When we learn a new motor skill—whether mastering a piano passage or refining balance while walking—the brain must reorganize the circuits that control movement. For decades, this process of synaptic ...

Astrocytes use the MEGF10 receptor to prune synapses in the striatum, a process essential for dopamine-driven motor learning.

In the Alzheimer’s disease brain, synaptic loss correlates with cognitive decline, and is considered a sign of disease progression. But is synaptic loss always bad? Provocative new data from several ...

Welcome back to Birdbrained Science! Last time, we touched on the ‘bird’ aspect with migration and today, we’ll cover some brain stuff — let’s talk about pruning. However it happens, we know that once ...

As we age, we begin to lose the connections that wire up our brains-and neuroscientists aren't sure why. It is increasingly clear, though, that the loss of synapses-the flexible and adaptive relay ...