Community Stories

A Silent Spinal Pathway Awakens in Chronic Pain
August 20, 2025
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.
Original article in: Neuron >
While learning a typing task, epilepsy patients got faster after brief rest breaks rather than while typing. There was a corresponding increase in hippocampal ripple rate that predicted these offline gains in speed.
August 13, 2025
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.
Original article in: Nature Communications >
illustration showing nodes of a large-scale brain network
July 17, 2025
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.
Original article in: Nature Mental Health >
image depicting Effects of selective experience rearing on thalamic neuron properties
June 16, 2025
It was long thought that only neurons in the outermost regions of the brain, called the cortex, could adapt and change their properties in response to visual experience. Takuma Sonoda and Chinfei Chen share new findings revealing that the visual thalamus, a structure in the center of the brain, at an earlier stage in the visual pathway than the cortex, can also change based on what animals see. Their discovery expands our understanding of how sensory systems learn and adapt.
Original article in: Cell >

In the News

clouds and blue sky
August 21, 2025
A low-oxygen environment — similar to the thin air found at Mount Everest base camp — can protect the brain and restore movement in mice with a Parkinson’s-like disease, according to a new study led by scientists at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Original article in: Nature Neuroscience >
Top row: In a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, lithium deficiency (right) dramatically increased amyloid beta deposits in the brain compared with mice that had normal physiological levels of lithium (left). Bottom row: The same was true for the Alzheimer’s neurofibrillary tangle protein tau. Images: Yankner Lab
August 21, 2025
New research from Bruce A. Yanker and colleagues, first author Liviu Aron, shows for the first time that lithium is naturally present in the brain, shields it from neurodegeneration, and maintains the normal function of all major brain cell types. The findings are based on a series of experiments in mice and on analyses of human brain tissue and blood samples from individuals in various stages of cognitive health.
Original article in: Nature >
Catherine Dulac, Vikrant Kapoor, and Adam Nelson
August 21, 2025
The formation of social hierarchies is a fundamental aspect of group living, reducing conflict and guiding behavior across species—from animals to humans. However the precise neural and molecular processes that underlie this behavioral adaptation remain poorly understood. New research identifies a brain circuit and molecular mechanism that becomes modified as animals establish their position within a social hierarchy.
Original article in: Cell >

Awards & Honors

blue award ribbon illustration
July 31, 2025
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
blue award ribbon illustration
June 18, 2025
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.