Top row: The cryo-ET averages of the gap junction channels (left) revealed striking caps (right; purple) on the inside of the cell. Bottom row: The gap junctions (light blue) allow cells to ...

University of Houston College of Optometry Professor John O’Brien, a leading expert on retinal neuroscience, has received $2.6 million from the National Eye Institute to continue more than 20 years of ...

Two reports of electrical synapses between identified inhibitory neurons in the neocortex suggest that many neuron types known to communicate chemically may also be electrically coupled. The extent of ...

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have built a superconducting switch that mimics the behavior of a synapse between neurons. This artificial synapse could help advance ...

Most nerve cells use messenger chemicals to communicate. Now science is learning more about the brain's rarer, lightning-fast electrical signaling Too hot! As our fingertips graze the hot stove, their ...

CALL it the first brain hack. The humble nematode worm has had its neural connections hot-wired, changing the way it responds to salt and smells. As well as offering a way to create souped-up ...

New experiments are settling a century-long debate between two camps over how neurons communicate. The surprise: both sides are right I sliced the heart in two with a big kitchen knife. All was ...

Florida Atlantic University neuroscientists have uncovered a surprising role for a protein named “Frazzled” (known as DCC in mammals) in the nervous system of fruit flies, showing how it helps neurons ...

An international team led by Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, has used state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy to visualize electrical synapses (gap junctions) inside living cells. In doing so, ...