibitory system. Scientists have now illuminated how this system works.
Extra copy of brain-development gene allowed neurons to migrate farther and develop more connections; findings may offer clue to autism...
