Archive by category | Neuroscience

NIH awards $46 million for brain-research tools

Just 18 months after the White House announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, the US National Institutes of Health has awarded its first US$46 million in grants for the programme.  Read more

Sequencing: Ship-Seq sails the seas

Sequencing: Ship-Seq sails the seas

To study a primordial nervous system, Leonid Moroz brings the tools of biology to the open sea. Nature Methods spoke with the neurobiologist turned sea adventurer. Meet neurobiologist Leonid Moroz of the University of Florida, the inventor of Ship-Seq. His hair is not always this wild, although his ideas tend to be.  Read more

Kavli Prizes reward cosmic inflation, memory research and imaging

Kavli Prizes reward cosmic inflation, memory research and imaging

The 2014 Kavli Prizes, announced today, were shared among nine scientists for their work on the theory of cosmic inflation, for contributions to the field of nano-optics and for the discovery of specialized brain networks for memory and cognition.  Read more

US Supreme Court strikes IQ cutoff for death penalty cases

When deciding whether a defendant is too intellectually disabled to receive the death penalty, courts must take into account inherent variability in IQ scores, the US Supreme Court ruled today.  Read more

German research agencies condemn animal-rights attack on neuroscientist

A timid silence often follows public attacks on scientists who use animals in their research. But today a group of ten heavyweight academic organisations in Germany shed its habitual reserve and raised a stern collective voice against animal-rights activists whose recent advertising campaign targeted an individual neuroscientist.  Read more

Lasker Awards go to rapid neurotransmitter release and modern cochlear implant

Lasker Awards go to rapid neurotransmitter release and modern cochlear implant

A very brainy area of research has scooped up one of this year’s $250,000 Lasker prizes, announced today: The Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award has gone to two researchers who shed light on the molecular mechanisms behind the rapid release of neurotransmitters — findings that have implications for understanding the biology of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, as well the cellular functions underlying learning and memory formation.  Read more

Italian parliament approves sweeping restrictions to use of research animals

The Italian parliament has voted in favour of introducing extreme restrictions in the use of animals in research — which some scientists say would halt important biomedical research in the country.  Read more