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How does the brain make connections, and how does it maintain them? Cambridge neuroscientists and mathematicians are using a variety of techniques to understand how the brain ‘wires up’, and what it might be able to tell us about degeneration in later life.

Researchers have built the first biologically realistic mathematical model of how the brain plans and learns when faced with a complex decision-making process.

Today, we commence a month-long focus on neuroscience. To begin, Ed Bullmore, Bill Harris and Dervila Glynn describe how this area of research is transforming our understanding of the healthy brain and promising new treatments for devastating disorders that affect millions of people.

Researchers have shown that graphene can be used to make electrodes that can be implanted in the brain, which could potentially be used to restore sensory functions for amputee or paralysed patients, or for individuals with motor disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. 

Delay mechanism within elegant brain circuit consisting of just five neurons means female crickets can automatically detect chirps of males from same species. Scientists say this example of simple neural circuitry could be “fundamental” for other types of information processing in much larger brains.

̽��ֱ��discovery of a 500 million-year-old fossilised brain has helped identify a point of crucial transformation in early animals, and answered some of the questions about how heads first evolved. 

Researchers have identified how proteins that play a key role in Alzheimer’s disease are linked in a pathway that controls its progression, and that drugs targeting this pathway may be a potential new way of treating the disease.

“Listen to your heart,” sang Swedish pop group Roxette in the late Eighties. But not everyone is able to tune into their heartbeat, according to an international team of researchers – and half of us under- or over-estimate our ability.

A molecular chaperone has been found to inhibit a key stage in the development of Alzheimer’s disease and break the toxic chain reaction that leads to the death of brain cells, a new study shows. ̽��ֱ��research provides an effective basis for searching for candidate molecules that could be used to treat the condition.

Excess quantities of a specific protein in the brain dramatically increase the chances of so-called “nucleation events” that could eventually result in Parkinson’s Disease, according to a new study.