Neuroscience

Optogenetic toolkit goes multicolor

Optogenetics is a technique that allows scientists to control neurons' electrical activity with light by engineering them to express light-sensitive proteins. Within the past decade, it has become a very powerful tool for ...

Neuroscience

Secrets of gentle touch revealed

Stroke the soft body of a newborn fruit fly larva ever-so-gently with a freshly plucked eyelash, and it will respond to the tickle by altering its movement—an observation that has helped scientists at the University of ...

Neuroscience

Brain may 'see' more than the eyes, study indicates

(Medical Xpress)—Vision may be less important to "seeing" than is the brain's ability to process points of light into complex images, according to a new study of the fruit fly visual system currently published in the online ...

Medical research

Even in fruit flies, enriched learning drives need for sleep

Just like human teenagers, fruit flies that spend a day buzzing around the "fly mall" with their companions need more sleep. That's because the environment makes their brain circuits grow dense new synapses and they need ...

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