Home of the Stanford Neuroblog. Scientists writing about science, for a general audience.
Have a question about the brain? Ask a neuroscientist a question.
A pair of recent papers challenge a model that has dominated neuroscience for the past two decades, demonstrating the scientific process in action. What we thought were long-range signals guiding axon growth may in fact not be.
Read MoreCan we "train" or "trick" our brains, through physical therapy or other innovative means, to perform finger movements that we currently cannot perform? Andy Tay tackles this Ask a Neuroscientist question.
Read MoreA reader asks: Can you explain what the correlation is between our brains, sexual orientation and gender?
Researchers have been trying to solve this problem for decades and encounter countless scientific challenges. In this post, Whitney Heavner summarizes findings from a field exploring whether there is something fundamentally different between the structure and organization of male and female brains.
Read MoreIn this issue of Ask a Neuroscientist, Andy Tay discusses options for developing an independent study program focused on the intersection between neuroscience and robotics.
Read MoreIn this edition of Ask a Neuroscientist, Dr. Andy Tay discusses how he came to study neuroscience, and gives out tips for discovering your own path to neuroscience research.
Read MoreHumans live under constant sensory assault: wherever you turn, there are new things to see, smell, and hear. How do we learn what is worth paying attention to? Arielle Keller reports on a new study that points to one possible answer in the brain.
Read MoreIn this edition of Ask A Neuroscientist, Dr. Andy Tay tackles the age-old question that has launched a thousand sci-fi stories (and at least one biomedical startup): Is it possible to transplant an old brain into a younger body?
Read MoreWe’ve domesticated animals for as long as we can remember. When you think of domestication, you probably think of companion animals like dogs and cats, work animals like horses and oxen, and meat animals like chickens and cows. Each of these species can be found in many shapes and sizes, due to millennia of selective breeding that strengthened the traits we as humans found useful or desirable.
Today's discussion, though, focuses not on companion, work or meat animals, but on the house mouse, Mus musculus, the most widely-used mammalian genetic model organism
Read MoreAs I watched *Willy Wonky & the Chocolate Factory* for the first time, I sat in awe as the somewhat obnoxious Miss Violet Beauregard chewed the gum of my dreams. Willy Wonka proudly explained that the gum would go through three stages of flavors, starting with ‘tomato soup’, then changing to ‘roast beef and baked potato’, before ending with ‘blueberry pie and ice cream.’ I spent the rest of the afternoon drawing pictures of my favorite foods, imagining the various gum trifectas I could create.
This obsession phase inspired my initial interest in the idea of tricking my extremely picky taste buds, and from then on I found myself constantly wishing for some magical device or food spray to “make veggies taste good”. And although the idea initially seems absurd, ten years later, recent advances in thechnology have shown that the idea of directly manipulating what we taste is more possible than we might think.
Read MoreImagine that you are about to take your first bite into a brownie ice cream sundae, or your mom’s homemade special lasagna. I bet the memory of your favorite foods is making your taste buds tingle. Right. This. Second.
Now picture a computer “tasting” the difference between an apple and apple pie. Is a computer algorithm really capable of mimicking our gustatory taste system?
Read MoreHome of NeuWrite West and the Stanford Neuroblog.
Do you have burning questions about how the brain works? You’ve come to the right place! Submit all your questions to NeuWrite West and we will have a neuroscientist research and answer your question.
Note: The NeuWrite West team consists of research scientists. Therefore, we can not provide answers to questions of a medical nature; we are not medical doctors.
Questions will have a turn-around time of approximately one month.
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