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synaptic plasticity

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·November 25, 2023·5 min read

Brain Brew: How Daily Coffee Habits May Affect Brain Plasticity and Learning

Researchers explore how chronic caffeine consumption potentially impacts brain plasticity and the effectiveness of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The research indicates that regular caffeine users might experience diminished long-term potentiation (LTP), a crucial process for learning and memory.

Featured Neuroscience

·November 2, 2023·5 min read

Unlocking Memory: Key Protein’s Role in Aging and Brain Plasticity Revealed

A new study delves deeper into the workings of the protein TIMP2, crucial for hippocampal plasticity, an essential process for memory and learning. The study highlights how TIMP2 regulates the plasticity of the hippocampus, particularly as it diminishes with age.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 6, 2023·6 min read

Thalamus Plays a Pivotal Role in Adult Brain Plasticity

Researchers spotlight the thalamus, typically regarded merely as a relay station, as a pivotal entity in adult brain plasticity. Contrasting prior beliefs focusing largely on the cortex, the thalamus demonstrates a significant role in adapting sensory and motor information, as illuminated through mouse models in vision studies.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 18, 2023·5 min read

Live Imaging Reveals Axon Adaptability in Neuroplasticity

For the first time, researchers observed nerve plasticity within the axon in real-time. This adaptability focuses on the axon initial segment (AIS), a vital nerve cell component initiating electrical signals.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 18, 2023·5 min read

Boosting Brain Plasticity: A New Pathway for PTSD Therapy?

Researchers discovered that through temporary increases in brain malleability and simultaneous desensitization to fear memories, they could control fear responses in mice. This was achieved by inhibiting the Acan gene, thereby decreasing the presence of the protein Aggrecan, which solidifies and reduces malleability in the brain. The findings point towards potential new avenues for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

This shows a brain with the areas mentioned in the study highlighted

Featured Neuroscience

·April 17, 2023·5 min read

How Music Can Prevent Cognitive Decline

Listening to or practicing music had positive implications on cognitive decline in older adults by stimulating the production of gray matter in key brain areas, a new study reveals.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·April 5, 2023·3 min read

How Prozac Increases Brain Plasticity

Fluoxetine (Prozac), a common antidepressant, was found to enhance the erasure of learned fear responses and facilitate spatial pattern learning in mice. The study also found the TrkB receptor in PV+ interneurons plays a crucial role in these effects, which may offer new possibilities for the development of psychiatric treatments targeting brain plasticity.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 24, 2023·3 min read

Synaptic Plasticity May Affect Diet Outcomes

When dieting, hunger-mediating AgRP neurons receive stronger signals, inducing synaptic plasticity. This may explain why people tend to eat more after a diet and regain the weight they have lost.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·March 8, 2023·4 min read

How Gene Expression Controls Synaptic Plasticity in the Aging Human Brain

M1 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor (mAChR) dependent LTP and LTD share a common AMPA trafficking pathway. Either the upregulation of neurotransmitter receptor genes or suppression of the downregulation could improve synaptic dysfunction associated with age-related neurodegeneration. The findings could assist in the creation of new therapies for Alzheimer's disease that target synaptic plasticity.

This shows a tired looking woman studying

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·February 8, 2023·3 min read

How Sleep Deprivation Affects Cognitive Performance

Sleep deprivation doesn't just alter brain activity, it also changes the connection between neurons. Both changes have a significant effect on working memory and cognitive performance.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 2, 2023·7 min read

Sparse, Small, but Diverse Neural Connections Help Make Perception Reliable and Efficient

Thalamic inputs into superficial layers of the cerebral cortex are both rare and weak, yet surprisingly diverse in their distribution patterns. However, they are reliable and efficient representatives of information.