It’s Friday night and you are at a concert, wishing you hadn’t woken up at 4:45am to go to spin class. As the night wears on you get more tired and fall asleep on the train ride home. Why do you get tired the longer you stay awake? It’s not your muscles-- they could keep … Continue reading Too much phosphorylation, time to go to sleep!
Plastic axonal trees
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…or can you?We’ve all heard about how the brain slows down as we age. We’re constantly losing brain cells. Neurons become “static” and cannot make new connections. Is this true? Are we really doomed to a lifetime of deteriorating mental function?A paper by Oberlaender et al came out … Continue reading Plastic axonal trees
Creating shocking memories
How does our brain make memories? We know that a brain region called the hippocampus is important for forming new memories. If this region is damaged or inhibited in mice or humans, memory formation is impaired. It has been hypothesized recently that a relatively small population of hippocampal neurons becomes activated during learning and that … Continue reading Creating shocking memories
Robin Ball 