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She Studies How Addiction Hijacks Learning in the Brain

December 7, 2023

Erin Calipari works to understand how drugs like opioids and cocaine alter learning circuits and neurochemistry in one of the country's epicenters of substance use disorder and addiction.

In the Gut’s ‘Second Brain,’ Key Agents of Health Emerge

November 21, 2023

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.

Why the Human Brain Perceives Small Numbers Better

November 9, 2023

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

Bats Use the Same Brain Cells to Map Physical and Social Worlds

October 31, 2023

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.

These Cells Spark Electricity in the Brain. They’re Not Neurons.

October 18, 2023

For decades, researchers have debated whether brain cells called astrocytes can signal like neurons. Researchers recently published the best evidence yet that some astrocytes are part of the electrical conversation.

The Usefulness of a Memory Guides Where the Brain Saves It

August 30, 2023

New research finds that the memories useful for future generalizations are held in the brain separately from those recording unusual events.

The Hidden Brain Connections Between Our Hands and Tongues

August 28, 2023

Sticking out your tongue while doing delicate work with your hands reveals a history of evolutionary relationships.

What a Contest of Consciousness Theories Really Proved

August 24, 2023

A five-year “adversarial collaboration” of consciousness theorists led to a stagy showdown in front of an audience. It crowned no winners — but it can still claim progress.

Why Insect Memories May Not Survive Metamorphosis

July 26, 2023

The reshuffling of neurons during fruit fly metamorphosis suggests that larval memories don’t persist in adults.

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