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High Risk High Reward: Neuroscientists discover the key to motivational behaviours

Researchers identify specialised neural circuits that control reward-seeking and punishment-avoiding behaviour

Calcium activity waves play across dorsal cortex

Locomotion triggers changes in brain state and long distance communication

While scientists have spent years mapping anatomical projections and monitoring activity from individual neurons, little is known about how signals sent by individual neurons relate to the larger, bidirectional communication that underlies complex behaviour. Neuroscientists at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre report in Nature Neuroscience on a new approach that offers insight into these complex neural conversations.

Silicone pup dummies

Neuroscientists uncover sensory switches controlling infanticide and parental behaviour in mice

Study finds multisensory basis of pup recognition by males using specific chemical and physical cues

13 December 2018

Primary visual cortex neurons projecting to higher visual area AL

Neurons that fire together, don’t always wire together

8 November 2018

Escape Decision Neurons - Mouse Midbrain

Fright and flight: deciding when to escape

Disentangling the interneuron web of learning

Neuroscientists have simultaneously imaged the activity of four different types of neocortical neurons and created a computational model describing how responses and interactions of these cell types change during learning.

SWC Building waves

Athena Akrami to join Sainsbury Wellcome Centre

New barcode-based tracing method uncovers logic of single neuron projections

SWC Exterior

Neuroscientists identify brain circuit that integrates head motion with visual signals

Study highlights role of primary visual cortex in integrating head and visual movement signals.

How does the brain’s spatial map change when we change the shape of the room?

Our ability to navigate the world, and form episodic memories, relies on an accurate representation of the environment around us. This cognitive map, which is thought to reside in the hippocampus of the brain, gives us the flexibility we need to find our way around in familiar places and to store the events we experience in our day-to-day lives.

Mouse Balance Beam

Identifying circuits that maintain balance

A new study published in Cell Reports describes how a region of the brain called the lateral vestibular nucleus (LVN) is key to maintaining balance and keeping the body on its feet after experiencing a disturbance.

30 January 2018

The structure of part of the olfactory bulb in the brain

Honeycomb Maze improves current spatial navigation tests

A powerful new tool for the study of spatial memory was today described in Nature as a significant improvement over the current gold standard, the Morris Water Maze.

24 January 2018