Archive by category | Neuroscience

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

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

Updated: Italy reins in rogue stem-cell therapy

A controversial decree allowing severely ill patients to continue treatment with an unproven, and possibly unsafe, stem-cell therapy may be amended, if the Italian parliament’s Chamber of Deputies has its way.  Read more

Neuroscientists brainstorm goals for US brain-mapping initiative

More than 150 neuroscientists descended on Arlington, Virginia this week to begin planning the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative—an ambitious but still hazy proposal to understand how the brain works by recording activity from an unprecedented numbers of neurons at once.  Read more

Society for Neuroscience quashing dissent on BRAIN Initiative, critic complains

NIH Director Francis Collins and President Barack Obama announce the "BRAIN" initiative at the White House on 2 April.

Fresh from attending President Barack Obama’s announcement of the BRAIN Initiative at the White House on April 2nd, Society for Neuroscience president Larry Swanson, a neurobiologist at the University of Southern California, composed this letter to SFN’s nearly 42,000 members.  Read more