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synaptic plasticity

Illustration of chandelier cells connecting to pyramidal neurons in the brain.

Featured Genetics Neurology Neuroscience

·January 13, 2026·3 min read

Brain Conductors Find Precise Connection to Target Cells via Protein Handshake

Researchers identify two key proteins that allow chandelier cells to connect with excitatory neurons. This "handshake" regulates brain signals and, when disrupted, may lead to epilepsy or autism.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 17, 2025·6 min read

Music Improvisation Rewires the Brain in Real Time

Creativity is notoriously difficult to study as it unfolds, but musical improvisation offers a rare chance to watch spontaneous idea-generation in action. In a new imaging study, researchers examined how 16 skilled jazz pianists’ brains reorganized while they played a familiar tune from memory, improvised around its melody, or freely improvised over its chord changes.

This shows a brain with a night and day background.

Featured Neuroscience

·November 13, 2025·6 min read

Brain Learning Power Peaks at Specific Times of Day

A new study reveals that the brain’s responsiveness and capacity for learning shift with the time of day, governed by molecules like adenosine that link metabolism, sleep, and neural signaling. Using optogenetics, researchers found that identical stimuli activated brain cells differently at sunrise versus sunset, suggesting that neuronal excitability and plasticity follow daily rhythms.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·September 25, 2025·4 min read

Prozac May Rewire the Brain by Loosening Rigid Neural Circuits

A new study shows that fluoxetine, better known as Prozac, does more than increase serotonin—it changes how brain cells handle energy and rebuild connections. After two weeks of treatment, parvalbumin interneurons in the prefrontal cortex became less rigid, with mitochondrial energy genes reduced and plasticity genes upregulated.

This shows a neuron and plastic particles.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 15, 2025·4 min read

Nanoplastics Disrupt Brain Energy, Threatening Memory Function

Scientists have uncovered a mechanism by which nanoplastics impair brain energy metabolism, offering new clues into environmental contributions to neurodegeneration. The particles disrupted mitochondrial electron transfer and reduced energy production in both general and synaptic mitochondria.

This is a drawing of a shrew and a brain.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 1, 2025·7 min read

Shrews Shrink and Regrow Brains, Offering Clues for Human Diseases

Scientists used non-invasive MRI to study shrews that seasonally shrink and regrow their brains, uncovering water loss as the key driver of this rare phenomenon. Despite losing about nine percent of their brain volume in winter, shrew brain cells remain alive, with aquaporin-4 proteins playing a key role in regulating water movement.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 21, 2025·5 min read

Brain Retains Lost Limb’s Control Map, Defying Plasticity Theories

A groundbreaking study challenges decades of neuroscience by showing that the brain retains its map of a lost limb long after amputation. Using functional MRI scans taken before and after surgery, researchers found little change in cortical activity, even when participants attempted to move phantom fingers.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 28, 2025·4 min read

Sleep Learning: How Synapses Strengthen While We Rest

New research reveals how synaptic connections in the cerebral cortex can strengthen during sleep, offering insight into how the brain continues learning even while we rest. Using computer simulations, researchers demonstrated that synaptic activity during sleep follows known "synaptic learning rules" when neural activity reaches specific thresholds.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 4, 2025·4 min read

Brain Uses Separate Synapses to Balance Learning and Stability

New research has overturned a long-held belief in neuroscience by showing that the brain uses separate synaptic transmission sites for spontaneous and evoked signaling. Traditionally thought to share the same origin, these two forms of communication actually emerge from distinct sites, each following its own developmental path.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 29, 2025·8 min read

Astrocytes May Hold the Key to Brain’s Vast Memory Capacity

New research proposes that astrocytes—long thought to be merely supportive cells—may significantly enhance the brain’s ability to store memories. Unlike neurons, astrocytes cannot fire electrical signals but can influence synaptic activity through calcium signaling and gliotransmitters.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 24, 2025·4 min read

Boosting Ketamine’s Antidepressant Effects to Last Two Months

Ketamine is a fast-acting antidepressant that can relieve symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) within hours, even in treatment-resistant cases. However, its effects typically last only a week, and frequent dosing poses risks like dissociation or addiction.