Abstract Ovulation disorders are a serious problem for humans and livestock. In female rodents, kisspeptin neurons in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV) are responsible for generating a luteinizing hormone (LH)…
Category: Neuroscience
Enhanced Reactivation of Remapping Place Cells during Aversive Learning
Introduction Episodic memories include details about salient experiences from our past as well as information about the location in which these events occurred (Tulving, 1972). The hippocampus plays a central…
Adult mouse brains are teeming with ‘silent synapses’
Learning lots of new information as a baby requires a pool of ready-to-go, immature connections between nerve cells to form memories quickly. Called silent synapses, these connections are inactive until…
Rats can bop their heads to the beat
Humans aren’t the only animals known to move to a musical beat. For instance, parrots do it, too. And now rats have been observed bopping their heads in time with…
New brain implants ‘read’ words directly from people’s thoughts
SAN DIEGO — Scientists have devised ways to “read” words directly from brains. Brain implants can translate internal speech into external signals, permitting communication from people with paralysis or other…
A new treatment for debilitating nightmares offers sweeter dreams
For people haunted by recurring nightmares, untroubled sleep would be a dream come true. Now in a small experiment, neuroscientists have demonstrated a technique that, for some, may chase the…
Clumps of human nerve cells thrived in rat brains
To coax human nerve cells in a laboratory to thrive, there are three magic words: location, location, location. Many experiments grow human nerve cells in lab dishes. But a new…
Why traumatic brain injuries raise the risk of a second, worse hit
In a football game on September 25, Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa got the pass off but he got knocked down. Fans watched him shake his head and stumble to…
‘Wonderful nets’ of blood vessels protect dolphin and whale brains during dives
If you look at parts of the circulatory system of whales and dolphins, you might think that you are looking at a Jackson Pollock painting, not blood vessels. These cetaceans…
Emily Jacobs wants to know how sex hormones sculpt the brain
When Emily Jacobs embarked on a career studying the brain in the early 2000s, a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, was having a moment. “Just like we…
