Neuroscience News

Stanford researchers have used a revolutionary 3-D culture technique to nurse a very slowly developing set of brain cells known as astrocytes to maturity in laboratory glassware.

A new study, conducted by Stanford psychiatrist, neuroscientist and inventor Karl Deisseroth, MD, PhD, and colleagues, suggests that key features of autism reflect an imbalance in signaling from two kinds of neurons in a portion of the forebrain.

Stanford researchers used advanced lab technologies to show, in mice, that symptoms of autism can be countered by reducing the ratio of excitatory to inhibitory neuronal firing in the forebrain.

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.

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

Addiction changes the brain in lasting ways, and some brains are more vulnerable than others.

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.

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.

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.

The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute is elevating three research programs to become the flagship Big Ideas collaborations focusing on brain rejuvenation, neurotechnology and decision-making.

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.