New research has revealed that deep in the brain, in a structure called striatum, all possible movements that an animal can do are represented in a map of neural activity. Similar movements have similar coordinates, being represented closer in the map, while actions that are more different have more distant coordinates and are further away.
__

Scientists at the Immunophysiology Lab have discovered that neurons located at mucosal tissues can immediately detect an infection in the organism, promptly producing a substance that acts as an “adrenaline rush” for immune cells.

Nobody could have imagined that the nervous system coordinates, commands and controls the immune response throughout the whole organism. It’s one of the fastest and most powerful immune reactions we have ever seen. – Henrique Veiga-Fernandes

Eugenia Chiappe, principal investigator of the Sensorimotor Integration Lab, is one of the five scientists in Portugal who have been awarded this year a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC).

The use of identical experimental procedures will eliminate the differences that normally hinder replication of data across laboratories. In this way, we will be able to pool data as if it were a single giant experiment, even though it is in fact distributed between two continents. – Zachary Mainen

To understand how billions of neurons work together in a single brain, twenty-one laboratories join forces under the umbrella of the International Brain Laboratory to conduct a unique joint experiment.

Who are today’s scientists? Inspired by the project “Humans of New York”, Ar Magazine turns the spotlight on individual humans of science every month.

Name: Bassam Atallah
Lab: Systems Neuroscience
Project Title: Olfactory predictive coding – How expectations shape sensation

More…

Photo credit: Marina Fridman

To celebrate Champalimaud Research’s tenth anniversary, a photo exhibit and an accompanying video series bring you snapshots of its scientists and their work.

SNAPSHOT 1: TO FLEE, OR NOT TO FLEE?

Who are today’s scientists? Inspired by the project “Humans of New York”, Ar Magazine turns the spotlight on individual humans of science every month.

Name: Basma Husain
Lab: Neuroethology Lab
Project title: The role of the medial hypothalamus in female sexual behavior

More…

Photo credit: Marina Fridman

Linda Partridge envisions a future where people would just die of old age and not of the diseases that so frequently plague or seriously incapacitate the ageing human population. She and her team at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, are currently evaluating the health benefits of three different human drugs on ageing mice.

To celebrate Champalimaud Research’s tenth anniversary, a photo exhibit and an accompanying video series bring you snapshots of its scientists and their work.

SNAPSHOT 2: INTERCEPTING TUMOUR COMMUNICATIONS

New technologies are giving neuroscientists a grip on the working brain that a few years ago would have seemed impossible to achieve. But, argues John Krakuer, as they marvel at the technological breakthroughs, they are ignoring a crucial component of the study of behavior: the careful “dissection” of the behavior itself.