The brain isn’t a fixed structure. It reorganizes itself continuously as we grow up, following predictable patterns — and a new study maps those patterns in more detail than ever before.
Scientists have grown human brain tissue in a laboratory that spontaneously organises into the layered structure of the cerebral cortex.
Your brain has a built-in system for clearing out damaged proteins. As we age, that system becomes increasingly impaired — and researchers have now identified a likely culprit: oxidative stress disables the…
Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. That has been known for decades. What happens next in the body, and when, is far less understood.
Two studies in Science have produced the most detailed picture yet of how individual brain cells develop differently in Down syndrome.
Male and female brains look largely the same. But at the level of individual cell types, a new study finds striking differences in which genes are switched on — with direct implications…
The big folds of the human brain have been mapped for over a century. But there is a second layer of smaller, shallower folds that most imaging studies have simply ignored —…
The blood-brain barrier keeps harmful substances out of the brain. For decades it was treated as a near-impenetrable wall.
Newborns sleep sixteen hours a day. Adults need seven or eight. Everyone knows this changes, but almost no one knows why.
To eventually grow replacement organs — or even whole bodies — scientists first need to understand how an embryo does it.
Adolescents have long been known to cooperate less than adults. New research now reveals what is happening internally: it is not only that they are worse at reading others — they also…
The importance of gut bacteria in early life is well established. But how the microbial residents of the intestine contribute to gut movement itself — the muscular contractions that push food through…