Research news on Biological neural networks

Biological neural networks as a research area focus on the structure, dynamics, and computation of networks of real neurons in living organisms, integrating cellular neurophysiology, synaptic plasticity, and systems-level circuit organization. The field investigates how biophysical properties, connectivity patterns, and neuromodulatory influences give rise to information processing, learning, memory, and behavior. It spans experimental and theoretical approaches, including electrophysiology, imaging, connectomics, computational modeling, and data-driven analysis of large-scale neural recordings, with the dual goals of explaining brain function mechanistically and providing biologically grounded principles that inform artificial neural network design and neuroengineering applications.

Behold the neuron, a complicated cell with a simple mission

Neurons, the uber-connected nerve cells that act as a main switchboard for the brain, are central to some incredibly complicated processes. They make it possible to think, walk, speak, and breathe. They even have built-in ...

What can singing mice say about human speech?

Speech is a crowning achievement of human evolution, the skill that separates us from every other animal. So, it would stand to reason that evolving this capability required some enormous leap in brain complexity. A study ...

No brain required: This is how the single-celled Stentor learns

Scientists have known for more than a century that a single-celled organism with no nerve cells—much less a brain—can behave in ways that resemble learning. But those observations only went so far. How the organism did that ...

Fly ball: Drosophila can learn while playing with tiny spheres

For more than a century, the fruit fly has been a workhorse of the biological sciences that has helped scientists to make fundamental breakthroughs in fields such as genetics and neuroscience. As it turns out, human scientists ...

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