Neuroscience

The Role Of Müller Cell Depletion In Retinal Degeneration?

Macular teleangiectasia (MacTel) is a progressive idiopathic form of retinal degeneration that occurs in adulthood, and is caused by a number of factors including diabetic retinopathy, hypertension, venous occlusion, inflammatory diseases, and blood disor ...

Article - Jennifer Wong - Jan 29 2013 - 12:36pm

Fluorescent Protein, Tiny Microscope Reads The Minds Of Mice

Can you read minds? No, you cannot, but with some fluorescent protein and a tiny microscope implanted in a rodent's head, Stanford scientists have come close. Their technique can observe hundreds of neurons firing in the brain of a live mouse, in rea ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 19 2013 - 5:36pm

A Biological Mechanism For Dyslexia

By recording the automatic brain wave responses of 100 school-aged children to speech sounds, researchers found that the very best readers encoded the sound most consistently while the poorest readers encoded it with the greatest inconsistency. Decades of ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 20 2013 - 5:00am

The Ears Of Your Fears

Imagine that you’re a young rat. You’re in the woods, doing rat things among the dead foliage. Suddenly, off to your left, you hear a sound that you've never heard before. It’s loud, it’s strange, and it’s… rattley. ...

Article - David Sloan - Feb 20 2013 - 8:15pm

Alzheimer's Disease Modeled Using IPSCs

Researchers have successfully modeled using both familial and sporadic patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and revealed stress phenotypes and differential drug responsiveness associated with intracellular amyloid beta oligomers in Alzh ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 22 2013 - 11:00am

Did Language Evolve From Singing?

In "The Descent of Man" (1871), while contemplating how humans learned to speak, Charles Darwin speculated that language might have had its origins in singing, which "might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions.&qu ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 23 2013 - 1:41pm

Can Ultrasound Predict Autism Risk At Birth?

A new paper in the Journal of Pediatrics says low-birth-weight babies with a particular brain abnormality are at greater risk for autism, and it could provide a signpost for early detection of the poorly understood disorder. The authors found that low-bir ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 25 2013 - 6:02pm

Forerunners Of Inner-Ear Cells That Enable Hearing Identified

A group of progenitor cells in the inner ear that can become the sensory hair cells and adjacent supporting cells that enable hearing have been identified, a potential breakthrough for people suffering from hearing loss due to damaged or impaired sensory ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 26 2013 - 9:52am

Anything At All Concerning About Brain Mapping?

In President Obama's most recent State of the Union address, he mentioned neuroscience three times. One was a stated commitment to ensure top-quality mental healthcare for returning soldiers. One was the reference to the effect of early education on c ...

Article - David Sloan - Mar 8 2013 - 2:41pm

Consciousness: How The Brain Loses And Regains It

Doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery since a medical doctor became a legitimate profession in the mid-1800s.  But little has been known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness. We d ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 4 2013 - 8:00pm