Optogenetics is the golden child of modern neuroscience. You can control specific neurons with light, turning them on and off like little biological switches. It's transformed our understanding of how brain circuits work. There's just one problem: it requires genetically modifying neurons to make...

TBK1 is one of those genes that, when it breaks, causes ALS and frontotemporal dementia. People have known this for years. What they didn't know is exactly why. The gene makes a kinase, a protein whose job is slapping phosphate groups onto other proteins to change their behavior. But which...

Your brain has a bouncer, and it's extremely strict. The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a molecular security system that keeps most things in your bloodstream out of your brain. This is generally good, since you don't want random chemicals and pathogens wandering into your neural tissue. But it's...

Your nervous system runs on well-insulated wires. The insulation is called myelin, a fatty wrapping that lets electrical signals zip along nerve fibers at high speed. When myelination goes wrong, signals slow down or fail completely, and bad things happen. Conditions like multiple sclerosis and...

When you walk into a new place for the first time, your brain has to quickly figure out where things are and start building a mental map. Somewhere in your hippocampus, the brain's navigation and memory center, neurons are doing something to encode this new spatial information. But what exactly are...

Gene therapy depends on viruses to deliver genetic cargo to cells. But understanding exactly how viruses enter cells, move through them, and release their contents has been technically challenging. A study in ACS Nano introduces a carbon quantum dot labeling strategy that enables real-time tracking...

VMAT2 is the protein that packs dopamine, serotonin, and other monoamines into synaptic vesicles. A study in Cell Reports captures high-resolution structures of VMAT2 in multiple states, revealing how it works - and how amphetamines reverse it.

When you grow neurons in a dish, they do what neurons do: they reach out, make connections, and form networks. The problem? They form whatever network they feel like. You wanted to study a specific circuit architecture? Too bad, your neurons have other plans. A study in ACS Nano changes this by...

There's a weird problem in neuroscience that doesn't get talked about enough: brains evolved inside bodies. You can record from neurons all day, but those neurons evolved to control a physical thing swimming through water, walking on land, or reaching for food. A team of researchers decided to take...

Here's a problem that probably never crossed your mind: if you're a scientist studying the microscopic roundworm C. elegans, how do you follow the same individual worm from the day it's born until the day it dies? These critters are about a millimeter long, they wiggle constantly, and picking them...