Knight Initiative News

Wu Tsai Neuro researcher Karl Deisseroth and colleagues drew on a variety of techniques to probe how emotional responses arise in the brain.

Scientists found that humans and mice share persistent brain-activity patterns in response to negative sensory inputs – offering insight into emotion and potential links to neuropsychiatric disorders.

Knight Initiative researchers discover a biomarker in spinal fluid that could help forecast Alzheimer’s progression and improve clinical trials.

Wu Tsai Neuro faculty scholar Laura Gwilliams is unlocking how the brain turns sound into meaning.
 

Molecular biologist Luis de Lecea is mapping the brain circuits that control sleep so we can manipulate them for a better night’s rest.

Wu Tsai Neuro affiliate Lauren O’Connell explores the fundamental questions that underlie human relationships

This week on the podcast, Stanford cell biologist Brad Zuchero takes us on a tour of the frontiers of glia-science

By studying never-before-seen details of brain connectivity in human infants, researchers at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute have identified how a balance of innate structure and flexible learning produces our remarkably organized visual brains.

In the lab of Lauren O’Connell, associate professor of biology, researchers look to amphibian species to learn how animals evolve in response to changing environments.

New findings about the sugary armor on the brain’s frontline cells could shed light on cognitive decline and diseases like Alzheimer’s—and open new avenues for treatment.

 

The 1970s papers from Goldberg and Wurtz made ambitious mechanistic studies of higher brain functions seem feasible.

Mice learn fastest and most reliably when they experience an increase in dopamine paired with an inhibition of serotonin in their nucleus accumbens, a new study shows, helping to resolve long-standing questions about the neuromodulators’ relationship.

Researchers at Stanford’s Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience merge spatial transcriptomics and AI to uncover how local cellular interactions drive brain aging and resilience

Join us as we look back on some of the key studies we covered here at Wu Tsai Neuro in 2024 to give a (very partial) overview of the impact of our community’s research efforts this past year

This week on the podcast, Stanford neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky lays out his view that we should stop judging one another (and ourselves) for behaviors we can't control

New research from the Malenka lab reveals that reward-based learning requires the two neuromodulators to balance one another's influence.

Fat-filled microglia may play a role in the damage caused by Alzheimer’s, especially for those who carry two copies a particular gene.

Today, we are going back into the archives for a conversation with neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author David Eagleman about the science of synesthesia. If you don't know what that is, you're about to find out.

This week, we talk with our founding director, Bill Newsome, about the 10-year legacy of the NIH BRAIN Initiative and the uncertainty for the future brought on by this year's dramatic funding cuts.

This week we are talking with Stanford neuroscientist Ivan Soltesz about endocannabinoids, illuminating the "day job" of these unusual neurotransmitters and how they may be hijacked by cannabinoid drugs such as THC and CBD.