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.
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 ...
Cell & Microbiology
Apr 29, 2026
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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 ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 7, 2026
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Humans are creatures of rhythms. As far as we know, humans have always sung and always danced. We can recognize a song by its rhythm alone, regardless of whether it is played fast or slow.
Plants & Animals
Apr 3, 2026
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A recent study published in Physical Review Letters reveals that many widely used signatures of criticality in brain data may be statistical artifacts. They propose a more robust framework that, when applied to whole-brain ...
Biobots, whose growing line of variants started with xenobots, are fascinating tiny self-powered living robots built exclusively using frog embryonic cells. Originally developed in the laboratories of Wyss Institute Associate ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 16, 2026
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Every multicellular organism, from tiny worms to humans, elephants, and whales, needs a way for their cells to connect with each other to form tissues, organs, and organize their overall body plan. Cells have a variety of ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 16, 2026
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A new bioengineered neuronal circuit board "BioConNet" allows scientists to artificially engineer human brain-like wiring at scale and can be used to engineer any possible circuit. The fully programmable, open-source system ...
Biotechnology
Feb 28, 2026
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302
A new study from the School of Neurobiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics reveals a surprising insight into the operation of the ancestral brain: the visual cortex of turtles is capable of detecting unexpected visual stimuli ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2026
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69
Researchers from The Universities of Manchester and Birmingham have identified the exact nerve cells in the brain that drive important behavioral changes in female fruit flies after they mate. The discovery, published in ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 10, 2026
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25
Living organisms are made up of hundreds of thousands of cells that cooperate to create the organs and systems that breathe, eat, move, and think. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a new way to track how and when ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 29, 2026
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