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What’s right for me?
Scientists at Harvard University have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in making more mundane choices related to money and food. These...
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The nose knows
Harvard researchers have illuminated how the brain processes information about odor, linking a temporal pattern of electrical spikes traveling through the nervous system with specific smells and...
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Doing the neuron tango
To an untrained observer, the electrical storm that takes place over the brain’s neural network seems a chaotic flurry of activity. But as neuroscientists understand it, the millions of neurons are...
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‘Circuits of sense and sensibility’
Sometimes when we eat something that makes us sick, we lose our craving for that food forever. C. elegans feels our pain, and a Harvard biology professor has used that fact to map for the first time...
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Brain navigation
The brain of a mouse measures only 1 cubic centimeter in volume. But when neuroscientists at Harvard’s Center for Brain Science slice it thinly and take high-resolution micrographs of each slice, that...
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Exploring roots of hunger, eating behaviors
Synaptic plasticity — the ability of the synaptic connections between the brain’s neurons to change and modify over time — has been shown to be a key to memory formation and the acquisition of new...
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Unraveling the secrets of the epilepsy diet
For decades, neurologists have known that a diet high in fat and extremely low in carbohydrates can reduce epileptic seizures that resist drug therapy. But how the diet worked, and why, was a mystery...
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Tracing the brain’s connections
A genetically modified version of the rabies virus is helping scientists at Harvard to trace neural pathways in the brain, a research effort that could help lead to treatments for Parkinson’s disease...
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The growing brain
Conventional wisdom suggests that the brain’s branches develop as a newborn begins to experience the world. With more experience, those connections are strengthened, and new branches emerge as the...
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A fresh look at mental illness
Ask Assistant Professor of Psychology Joshua Buckholtz to explain his research into mental disorders, and he’ll likely start with a question that’s got more to do with basic medicine: When is the flu...
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Sophisticated worms
It’s one of the basic tenets of biological research — by studying simple “model” systems, researchers hope to gain insight into the workings of more complex organisms. Caenorhabditis elegans — a tiny,...
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Sniff mechanics
Harvard scientists are shedding light on a neural feedback mechanism that may play a key role in how the olfactory system works in the brain. The mechanism was first identified more than a century...
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Linking insulin to learning
Recent work by Harvard researchers demonstrates how the signaling pathway of insulin and insulinlike peptides plays a critical role in helping to regulate learning and memory. The research, led by Yun...
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Environment counts, Alzheimer’s research suggests
Previous studies have shown that keeping the mind active, exercising, and social interactions may help delay the onset of dementia in Alzheimer’s patients. Now, a new study led by Dennis Selkoe,...
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A look inside the lab
Anyone who’s ever wondered about the sort of cutting-edge research that takes place in Harvard’s labs will now have the chance to find out. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Science...
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‘Brainbow,’ version 2.0
The breakthrough technique that allowed scientists to obtain one-of-a-kind, colorful images of the myriad connections in the brain and nervous system is about to get a significant upgrade. A group of...
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Deconstructing motor skills
Hitting the perfect tennis serve requires hours and hours of practice, but for scientists who study complex motor behaviors, there always has been a large unanswered question — what is the brain...
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Something doesn’t smell right
For most animals, the scent of rotting meat is powerfully repulsive. But for others, such as carrion-feeding vultures and insects, it’s a scent that can be just as powerfully attractive. The question...
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Inconsistent? Good
Anyone who has ever stepped on a tennis court understands all too well the frustration that comes with trying to master the serve, and instead seeing ball after ball go sailing out of bounds in...
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Addiction clue
A gene essential for normal brain development, and also linked to autism spectrum disorders, plays a critical role in addiction-related behaviors, according to Harvard Medical School (HMS)...
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A new understanding of Alzheimer’s
Although natural selection is often thought of as a force that determines the adaptation of replicating organisms to their environment, Harvard researchers have found that selection also occurs at the...
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Creatures of habit
When he set out to understand how the motor cortex changes with learning, Bence Ölveczky, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences, assumed, like nearly all other scientists, that...
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Closer view of the brain
For Harvard neurobiologist Jeff Lichtman, the question hasn’t been whether scientists will ever understand the brain, but how closely they’ll have to look before they do. The answer, it turns out, is...
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Study explores how the brain processes heat information and influences behavior
Do you pause what you’re doing to put on a sweater because you feel chilly? Do you click the thermostat up a few degrees on a winter day? What about keeping a fan on your desk, or ducking into an...
View ArticleAxon moves past role as a nerve cell’s foot soldier
As cells go, neurons are pretty weird. Most other cells come in spherical blob-like shapes with a central nucleus. Neurons come in a variety of wild and spiky forms, with branching projections...
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Harvard: Neuronlike brain implants may help treat disease, mental illness
Like a well-guarded fortress, the human brain attacks intruders on sight. Foreign objects, including neural probes used to study and treat the brain, do not last long. But now, researchers have...
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Harvard study: Artificial neural networks could be used to provide insight...
Teaching a computer to behave like a zebrafish wasn’t Martin Haesemeyer’s goal. In fact, the research associate in the labs of Florian Engert, professor of molecular and cellular biology, and Alexander...
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Harvard scientists find vision relates to movement
To get a better look at the world around them, animals constantly are in motion. Primates and people use complex eye movements to focus their vision (as humans do when reading, for instance); birds,...
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