Stanford biologists are using rare poison frogs that nurse their young as a way to help answer a fundamental question: Is there more than one way to build a maternal brain?
Neuroscientists had thought parts of the brain associated with reading and face recognition shrunk as children grow. In fact, they may be growing electrical insulation that makes their brains more efficient.
Keith Humphreys founded the Stanford Network on Addiction Policy to help bring more science to debates over drug policy. He talked to Stanford News about why he started SNAP and how it works.
After meeting at a party, a Stanford psychologist and SLAC particle physicists have collaborated on a new kind of EEG device that can stimulate the brain and read out the effects.
Neuroscientist Miriam Goodman and four members of her lab talk about their paths to neuroscience, the kind of failure that is essential to science, and the hopes and joys that keep them coming back for more.
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.
No one knows exactly how flatworms can rebuild their entire bodies from the tiniest sliver. Now, bioengineers and materials scientists are building new tools to study the worms’ awesome regenerative powers.
Stanford bioinformatics researchers are working on a smartphone app that could help diagnose autism in minutes – and provide ongoing therapy as well, all with fewer visits to specialized clinics.
Humans have relied on plants for millennia to treat a variety of neurological ailments. Now, researchers are using microscopic worms to better understand how plant molecules shape behavior – and perhaps develop better new drugs.
In a small trial, brain scans revealed who was most at risk of relapsing after being treated for addiction to stimulants like amphetamines or cocaine. The finding could identify people who need help staying drug-free.
Brain scientists have plenty of ways to track the activity of individual neurons in the brain, but they’re all invasive. Now, Daniel Palanker and colleagues have found a way to literally watch neurons fire – no electrodes or chemical modifications required.
Neuroscientists know a lot about how our brains learn new things, but not much about how they choose what to focus on while they learn. Now, Stanford researchers have traced that ability to an unexpected place.
New findings reveal that the brain’s serotonin system – which regulates everything from our moods to our movements – is made up of multiple parallel pathways that affect the brain in different, and sometimes opposing, ways.
Stanford and Seoul National University researchers have developed an artificial nervous system that could give prosthetic limbs or robots reflexes and the ability to sense touch.
Artificial intelligence drew much inspiration from the human brain but went off in its own direction. Now, AI has come full circle and is helping neuroscientists better understand how our own brains work.
Stanford researchers set out to test a seminal theory of Parkinson’s disease and several related conditions. What they found is more complex than anyone had imagined.
Millions of people are slowly losing their vision to diseases of the retina, such as age-related macular degeneration. Now, a device more than a decade in the making may help some of them see again.
Concussion is a major public health problem, but not much is known about the impacts that cause concussion or how to prevent them. Bioengineer David Camarillo and colleagues suggest that the problem is more complicated than previously thought.
By converting brain waves into sound, even non-specialists can detect “silent seizures” – epileptic seizures without the convulsions most of us expect.
A new study finds that young children’s brains have not yet fully developed the vision circuits they need to understand words and recognize faces, a finding that could help in understanding how children learn to read.
Mentally running through a routine improves performance, but how that works isn’t clear. Now, a new tool – brain-machine interface – suggests the answer lies in how our brains prepare for action.
The same tools that Ellen Kuhl once applied to studying concrete are now revealing mysteries in how the brain folds and functions. Part of a series on tiny answers to biology's biggest questions.
The Stanford neuroscientist’s research focused on the cells in the brain that aren’t nerve cells. Collectively called glia, these “other” cells play a central role in sculpting and maintaining the brain’s wiring diagram.
