Neuroscience

Understanding reality through algorithms

MIT News: Although Fernanda De La Torre still has several years left in her graduate studies, she’s already dreaming big when it comes to what the future has in store for her. “I dream of opening up a school one day…

Dissolvable Optical Switches Control Neurons With Light

IEEE Spectrum: Roughly two decades ago, a strategy called optogenetics emerged to control brain activity with lasers. It uses viruses to insert genes into cells that make them sensitive to light. Optogenetics has revolutionized neuroscience by giving researchers a precise way…

Tiny caps can measure activity in lab-grown minibrains

Technology Review: Minuscule lab-grown models of human brains can be fitted with caps that measure their activity, just as electroencephalogram (EEG) caps record electrical signals produced by full-size human brains. The minibrains are examples of organoids—three-dimensional clusters of living cells, grown…

Nanobody busts into brain cells to unclump proteins

Futurity: Researchers have developed a nanobody that can get through the tough exterior of mouse brain cells and untangle misshapen proteins that lead to Parkinson’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and other neurocognitive disorders. Proteins called antibodies help the immune system…