Peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Springer Nature covering neuroscience research, from molecular mechanisms to brain circuits and cognition.
Andrea Luppi's Oxford-led team found that general anesthetics fragment brain activity the same way in six species, nematodes and humans among them. The shared pattern points to a common end state in the brain, but which molecular targets the drugs hit is still unknown.
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Lund University scans of more than 1,000 people show Alzheimer's reorganizes brain connectivity along a path distinct from normal aging. If the result replicates, brain-wide connectivity could join amyloid and tau as a way trials judge whether a drug helps.
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Kyle Loh's group reports that forebrain and midbrain neurons descend from OTX2 progenitors while hindbrain neurons descend from GBX2 progenitors. Starting from the right cell, they grew human hindbrain motor neurons.
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Recordings from 422 neurons in two mouse visual areas, and a network model fitted to them, indicate that reciprocal loops sustain activity the two areas share and let mismatched activity decay within a fraction of a second.
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In mice, pregnancy turns up an SK3 potassium channel that quiets dorsal raphe serotonin neurons and raises the pull of palatable food. The team tested the channel in both directions before tracing its path to the reward system.
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Johns Hopkins reports that mouse axons preserved by high pressure freezing are beaded at the nanoscale, and says that shape may help set how fast signals travel, a variable the textbook drawing of a smooth tube leaves out.
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UCSF and UC Berkeley recorded from inside the orbitofrontal cortex of six epilepsy patients playing a video game about bombs and rubies, a design forced by the scanner's blind spot over that part of the brain.
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Scientists in Oslo scanned cognitively healthy older adults for nearly 20 years. They then read the earlier images backwards. The divergence they found sits well outside the window amyloid-PET is able to define.
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Northwestern and Salk researchers report a BLA to mPFC projection that grows more excitable in isolated male mice and less excitable in females, with drinking following each direction.
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