In the brain, highly specific connections called synapses link nerve cells and transmit electrical signals in a targeted manner. Despite decades of research, how synapses form during brain development ...

A multi-disciplinary team has found that depriving lab mice of sleep can lead to a reduction in synapse diversity in the brain. In their study, published on the open-access site Current Biology, the ...

MIT researchers have discovered that about 30% of synapses in the adult mouse cortex are 'silent'—structurally intact but functionally inactive until triggered. The finding challenges the long-held ...

Scientists have uncovered how a protein helps build and maintain vital brain connections, providing insights into the neurological problems experienced by people with a rare form of muscular dystrophy ...

Striking electron microscope pictures from inside the brains of mice suggest what happens in our own brain every day: Our synapses - the junctions between nerve cells - grow strong and large during ...

Co-written with Jai Liester. Silent synapses represent one of neuroscience's most fascinating discoveries—connections between neurons that lie dormant until activated by specific triggers. These ...

A team of physicists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Sogang University in South Korea have built an artificial synapse, the biological foundation of the human brain's ability to think ...