Navigating a 3D World
The brain has an amazing ability to form internal maps of the world around it. Knowing Neurons has previously written several articles about place cells in the hippocampus and how…
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2013
A Piece of Licorice a Day Keeps the Doctor Away?
Turns out that tub of black licorice you got from Costco, and managed to eat in only a few days (don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody!), might have actually done…
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The Smell of the Good Ol’ Days
The innumerable ways in which our parents contribute to our physical and mental identities are as complex as they are fascinating. From the genetic information they share with us to…
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Reverse Inference: Neuroscience’s Greatest Fallacy?
The recent unveiling of the BRAIN Initiative promised a greater understanding of cognition through improved imaging techniques. However, the biggest problem in neuroscience is not the limits of technology, but…
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The Sum of All Fears… Includes Safety?
Identifying safe or dangerous situations are essential for survival. A child may be fearful of crossing a road alone, but he will be completely relaxed while crossing the same road…
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Repaving Old Roads After Spinal Cord Injury
The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 500,000 people will experience spinal cord injuries (SCI) every year. Researchers at the Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute in…
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Can Looking at Food Photos Ruin Your Dinner?
How many advertisements do you see each day? If you could count them all (billboards, television commercials, sidebar advertisements on your Facebook feed), it would add up to almost 5,000! …
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Sleep ‘til you’re Hungry. Eat ‘til you’re Sleepy.
Have you ever tried to go to sleep hungry? Believe me, it doesn’t work. You just end up lying in bed, listening to your stomach growl, and dreaming about your…
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The Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting 2013
This is BIG week for neuroscience!
Each year more than 30,000 neuroscientists from more than 80 countries come together in the largest scientific meeting in the world! At the Society…
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Chromosome Silencing: Turning Off Genes in Down Syndrome
Close your eyes and try to imagine medical treatment in the future. I envision sophisticated robots wielding lasers that precisely eliminate deadly tumors. I predict that insight from genome wide…
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Imaging the Brain with Sculpted Light
Perhaps the biggest goal in neuroscience is to understand how individual neurons interact with each other in both space and time. The more detailed our understanding of complex neural networks…
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Unhappy with your life? Try spending less time on Facebook!
I’m going to ask you a question, and you have to be honest. Promise? OK. Here’s the question: how much time do you spend on Facebook each day? Take a…
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Channeling Your Response to Pain
“Ouch!” Thanks to our always-alert sensory neurons that provide a spatial sense of self (proprioception) and pain (nociception), we receive an early warning to any noxious stimuli (think needle prick…
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What is Pain?
For many, pain is an indescribably awful feeling that causes suffering and emotional distress. It is a sensation that is so unpleasant – so unbearable – that most people will…
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Vocal Practice is for the Birds
Everyone is familiar with the concept of “warming up” before doing some kind of practiced task. For example, a guitar player may play a few scales before a concert, or…
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The Newest Cupid on the Block: Epigenetics
Genes are no different from individuals. Sometimes they behave in a simple, logical way. Other times, they are unpredictable and influenced by their surroundings. The central dogma (DNA to RNA…
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Genetic Tricks To Reverse Schizophrenic Symptoms
The human brain continues to develop and form new connections from birth until as late as the mid-20s. During this time, billions of connections are made and broken as the…
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Indiana Jones and the Overactive Amygdala
For Indiana Jones, there was no villain as menacing and no foe as treacherous as the writhing snakes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Audiences saw their archaeologist champion paralyzed…
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The Drosophila Odyssey: Spartin Insight into Troyer Syndrome
We are all guilty of cursing at those pesky fruit flies that annoy us as they zip around the room just out of reach of being swatted. Rarely, it seems,…
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From Turkey Comas To New Disease Treatments
Neurodegenerative disorders, like Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s disease, are devastating. As you can imagine, witnessing the slow and progressive loss of a loved one’s mental and emotional states is an extremely…
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You Are Here: Mapping The World With Neurons
“You are here.” It’s the phrase that you’ll find on almost any map, punctuated with the ubiquitous oversized arrow. It is the salient mark in a sea of confusing lines,…
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Hearing is Believing: Cells that Enable Hearing after Birth
The sense of hearing is a critical part of how we experience life and the world around us. It is so important, in fact, that the ears are fully formed…
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Superhuman Fearlessness? Think Again.
There are a handful of things that make me really uneasy. The mere thought of getting onto a roller coaster, especially the kind that slowly ascends hundreds of feet before…
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Why Prairie Voles Fall in Love: A Chemical Romance
Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, the most romantic day of the year. Couples will stroll down the lane, gaze into each other’s eyes, and experience one of the most enigmatic feelings…
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Stopping seizures is as simple as turning on a light (and some genetics)
What if you change your mind with the flip of a light switch? Over the past decade, optogenetics has become an important component of neuroscience research. By introducing genes that…
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Brain Changes for Sculpted, Efficient Memory
While I was growing up, I remember my parents and teachers saying, “Your brain is like a sponge.” Of course, I didn’t understand what they meant, but as cliché as…
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What Songbirds Tell Us About Human Nature
Every once in a while, we hear of amazing scientific feats about how some new drug successfully reduces weight without dieting or exercise in monkeys, or how scientists slowed aging…
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