Featured Story:
Double Agents: How Glial Tumors Take On Interneuronal Identities
January 2, 2025
How do pediatric brain tumors mimic normal brain development, and how can this be leveraged for therapies? Ilon Liu, Mariella Filbin and colleagues find that a specific brain tumor type resembles GABAergic interneuron development, and with this knowledge they identify novel targets against this lethal tumor.
Community Stories
January 13, 2025
Our recent study uncovers how SKA2, a protein regulating stress-related signaling, interacts with the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) to maintain balance in the brain’s stress response. By highlighting altered SKA2 expression in bipolar disorder, this work offers new insights into the molecular underpinnings of stress-related psychiatric conditions and potential pathways for therapeutic intervention.
Original article in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences >
December 10, 2024
Sophie Barton shares new research investigating how humans may have unwittingly altered the brain morphology of domestic dogs through selective breeding for head shape. Dogs with extreme head shapes show widespread reductions in gray matter volume across the brain.
Original article in: Journal of Comparative Neurology >
October 10, 2024
Clifford Woolf shares a perspectives piece about what scientists can learn from the opioid crisis as they develop new pain treatments. The piece is part of a special Nature Outlook edition on pain.
Original article in: Journal of Comparative Neurology >
September 9, 2024
Tari Tan shares an article she has written in the Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education together with colleagues from three other institutions, providing a general overview of the neuroscience PhD admissions landscape, followed by a deeper dive into two specific examples, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Harvard and discussion of training programs that increase participation and diversity in neuroscience.
Original article in: Journal of Comparative Neurology >
In the News
January 17, 2025
New research from David Ginty, David Corey, Lisa Goodrich, and colleagues, first author Erica Huey, may help explain why the sense of touch gets stronger and more precise after hearing loss.
Original article in: Cell >
November 22, 2024
New research from Christopher Walsh and colleagues, co-first authors Eduardo A Maury, Attila Jones, and Vladimir Seplyarskiy, suggests that distinctive patterns of non-inherited (somatic) mutations are important contributors to schizophrenia. These mutations appear to have occurred as the brain was forming and affect just a portion of its neurons.
Original article in: Science >
November 22, 2024
New research from David Corey and colleagues, first author Maryna V Ivanchenko, delivered a corrected version of the faulty gene that causes Usher syndrome — PCDH15 — and was able to restore hearing in mouse models and also showed potential in retinal organoids and nonhuman primates for improving vision.
Original article in: Journal of Clinical Investigation >
Awards & Honors
January 17, 2025
Round up of awards and honors earned by the HBI community.
December 19, 2024
The prize recognizes researchers for outstanding discoveries and seminal insights in the broad field of neuroscience.
Banner Image:
Spiral ganglion neuron density. Image courtesy of Isle Bastille (Lab of Lisa Goodrich, Harvard Medical School).