Max Planck Researchers have identified a protein that is essential for the maintenance of synapses: if the protein Staufen2 is removed in a nerve cell, the cell loses a large portion of its synapses.

Like a plug and a socket, a nerve and a muscle fiber mesh at the neuromuscular junction. New work reveals that an extracellular matrix protein called laminin shapes both sides of the junction to ...

Neurons communicate through rapid electrical signals that regulate the release of neurotransmitters, the brain's chemical messengers. Once transmitted across a neuron, electrical signals cause the ...

A new study, in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , shows an incredible degree of biological diversity in a surprising location, i.e. in a single neural ...

Carbon nanotubes, like the nervous cells of our brain, are excellent electrical signal conductors and can form intimate mechanical contacts with cellular membranes, thereby establishing a functional ...

Matthew Xu-Friedman receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders. A student who conducted some of the work described, Tenzin ...