News

New research reveals that acute and chronic insults both reshape how pain signals are sent to the brain, but through distinct mechanisms. By using long-term calcium imaging in mice, researchers from the Woolf lab tracked the same spinal cord neurons over time and found that acute pain temporarily increases sensitivity, while chronic nerve injury recruits a previously ‘silent’ group of neurons – offering a potential key to understanding chronic pain.

Bryan Baxter and Dara Manoach share a new study on the brain basis of motor learning. When learning a typing task, epilepsy patients show higher rates of “hippocampal ripples”--an electrical activity pattern in the brain associated with memory formation--during brief rest breaks than during the typing itself. These ‘offline’ ripples predict gains in speed, suggesting that ripples contribute to motor learning during wakeful rest.

Dost Öngür introduces a perspectives piece arising from a meeting he recently organized, bringing together experts in neuroscience, psychiatry, and metabolism to discuss how disruptions in brain energy metabolism may contribute to psychiatric disorders—and what might be done to develop innovative therapeutics.

New research suggests that early adversity leads to higher aggression and fearfulness in adult canines. The researchers found that the impact of these experiences varied with the breed of dog, suggesting there is an important heritable component involved in susceptibility to stress.

New research indicates that adolescents who are socially withdrawn or who frequently prefer solitude show measurable differences in brain structure and function.

Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.