PLoS Biology

Your brain on Big Bird: Sesame Street helps to reveal patterns of neural development

Using brain scans of children and adults watching Sesame Street, cognitive scientists are learning how children's brains change as they develop intellectual abilities like reading and math.

Neuroscience created Jan 03, 2013 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists identify important regulator for synapse stability and plasticity

(Medical Xpress)—Using the fruit fly as a model organism, neurobiologists from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research have identified the L1-type CAM neuroglian as an important regulator ...

Neuroscience created Apr 25, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

How does the brain measure time?

Researchers at the University of Minnesota's Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) have found a small population of neurons that is involved in measuring time, which is a process that has traditionally been difficult ...

Neuroscience created Oct 30, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Common antifungal drug decreases tumor growth and shows promise as cancer therapy

An inexpensive antifungal drug, thiabendazole, slows tumor growth and shows promise as a chemotherapy for cancer. Scientists in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin made this ...

Cancer created Aug 21, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Tension on gut muscles induces cell invasion in zebrafish intestine, mimicking cancer metastasis

The stiffness of breast tissue is increasingly recognized as an important factor explaining the onset of breast cancer. Stiffening induces molecular changes that promote cancerous behavior in cells. Bioengineering ...

Cancer created Sep 07, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Neuroscientists propose revolutionary DNA-based approach to map wiring of whole brain

A team of neuroscientists has proposed a new and potentially revolutionary way of obtaining a neuronal connectivity map (the "connectome") of the whole brain of the mouse. The details are set forth in an essay published October ...

Neuroscience created Oct 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New vitamin-based treatment that could reduce muscle degeneration in muscular dystrophy

Boosting the activity of a vitamin-sensitive cell adhesion pathway has the potential to counteract the muscle degeneration and reduced mobility caused by muscular dystrophies, according to a research team led by scientists ...

Medical research created Oct 23, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (5) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers discover new explanation for diabetes and poor growth

A group of researchers from the University of Copenhagen has taken a significant step towards understanding the reasons for both diabetes and growth hormone deficiency. Their new discoveries centre on the body's ability to ...

Medical research created Apr 23, 2013 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Chance finding reveals new control on blood vessels in developing brain

(Medical Xpress)—Zhen Huang freely admits he was not interested in blood vessels four years ago when he was studying brain development in a fetal mouse.

Medical research created Jan 24, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Study in mice yields Angelman advance

In a new study in mice, a scientific collaboration centered at Brown University lays out in unprecedented detail a neurological signaling breakdown in Angelman syndrome, a disorder that affects thousands ...

Medical research created Feb 13, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Human obedience: The myth of blind conformity

In the 1960s and 1970s, classic social psychological studies were conducted that provided evidence that even normal, decent people can engage in acts of extreme cruelty when instructed to do so by others. However, in an essay ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Nov 20, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (17) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Vaccine research shows vigilance needed against evolution of more-virulent malaria

Malaria parasites evolving in vaccinated laboratory mice become more virulent, according to research at Penn State University. The mice were injected with a critical component of several candidate human malaria ...

Medical research created Jul 31, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Mice at risk of asthma, allergies can fight off skin cancer

A molecule involved in asthma and allergies has now been shown to make mice resistant to skin cancer, according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Cancer created Oct 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Decoding the secrets of balance

(Medical Xpress) -- New understanding of how the brain processes information from inner ear offers hope for sufferers of vertigo.

Neuroscience created Jul 25, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Clues found to way embryonic kidney maintains its fleeting stem cells

Studying mice and humans, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and their collaborators in Paris have identified two proteins that are required to maintain a supply of stem cells ...

Medical research created Jun 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast