A glimpse into intracranial neuroscience with Deep Brain Stimulation and Stereoencephalography surgeries, both advancing research in cognition and offering hope for patients and researchers.

In the book ‘The Mysterious Benedict Society’ by Trenton L. Stewart, the very mysterious Mr. Benedict suffers from a condition called narcolepsy. He can fall asleep at any time – while walking down stairs, making an omelet, and even while shaving – and he cannot control when he falls asleep! In the book, Mr. Benedict tells us that these sleep attacks are sometimes caused by strong emotions – either good or bad. What do neuroscientists know about narcolepsy?

If we do unfortunately happen to fall sick, doctors need to be able to determine how serious our illness is. Biomarkers do this by serving as a window into our bodies. For a complex organ like our brain, searching for biomarkers can improve the treatment potential and diagnosis of neurological diseases.

We all know what an orchestra looks like. There is a conductor who coordinates instruments from different families to produce a symphony. If our brain is like an orchestra, each cell is a different instrument, and the music is a thought or emotion. So who conducts the brain’s orchestra?

Close your eyes and picture a scientist. Are you imagining an older white man with crazy hair in a lab coat, something like Albert Einstein? Well, there certainly have been scientists that look like him, but there have also been many brilliant female scientists and medical professionals of color whose discoveries and work are just as important.

Helmets serve as crucial safeguards for our brains, shielding them from concussions and traumatic brain injuries (TBI). While the idea of not wearing a helmet might seem tempting at times, especially when you're in a rush or want to feel the wind in your hair, the risks far outweigh any momentary convenience or thrill. Without a helmet, you're exposing yourself to significant danger. A single fall or collision could result in a traumatic brain injury or even death. The consequences of such an injury can be life-altering, affecting not only your physical health but also your cognitive abilities, emotions, and quality of life.

The human immune system has many different cell types that patrol our bodies constantly and keep us healthy. The brain is a particularly important organ for human functioning - does this mean there are thousands of immune cells monitoring every nook and cranny of our wrinkly brains? Not exactly.

Boys with autism outnumber girls nearly four to one. Both biological factors and diagnostic barriers may contribute to this ratio.

Genetic testing is becoming more widely available, and certain commercially available at-home kits offer to test for the APOE gene, which influences your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Here we discuss what is APOE, its role in AD and whether you should also consider getting tested to know your APOE isoform.

So many discoveries about the brain have been found in animals like mice, rats, and monkeys. Why do neuroscientists work with animals, and what kinds of questions about the brain can animals help us answer?

Synesthesia is a blending of sensory perception, like ‘tasting’ color, or ‘seeing’ sound. Since its discovery in the 1800’s, about sixty types of visual, auditory, or other synesthesia have been discovered. This blog post explores what synesthesia is, and some brain mechanisms to explain this strange phenomenon.

What is an engram? Groups of active brain cells work together to physically represent a stimulus or memory.

Are you curious about the human nervous system and how it enables us to sense the world around us, experience life as it is, and think about all the things in between? Perhaps you want to understand how aging and diseases affect the brain’s structures and functions. Neuroscience research might be for you!

You know that exercise is good for your body, but did you know that it has beneficial impacts on your brain? This article explores recent research on the effect of physical exercise on the brain.

Kelsey Heslin, PhD is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Neuroscience in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She studies how frontal cortex inhibitory interneurons process information about rewards in the Clem Lab

Your brain is full of trash—and I don’t mean the details of every episode of the new season of Love is Blind or the latest trend on TikTok. More like the debris from dead cells and broken-down proteins. How do our bodies clear it out so that our brains don’t end up looking like New York City sidewalks? Turns out, a sophisticated network of channels helps to extract and drain waste from brain tissue, almost like pipes in a sewer system.

There are times when I sit in bed endlessly scrolling through social media. Even when the clock slowly creeps to 1 AM, I refuse to put my phone down. I know I am not the only one who has this addictive feeling towards their phone, so why do we feel this way?

Relationships play an important role in our lives, from families to friendships to romantic partners. These social ties can often affect how we think, feel, and behave; but how do we form these powerful social bonds with one another in the first place? Part of the answer lies in the brain, with a special molecule called oxytocin.