Tag: Nervous System

Many bacteria are equipped with a flagellum, a helical propeller that allows bacteria to travel. The flagellum is assembled in a highly organized manner involving the stepwise addition of each of its internal parts. However, there are many open questions as to how this orderly construction is achieved. In a study published in Science Advances,

Researchers at the Center for Cognition and Sociality, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), have just published in Neuron about a genetic variant that controls and increases empathy-driven fear in mice. As empathy is evolutionarily conserved from rodents to humans, this finding might contribute to clarify individual variability in neuropsychiatric conditions characterized by empathic

In the early days of neuroscience research, scientists painstakingly stained brain cells and drew by hand what they saw in a microscope. Fast forward to 2018 and machines may be able to learn how to do that work. According to a new study in Cell, it may be possible to teach machines how to pick

Researchers at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have determined how satellite DNA, considered to be “junk DNA,” plays a crucial role in holding the genome together. Their findings, published recently in the journal eLife, indicate that this genetic “junk” performs the vital function of ensuring that chromosomes

Chronic caloric restriction consists in eating a reduced but balanced diet from early adult life onward. Previous research, into macaques in particular (which have an average lifespan of forty years), had already demonstrated its beneficial effect on the incidence of age-related pathologies. However, its positive effect on the lifespan of primates remained controversial. To study

Modern neuroscience, for all its complexity, can trace its roots directly to a series of pen-and-paper sketches rendered by Nobel laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His observations and drawings exposed the previously hidden composition of the brain, revealing neuronal cell bodies and delicate projections that connect individual