Stories by R. Douglas Fields

Criticism of witnesses’ inaction reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the neuroscience of how the brain responds to sudden threats

Requiring medical researchers to test males and females in every experiment sounds reasonable, but it is a bad idea

I’ll never forget it. They strapped electrodes to my wrist, cranked up a black dial on a frightening electronic device encrusted with switches and knobs, and shocked me repeatedly with jolts of electricity.

San Diego—Would we have Poe’s Raven today if the tormented author had taken lithium to suppress his bipolar illness? Not likely, considering the high frequency of psychiatric illnesses among writers and artists, concluded psychiatrist Kay Jamison of Johns Hopkins Medical School speaking last week at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Human beings are utterly dependent on a complex social structure for their survival.  Since all behavior is controlled by the brain, human beings may have evolved specialized neural circuits that are responsible for compliance with society’s rules.  A new study has identified such a region in the human brain, and researchers can increase or decrease [...]

An attractive new method of deep-brain stimulation could solve that therapy's trickiest problems

Ecuadorian scientists have revived a new species of yeast from pre-Incan tomb, illuminating prehistoric life

Electrical stimulation of the brain is found to accelerate learning in military and civilian subjects, although researchers are wary of drawing larger conclusions about the mechanism

When it comes to brain development, the missing ingredient in bottle-feeding is a bond with the mother, not the chemicals in the milk

The new approach, currently being studied by the FDA for phase I trials, avoids the problems of immunological rejection and the controversy around the use of embryonic stem cells

Flashy neurons may get the attention, but a class of cells called glia are behind most of the brain's work—and many of its diseases

Chemicals in cannabis encourage masculine behavior in young rats

Functional brain imaging has revealed that some blind people's brains rewire themselves, giving them extraordinary auditory comprehension