Knight Initiative News

Blocking an immune-related molecule lodged in blood vessels stops memory loss

Scientists have shown that delivering blood from an old mouse into a young mouse or vice versa prompts a sort of “Freaky Friday” effect: The brains of the young mice exposed to the old blood lose vitality, while the young blood rejuvenates some brain func

Impeding VCAM1, a protein that tethers circulating immune cells to blood vessel walls, enabled old mice to perform as well on memory and learning tests as young mice, a Stanford study found.

A new technique to examine how flatworms re-grow their limbs and organs could one day help scientists understand how human brains recover from stroke or traumatic injury.

Old mice suffered far fewer senior moments on memory tests when Stanford investigators disabled a single molecule dotting the mice’s cerebral blood vessels.

OK, OK, it can be intimidating. You have to follow the beat and maybe even put yourself in uncomfortable proximity to total strangers. But the cognitive and emotional payoffs, say faculty, students and patients, are profound.

In this essay, which originally appeared in Months to Years, writer Nicole Hardina reflects on caregiving for her partner who was dying of brain cancer.

Genetic and molecular analysis of 109 volunteers turned up hidden health problems in about half of them. Critics say the approach amounted to ‘carpet-bombing’ the body.

Years-long tracking of individuals’ biology helped define what it meant for them to be healthy and showed how changes from the norm could signal disease, a Stanford-led study reports.

Adults who played Pokémon videogames extensively as children have a brain region that responds preferentially to images of Pikachu and other characters from the series.

Low oxygen levels during brain development may cause particular cells to differentiate too soon, a Stanford-led study found.

The ear is like a biological equivalent of a USB port.

Millions of Americans take millions of sleeping pills every year — a sign, many experts say, that human beings weren’t designed to live in a wired world of constant stimulation.

Do you know how much time has passed since you started reading this mystery?

Devices tucked inside your ears will make technology more personal than ever before.

In a Stanford study of 30 children with autism, intranasal vasopressin improved social skills more than a placebo, suggesting that the hormone may treat core features of the disorder.

University’s M.B.A. program seeks new revenue by offering popular emotional intelligence course to working people; ‘This isn’t therapy’

Opposite approaches to altering the activity of vasopressin in the brain improved some social deficits in people with autism.

Karla Kirkegaard, Mark Krasnow and William Weis are now part of an organization created in 1863 to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology.

A team of scientists at Duke University, sought to understand how the brain predicts and turns down sounds that arise during self-movement.