Scientists have discovered that the adolescent brain does more than prune old connections. During the teen years, it actively builds dense new clusters of synapses in specific parts of neurons. These ...

The next time you reach for a memory or make a quick choice, a storm of tiny signals races through your brain. Scientists can ...

Alzheimer’s may destroy memory by flipping a single molecular switch that tells neurons to prune their own connections. Researchers found that both amyloid beta and inflammation converge on the same ...

Co-written with Jai Liester. Silent synapses represent one of neuroscience's most fascinating discoveries—connections between neurons that lie dormant until activated by specific triggers. These ...

Thinking, learning, feeling—all sensory perceptions are processed in the brain. Roughly 100 billion nerve cells are interconnected in the human brain. The lightning-fast communication between these ...

WASHINGTON — The brain’s nerve cells communicate by firing messages to each other through junctions called synapses, and problems with those connections are linked to disorders like Alzheimer’s and ...

Imagine your brain as a high-end restaurant. Normally, the kitchen is remarkably efficient: fresh ingredients (proteins) ...

Microglia are the brain's immune cells that clean out debris, such as damaged proteins and old cell parts, to keep the organ ...

A new study found a short siesta is enough to reorganize connections between nerve cells so that new information can be ...

The detailed mapping revealed an unexpected pattern. One specific section of the dendrite contained an unusually dense ...