Toward understanding our brain’s plasticity: Watching connections appear and disappear in a living mouse brain
/Until the late 20th century, scientists believed the adult brain was hardwired. We now know that adult brains are actually quite plastic, capable of generating new neurons and remodeling after experience or injury. A recent study by Villa et al. visualized remodeling in a living mouse brain and proposes a mechanism through which neurons maintain balance in a changing environment, as if walking a tightrope between excitation and inhibition.
Image Credit: George E. Curtis, 1876 (Maria Spelterini crossing Niagara Falls by tightrope)
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