neuroscience

Unlocking Brain Function, One Neuron at a Time

The brain’s complexity and how its coordinated actions of billions of neurons shape our behavior and cognition have always fascinated me. So, I decided to go into neuroscience as a career and contribute to biomedical science.

Electrophysiology system

From Mitochondria to Behavior

Mitochondria are dynamic cellular organelles involved in ATP synthesis and in apoptotic mechanisms (programmed cell death). However, in addition to these classically known functions, recent studies at the NIH have deciphered another intriguing role for mitochondria in the development and plasticity of neurons.

Mitochondria

Era of the Brain at 2014 NIH Research Festival

The NIH Research Festival always has a strong theme running through it, from “Bench-to-Bedside” in 2002 and “Chromosomes in Modern Biology and Medicine” in 2007 to “The NIH at 125: Today's Discoveries, Tomorrow's Cures” in 2012. The year 2014 was no different, but it marked the first time that the Festival was focused on a single organ within the human body: the brain.

2014 NIH Research Festival

Society for Neuroscience Conference Excites DC

Let’s start with some numbers: 30,000 neuroscientists, five days, and 20 pages of notes. It all adds up to a week well spent at the recent Society for Neuroscience (SfN) conference in Washington, D.C. Researchers from around the world, many from the NIH IRP, descended on the Washington Convention Center to share their most recent research, discoveries, thoughts, and future ideas.

SfN

Neuronal Trees in Holiday Colors

These may remind you of trees on a winter day, but they are brain neurons grown in a special chamber that separates axons from dendrites.

Neurons - axons and dendrites

Sniffing Around Inside a Locust Brain

“Locusts provide a good simple model system for studying basic questions in neuroscience," writes Mark Stopfer, Ph.D., an Investigator at NICHD.

Stopfer locust olfactory neuron

5 Reasons People Connected with NIH Researchers at the SfN Exhibit Booth

Recently, more than a dozen of our Institutes and Centers (ICs) came together to tell a story of interconnected, cross-discipline science at one of the largest medical meetings in the world, the 31,000-attendee-strong Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

SfN1

Top Scientific Brains Discuss Brain Science at NIH #ResearchFest Plenary

The NIH Research Festival this year was themed “The Era of the Brain,” so Dr. Francis Collins, NIH Director, began the plenary session by highlighting the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). The President’s initiative has been the talk of the town recently and, thanks to some hard work by the leaders at the NIH, has now been transformed into a 12-year scientific vision.

FARE Plenary session