Neurons

The evolutionarily ancient part of the brain that controls breathing and heart rate also regulates the immune system — a discovery about the brain-body axis made by experts on taste.

Research suggests that psychedelic drugs can reopen critical periods of brain development to create opportunities for re-learning and psychological healing. In this episode, co-host Janna Levin speaks with Gül Dölen, a neuroscientist studying the therapeutic potential of psychedelic substances.

Drugs that target the neurotransmitter serotonin have long been prescribed to treat depression. Now the spotlight is turning to other aspects of brain chemistry. In this episode, the neuropharmacologist John Krystal shares findings that are overturning our understanding of depression.

New experiments reveal how the brain chooses which memories to save and add credence to advice about the importance of rest.

After a decade out of the spotlight, the brain cells once alleged to explain empathy, autism and theory of mind are being refined and redefined.

Altering a protein in the neurons that coordinate a rattlesnake’s movement made a slow slither neuron more like a speedy rattle neuron, showing one way evolution can generate new ways of moving.

The cerebellum is responsible for far more than coordinating movement. New techniques reveal that it is, in fact, a hub of sensory and emotional processing in the brain.

The discovery that the brain has different systems for representing small and large numbers provokes new questions about memory, attention and mathematics.

New research in social bats raises the intriguing possibility that evolution can reprogram the brain’s “place cells,” which are typically associated with location, to encode all kinds of environmental information.