Neuroscience

Brain FM: Purkinje cells sing different tunes

All of us have our moods when we like to whistle an old melody or feel like tapping our feet to the latest hit. It turns out that cells in our brains can be equally moody, changing the tune of their electrical signals from ...

Medical research

We've all got a blind spot, but it can be shrunk

You've probably never noticed, but the human eye includes an unavoidable blind spot. That's because the optic nerve that sends visual signals to the brain must pass through the retina, which creates a hole in that light-sensitive ...

Medical research

Gut feeling restored by growth outside the body

University of Manchester scientists have bridged a gap between two separate pieces of small intestine kept alive outside the body, in an advance which could have implications for surgery in human adults and babies.

Neuroscience

Dopamine-producing neurons fulfil important function in the brain

Nerve cells that produce dopamine for the purpose of transmitting signals to other cells affect numerous crucial brain functions. This becomes evident in diseases such as Parkinson's and schizophrenia, where dopamine transmission ...

Neuroscience

Why some neurons 'outsource' their cell body

Nerve cells come in very different shapes. Researchers at the Bernstein Center Berlin now reveal why, in insects, the cell body is usually located at the end of a separate extension. Using mathematical models, they show that ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Why gastrointestinal disorders afflict women more often

Women are more likely to have irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal (GI) disorders than men are. Although this could be because men and women handle the condition differently— "toughing it out" versus getting ...

Neuroscience

Mathematics to reveal the secrets of the brain

Ten years ago, when the team of Marianne Fyhn and Torkel Hafting Fyhn cooperated with the Nobel Prize winning team of May-Britt and Edvard Moser at NTNU, they discovered the sense of orientation in the brain.

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