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 ...

Small cell lung cancer cells that metastasize to the brain cozy up to neurons and form working electrical connections, called synapses, according to an upcoming study led by Stanford Medicine ...

When you think of a neuron, imagine a tree. A healthy brain cell indeed looks like a tree with a full canopy. There's a trunk, which is the cell's nucleus; there's a root system, embodied in a single ...

To stay in balance, the brain depends on two types of neurons: Excitatory neurons (in white), which increase activity, and inhibitory neurons (in black), which damp down signals. Scientists have now ...

Some adult neurons have projections that are amazingly long – thousands of times the length of their cell bodies in some cases. This means that during development, the growing cells need to be able to ...

The human brain is made up of billions of nerve cells (neurons) that communicate with each other in vast, interconnected networks. For the brain to function reliably, there must be a fine balance ...

New experiments reveal how astrocytes tune neuronal activity to modulate our mental and emotional states. The results suggest ...

During brain development, neurons extend long processes called axons. Axons link different areas of the brain and carry ...

Lab-grown “reductionist replicas” of the human brain are helping scientists understand fetal development and cognitive disorders, including autism. But ethical questions loom. Brain organoids, which ...