Neurons

A better understanding of human smell is emerging as scientists interrogate its fundamental elements: the odor molecules that enter your nose and the individual neurons that translate them into perception in your brain.

Studies of neural metabolism reveal our brain’s effort to keep us alive and the evolutionary constraints that sculpted our most complex organ.

How do memories last a lifetime when the molecules that form them turn over within days, weeks or months? An interaction between two proteins points to a molecular basis for memory.

The brain’s astounding cellular diversity and networked complexity could show how to make AI better.

Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations.

Complex neural pathways likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times.

Individual cells in the brain light up for specific ideas. These concept neurons, once known as “Jennifer Aniston cells,” help us think, imagine and remember episodes from our lives.

Biologists used artificial intelligence to make discoveries about molecules and the brain, and overturned long-held assumptions about the immune system and RNA.

Zero, which was invented late in history, is special among numbers. New studies are uncovering how the brain creates something out of nothing.