Neuroscientist Rudolfo Llinas and his colleagues envision an entire array of nanowires being connected to a catheter tube, which could then be guided through the circulatory system to the brain. Once there, the nanowires would spread into a kind of bouquet, branching out into tinier and tinier blood vessels until they reached specific locations. Each nanowire would then be used to record the electrical activity of a single nerve cells, or small groups of nerve cells. (Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation)Working with platinum nanowires 100 times thinner than a human hair--and using blood vessels as conduits to guide the wires--a team of U.S. and Japanese researchers has demonstrated a technique that may one day allow doctors to monitor individual brain cells and perhaps provide new treatments for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's.

Delving deep into the molecular subtleties of a strain of mice engineered to age rapidly, scientists have found that an accumulation of genetic mutations prompts a cascade of programmed cell death that seems to underpin the aging process.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota were able to reverse memory loss in mice with significant brain degeneration for the first time, a breakthrough that offers hope to the estimated 4 million people living with Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers have constructed a new detailed map of the three-dimensional terrain of a synapse -- the junction between neurons which are critical for communication in the brain and nervous system. The "nano-map," which shows the tiny spines and valleys resolved at nanometer scale, or one-billionth of a meter, has already proven its worth in changing scientists' views of the synaptic landscape.

Scientists have begun to clarify how one of the body's molecules controls the trafficking of T cells through the blood, lymph nodes and on to tissues to fight infection -- a crucial response that sometimes goes awry, attacking the body's own tissues and causing autoimmune diseases.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered a novel way in which the brain size of developing mammals may be regulated. They have identified a signaling pathway that controls the orientation in which dividing neural progenitor cells are cleaved during development.

Seabirds are the surprising culprits in delivering pollutants – through their guano – to seemingly pristine northern ecosystems, a new Canadian study shows.