The Brain
The structures, cells, and signals behind everything we do.
Latest in The Brain
When the smell of a grandmother’s kitchen suddenly brings back an afternoon from 60 years ago, it isn’t just…
On June 1, 1932, nearly every 11-year-old in Scotland sat the same intelligence test
Brenda Milner had H.M. trace a five-pointed star while seeing only his hand and the star in a mirror
A man who could not remember his own day still got better at tracing a star seen only in a mirror, and kept the…
John O'Keefe found cells in a rat's hippocampus in 1971 that fired whenever it was at one place in a room while…
We carry something like a GPS in the brain, and some people seem to have more of it working for them. It started with…
Women who say they were never quite the same after having children aren’t exaggerating
People who still want to hear their mother’s voice after a hard day aren’t being childish
In the 1920s, a Moscow reporter named Solomon Shereshevsky was sent to a psychologist because he never took notes…
A Moscow reporter who never took notes was sent to a psychology lab in the 1920s, and Alexander Luria could not find the edge…
The grandmother who babysits one day a week may be doing as much for her own brain as for her children
Older people who pause to find the right word usually aren’t losing their sharpness
The people still sharp at 85 usually aren’t the ones doing crosswords every morning
People who feel closer to their dog than to most humans aren’t cold or antisocial
Know Your Brain
Explore the anatomy and cells behind the stories.
Most of what we “know” about Phineas Gage was written after he died. The real story says more about how people recover from brain injuries.
Glial Cells
For much of the history of neuroscience, glial cells were treated like…