physiology

Sitting alongside the neurons in your enteric nervous system are underappreciated glial cells, which play key roles in digestion and disease that scientists are only just starting to understand.

Exposure to a virus isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. The concept of “infectious dose” suggests ways to keep ourselves safer from harm.

Abnormal waves of electrical activity can cause a heart’s muscle cells to beat out of sync. In this episode, Flavio Fenton, an expert in cardiac dynamics, talks with Steve Strogatz about ways to treat heart arrhythmias without resorting to painful defibrillators.

New research reveals how marine microbes use an extra membrane that once had digestive functions to boost their yield from photosynthesis.

To buffer the brain against menaces in the blood, a dynamic, multi-tiered system of protection is built into the brain’s blood vessels.

Several real-life pathogens can change a host’s behavior against their will. Here’s what we know about these zombie-like infections.

Even though we’ve learned a lot about this relative of smallpox, some mysteries remain due to a lack of political will.

Neuroscientists uncovered an energy-saving mode in vision-system neurons that works at the cost of being able to see fine-grained details.

While it’s understandable to focus on the diseases affecting humans, it’s important to study how our illnesses may affect animals.