Neuroscience News

Male mice are naturally territorial. In the wild or in the lab, they attack other male mice even if plenty of room, food and females are available. This behavior is under the control of a small nerve circuit in the male mouse’s brain; disabling the circui

A tiny set of nerve cells in a male mouse’s brain activates aggression. But a new Stanford study shows that the male’s susceptibility to this activation depends on whether it has been housed with other mice or in isolation.

Addiction, like riding a bike, is a learned behavioral pattern you don’t unlearn even if you haven’t performed it for decades. Your brain’s semi-permanently hot-wired reward system has to be stripped down, reordered, and re-insulated again.

Legal and illegal drugs are killing more people than AIDS ever did, yet the nation’s drug policies are based on unproven assumptions about addiction. Neuroscience could help shape more effective policies and save lives.

Stanford investigators fused two stem-cell-derived neural spheroids, each containing a different type of human neuron, then watched as one set of neurons migrated and hooked up with the other set.

Neuroscientists’ discovery of grid cells, popularly known as the brain’s GPS, was hailed as a major discovery. But new Stanford research suggest the system is more complicated than anyone had guessed.

Researchers long believed that the cerebellum did little more than process our senses and control our muscles. New techniques to study the most densely packed neurons in our brains reveal that it may do much more.

Astrocytes, the brain’s most abundant cells, are essential to the survival and healthy function of nerve cells. But aberrant astrocytes may be driving brain disorders.

Stanford researchers used a rodent model to discover that shifting the firing pattern of a particular set of brain cells is all it takes to initiate, or to terminate, an absence seizure.

New research finds that small regions of the brain cycle in and out of sleep, even when awake. The cycles shift toward “awake” when that part of the brain pays attention to a task.

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.

Inconsistency among countries about what constitutes a "standard drink" and definitions of low-risk drinking hampers international research and confuses people attempting to drink responsibly.

Whether a person will place a risky bet comes down to a newly discovered tract of neurons spanning two brain regions. The findings could help understand and treat gambling or addiction disorders.

A new study shows that a circuit in a brain structure called the thalamus acts like a radio, with different stations operating at different frequencies and appealing to different “listening audiences.”

Cells pull themselves through the world with the help a complex internal protein scaffold called the cytoskeleton. Given the ubiquitous role of that structure in cell movement – particularly a protein called actin – it seemed likely those same proteins wo

If you wanted to reverse-engineer a piece of electronics, the first thing you'd investigate is how the various parts are connected. In the brain, that means tracing the paths of 100 billion neurons.