Knight Initiative News

Stanford neuroscientist Leanne Williams, PhD, has focused her research career on how insights from brain science can help improve care for people with psychiatric conditions.

Engineer Krishna Shenoy, PhD, and graduate student (and then postdoctoral fellow) Paul Nuyujukian, MD, PhD, have updated the algorithms for how they translate the brain signals into typing, which they tested in a series of studies.

Technology for reading signals directly from the brain developed by Stanford Bio-X scientists could provide a way for people with movement disorders to communicate.

Glaucoma, which affects nearly 70 million people worldwide, is caused by excessive pressure on the optic nerve — essentially the same kind of damage relieved by the manipulations in Andy Huberman’s study of restoration of vision in living mammals.

Parkinson’s disease, the second-leading neurodegenerative disorder after Alzheimer’s disease, affects one in every 60-70 Americans age 65 or older.

Intracellular defects that lead to cells’ failure to decommission faulty “power packs” known as mitochondria cause nerve cells to die, triggering the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

In a new study in Nature Neuroscience, Ada Eban-Rothschild, PhD, Luis de Lecea, PhD, and their fellow Stanford neuroscientists identified a brain circuit that’s indispensable to the sleep-wake cycle as well as a key component of the reward system.

Inhibiting the firing of nerve cells in a brain area long known to guide goal-directed behavior makes mice build nests and fall asleep, a new study shows. Stimulating the circuit roused the mice and kept them awake.

The study is designed to collect neurophysiological and psychological information from women faced with a breast cancer diagnosis and many treatment decisions.

Alice Ting's lab bustles with students working on projects relating to technologies for studying living cells in exacting molecular detail.

The early stages of Alzheimer disease is marked by the wholesale destruction of synapses — junctions where neurons relay impulses from one cell to the next. As the condition progresses, whole nerve cells and even entire nerve circuits in the brain start t

Morphine and similar drugs are the world’s most widely used painkillers. But they’re also dangerous and addictive. A new compound may be able to safely provide the same analgesia as morphine.

In what might be reassuring news to many of us, psychologist Kalanit Grill-Spector, PhD, and research associate Kevin Weiner, PhD, have found evidence of our brain’s resilience.

In a Q&A, the neuroscientist discusses the reasons for continued basic and clinical research on an illegal drug scientists call 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, and partiers call Ecstasy.

Stanford molecular bioengineer Alex Savtchenko, PhD, has devised a newfangled nanoparticle whose center is a small ball of gold. It may turn out to be an effective and safer drug for Alzheimer’s version of the disease.

Studies by the Wyss-Coray lab and others have shown that organ stem cells retain their regenerative capacity, but the biochemical cues that control their function change with age — causing the abandonment of tissue maintenance and repair in the elderly.

Hormone therapy for postmenopausal women has been controversial, with some studies suggesting benefits and others not. Now, a study finds the treatment’s effect on women’s mental skills is negligible.

MDMA is a drug of abuse, but also a promising therapeutic and research tool according to Stanford brain researcher Rob Malenka, MD, PhD.

Broken links between retinal ganglion cells and target structures throughout the brain spell permanent vision loss. But in a new study, these long-distance connections — and partial vision — were restored.

A new study reinforces the need for surgeons and physicians to monitor patients' use of painkillers following surgery and use alternative methods of pain control whenever possible.