A brain circuit that spoils your appetite

Specialized nerve cells in the brain inhibit food intake during nausea

04-Apr-2024 - Satiety, nausea or anxiety can all lead to a loss of appetite. Delaying eating can be a healthy move by the body to prevent further damage and to gain time for regenerating. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence now identified the circuit in the brain that prevents ...

Poorly insulated nerve cells promote Alzheimer’s disease in old age

The results of the study show, for the first time, that defective myelin in the aging brain increases the risk of Aꞵ peptide deposition

08-Jun-2023 - Alzheimer’s disease, an irreversible form of dementia, is considered the world’s most common neurodegenerative disease. The prime risk factor for Alzheimer’s is age, although it remains unclear why. It is known that the insulating layer around nerve cells in the brain, named myelin, degenerates ...

Neuroscientists illuminate how brain cells deep in the cortex operate in freely moving mice

This new miniature microscope is a game changer for exploring the link between neural activity and complex animal behavior

01-Dec-2022 - How can we see what neurons deep in the cortex are doing during behavior? Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Neurobiology of Behavior - caesar (MPINB) have developed a miniature microscope small enough to be carried on the head of a freely moving mouse and capable of measuring ...

The dark matter of the brain

Omnipresent and yet hardly explored: Electrical synapses

08-Apr-2022 - They are part of the brain of almost every animal species, yet they remain usually invisible even under the electron microscope. "Electrical synapses are like the dark matter of the brain," says Alexander Borst, director at the MPI for Biological Intelligence, in foundation (i.f). Now a team from ...

How the brain’s blue spot helps us focus our attention

The neurotransmitter noradrenaline regulates our brain’s sensitivity to relevant information

11-Jan-2022 - How can we shift from a state of inattentiveness to one of highest attention? The locus coeruleus, literally the “blue spot,” is a tiny cluster of cells at the base of the brain. As the main source of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline, it helps us control our attentional focus. Synthesizing ...

Neandertals may have had a lower threshold for pain

People who inherited a special ion channel from Neandertals experience more pain

27-Jul-2020 - Pain is mediated through specialized nerve cells that are activated when potentially harmful things affect various parts of our bodies. These nerve cells have a special ion channel that has a key role in starting the electrical impulse that signals pain and is sent to the brain. According to a ...

Does obesity start in the brain?

Specialised nerve cells increase the appetite for high-fat foods

23-Apr-2020 - High-calorie, energy-dense foods are constantly available in our modern society. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne have discovered that a group of nerve cells in the brains of mice promotes the consumption of high-fat food. If these so-called nociceptin ...

Interactive zebrafish brain

03-Jul-2019 - If zebrafish larvae used the internet, they might soon be able to download a map of their entire brain. "We're not at that point yet", explains Michael Kunst from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology. "Nevertheless, our first atlas detailing over 2,000 neurons is now available online." As ...

Artificial intelligence learns to recognize nerve cells by their appearance

Neurobiologists train artificial neural networks to map the brain

26-Jun-2019 - Is it possible to understand the brain? Science is still far from answering this question. However, since researchers have started training artificial intelligence on neurobiological analyses, it seems at least possible to reconstruct the cellular structure of a brain. New artificial neural ...

Multitasking with perfection: Nerve cell works like 1400 individual cells

Amacrine cell in the fruit fly visual system consists of electrically isolated subunits

29-Apr-2019 - CT1 is different. In general, a nerve cell receives input from a number of presynaptic cells, processes the signals, and passes its output to downstream cells. In the cell CT1, however, each of the approximately 1400 cell areas works like a separate neuron. This allows CT1 to access information ...