Neuroscience News

Geuris “Jerry” Rivas, a native of New York, was diagnosed with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder when he was 15. Obsessions with organizing and reorganizing the belongings in his bedroom — posters, comic books, videos — took over most of his life.

A Stanford study suggests that aspects of autism reflect a signaling imbalance in certain neurons in the forebrain. Could reversing this imbalance alleviate some symptoms?

Umbilical cord blood from human newborns, and in particular a single protein contained in it, boosted old mice’s brain function and cognitive performance, new research from Stanford shows.

Stanford scientists found that teaching ordinary people a technique used by “memory athletes” not only boosted their recall ability but also induced lasting changes in the organization of their brains.

Impulsive behavior in teens can go hand in hand with drug use, but the link is weak and doesn’t necessarily predict future behavior. A Stanford psychologist and colleagues think they can do better, using images of the brain.

Stanford researchers said they have identified the receptors to which opioid drugs bind to produce tolerance and increased sensitivity to pain, as well as a commercially available drug that limited those side effects in mice.

People disabled by a stroke demonstrated substantial recovery long after the event when modified adult stem cells were injected into their brains.

When rats were trained to choose between high- and low-risk options while a circuit in their brains was monitored and manipulated, a specific signal in that circuit determined their choice.

When people are confronted with an unknown piece of electronics, one way they can figure out how it works and what it does is to twiddle with the knobs and switches. That's been hard to do with the slick, knob-less surface of the brain.

Something — or some things — in the blood of young mice has the ability to restore mental capabilities in old mice, a new study by Stanford Neurosciences Institute investigators has found.