Neuroscience

Team sheds light on genetic mutations in autism disorders

Recent research has linked autism with a lack of "pruning" in developing brain connections, but a new Dartmouth study suggests instead it is the excessive growth of new connections that causes sensory overload in people with ...

Neuroscience

Watching the brain learn

Understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying brain plasticity (how the brain can learn, develop and reorganize itself) is crucial for explaining many illnesses and conditions. Neurocientists from the University ...

Neuroscience

Witnessing the birth of a tiny RNA at brain synapses

Proteins are the building blocks of all cells. They are made from messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules, which are copied from DNA in the nuclei of cells. All cells, including brain cells regulate the amount and kind of proteins ...

Medical research

Epigenetic culprit in Alzheimer's memory decline

In a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, memory problems stem from an overactive enzyme that shuts off genes related to neuron communication, a new study says.

Neuroscience

Astrocytes identified as master 'conductors' of the brain

In the orchestra of the brain, the firing of each neuron is controlled by two notes—excitatory and inhibitory—that come from two distinct forms of a cellular structure called synapses. Synapses are essentially the connections ...

Neuroscience

When neurons have less to say, they speak up

The brain is an extremely adaptable organ – but it is also quite conservative. That's in short, what scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried and their colleagues from the Friedrich Miescher ...

Neuroscience

Flip of a single molecular switch makes an old brain young

The flip of a single molecular switch helps create the mature neuronal connections that allow the brain to bridge the gap between adolescent impressionability and adult stability. Now Yale School of Medicine researchers have ...

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