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neuroscience
Q&A
Catherine Dulac Finds Brain Circuitry Behind Sex-Specific Behaviors
Catherine Dulac is overturning preconceptions about “male” and “female” instincts and opening new avenues to treating postpartum depression.
Abstractions blog
Brain Cell DNA Refolds Itself to Aid Memory Recall
Researchers see structural changes in genetic material that allow memories to strengthen when remembered.
neuroscience
Deep Neural Networks Help to Explain Living Brains
Deep neural networks, often criticized as “black boxes,” are helping neuroscientists understand the organization of living brains.
Quantized Columns
The Epigenetic Secrets Behind Dopamine, Drug Addiction and Depression
New research links serotonin and dopamine not just to addiction and depression, but to the ability to control genes.
Abstractions blog
Reasons Revealed for the Brain’s Elastic Sense of Time
New research finds that the subjective experience of time is linked to learning, thwarted expectations and neural fatigue.
behavior
Random Search Wired Into Animals May Help Them Hunt
The nervous systems of foraging and predatory animals may prompt them to move along a special kind of random path called a Lévy walk to find food efficiently when no clues are available.
sleep
Why Sleep Deprivation Kills
Going without sleep for too long kills animals but scientists haven’t known why. Newly published work suggests that the answer lies in an unexpected part of the body.
Quantized Columns
Spreading the Word on a Possible Alzheimer’s Treatment
Neuroscientists could use brain waves to spur immune cells into action against the disease — but the process is almost too fantastic to believe.
Quantized Columns
The Brain Reshapes Our Malleable Senses to Fit the World
How does experience alter our perceptions? This adapted book excerpt from We Know It When We See It describes how the brain’s visual system rewires itself to make the best use of its neural resources.