When neuroscientists analyzed the exact properties of nerve connections in the brain, they made a startling observation: At a key connection, or synapse, messages are sent against the usual stream of ...

A new study reveals how young synapses gradually mature to send chemical signals correctly — a process that can take days and depends on neural activity.

Nervous system functions, from motion to perception to cognition, depend on the active zones of neural circuit connections ...

Neurons produced from frontotemporal dementia patients' skin biopsies using modern stem cell technology recapitulate the synaptic loss and dysfunction detected in the patients' brains, a new study ...

How do people think, feel, remember, and move? These processes rely on synaptic transmission, where chemical signals are passed between nerve cells using molecular structures called vesicles.

The synaptotagmin protein family has been studied by neuroscientists for decades. However, most isoforms lack well-defined functions. Now, researchers have identified a crucial, presynaptic role for ...

(1) A nerve impulse arrives. (2) This causes calcium ion channels to open, resulting in an influx of calcium ions in the terminal. (3) This causes synaptic vesicles to fuse with the terminal membrane, ...

Two distinct pools of synaptic vesicles appear to be involved in the spontaneous release of neurotransmitters and in neurotransmission triggered by a stimulus, researchers report in Neuron this week.

Researchers have long believed that neurons rely on glucose nearly entirely for fuel. The brain’s enormous energy ...

Transmission electron microscopy reveals the architecture of cells at nanometer resolution, but chemical fixation severely warps their native structure. The true ultrastructure of cells can be ...