neurobiology

Enlarge / No brain, but still some smarts. They don't have a brain or spinal cord. They float around in a way that often appears aimless. Though jellyfish lack a central nervous system, these gelatinous creatures again show that they might think more than we think they do. Jellyfish, or medusae, belong to the group…

We have various ways of seeing what the brain is up to, from low-resolution electrodes that track waves of activity that ripple across the brain, to implanted electrodes that can follow the activity of individual cells. Combined with a detailed knowledge of which regions of the brain are involved in specific processes, we've been able…

Nine brains, blue blood, instant camouflage: It’s no surprise that octopuses capture our interest and our imaginations. Science-fiction creators, in particular, have been inspired by these tentacled creatures. An octopus's remarkable intelligence makes it a unique subject for marine biologists and neuroscientists as well. Research has revealed the brain power of the octopus allows it…

Psychedelic drugs are often used for entertainment purposes. But there have been some recent indications that they can be effective against PTSD and treatment-resistant depression. Figuring out whether these substances work as medicinal drugs can be challenging because (as one researcher helpfully pointed out) it's difficult to do a controlled experiment when it's easy to…

Enlarge / Building a bigger brain requires new genes, not a workout. On the DNA level, there's not much to distinguish humans from our closest relatives: chimpanzees and bonobos. At stretches of DNA that line up, human and chimp sequences are well over 90 percent identical. And, for the most part, the DNA does line…

Enlarge / The on-stage demo of the surgical robot practically extended into the audience. On Wednesday night, Elon Musk hosted an update from his brain-computer interface company, Neuralink. Most of the update involved various researchers at the company providing overviews of the specific areas of technology development they were working on. But there wasn't anything…

One of the unfortunate realities of science is that small data sets often produce unreliable results, as any minor, random fluctuations can have a large impact. One solution to this issue has been building ever-larger data sets, where these fluctuations tend to be small compared to any actual effects. One of the notable sources of…

Enlarge / The protein that allows us to sense touch is big and complicated. Today's Nobel Prize is in "Physiology or Medicine," which often means "biology" these days. And 2021 is no exception, as two researchers have won for their discoveries of how humans detect their immediate environment through the sense of touch. David Julius won…

Enlarge / A computer game that induces mice to experience hallucination-like events could be a key to understanding the neurobiological roots of psychosis, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.J. Kuhl People suffering from psychotic episodes often experience both visual and aural hallucinations, due in part to the neurochemical…

Enlarge / Elon Musk shows the latest version of his company's implants. On Friday, Elon Musk gave an update on what's probably his third-most prominent company: Neuralink. Neuralink had been pretty low profile (especially in comparison to Tesla and SpaceX) prior to this time last year, which is when Musk first went into detail about…