Here is an important reason to stay in touch with friends and family: social isolation causes memory and learning deficits and other behavioral changes. Many brain studies have focused on the effects ...

Picture a star-shaped cell in the brain, stretching its spindly arms out to cradle the neurons around it. That's an astrocyte, and for a long time, scientists thought its job was caretaking the brain, ...

To enjoy the scent of morning coffee and freshly baked cookies or to perceive the warning smell of something burning, the brain needs two types of cells, neurons and astrocytes, to work closely with ...

Scientists have identified prematurely aged astrocytes in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, particularly those with the APOE4 risk gene. Their findings suggest that cellular senescence in these ...

When we learn a new motor skill—whether mastering a piano passage or refining balance while walking—the brain must reorganize ...

When astrocyte function is disrupted, neurons in the brain's motor cortex struggle to execute and refine motion, a new study in mice shows. From steering a car to swinging a tennis racket, we learn to ...

Here is an important reason to stay in touch with friends and family: social isolation causes memory and learning deficits and other behavioral changes. Many brain studies have focused on the effects ...

Researchers have uncovered novel aspects of astrocyte function in olfactory, or smell, perception revealing changes in their gene expression patterns that turn these brain cells into a hub of ...

From steering a car to swinging a tennis racket, we learn to execute all kinds of skilled movements during our lives. You might think this learning is only implemented by neurons, but a new study by ...