Scientists know that birds are exceptionally good at creating neural maps to chart the location of sounds, and they know that this strategy differs for mammals. However, little was known about how alligators process where a sound is coming from.

Now, a new study of American alligators has found that these reptiles form neural maps of sound in the same way birds do. The research by Catherine Carr, a Distinguished University Professor of Biology at the University of Maryland, and her colleague Lutz Kettler from the Technische Universität München, was recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The brain’s grid cells, which function as a sort of map to help one make sense of their surroundings, were previously thought to be rather rigid. However, a pair of recent studies shows that these grid cells are in fact more plastic than expected. They are subject to the influence of reward, changing based upon the goals within the environment.

Researchers have found that brain stem cells in people with the most severe form of multiple sclerosis look much older than they really are. The culprit is inflamed and degenerating insulation around the nerves, the lack of which causes prematurely old cells to act differently in the brain. Ultimately, this finding could be a key to new treatments for MS.

A slowdown in image processing speeds up our perception of time's passage as we age. As tangled webs of nerves and neurons mature, they grow in size and complexity, leading to longer paths for signals to traverse. As those paths age they also degrade, giving more resistance to the flow of electrical signals.

For the first time in humans, an imaging study shows that time maps exist in a particular area of the brain, the supplementary motor area (SMA), a region of the cerebral cortex important for both motor preparation and time perception. The study explains that distinct portions of the SMA respond preferentially to different durations.

Researchers have found that pairing music with certain pain medications offers a promising strategy for treating pain. In particular, supplementing ibuprofen with music improved analgesic outcomes by more than 90 percent, while other music-medication pairings reduced inflammation by up to 70 percent.

In this video lecture, Dr. Alan Leshner, the former Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, discusses the growing body of evidence about what works in science communication, especially in complex domains like complementary and integrative health. He discusses how to align your communication strategy with your goal, how to use storytelling as a tool, and how to understand your audience’s core values.