Posts
The archive.
Deep dives and paper breakdowns, newest first.
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Do the new Alzheimer's drugs actually work?
A landmark 2023 trial cleared amyloid plaque from people's brains with donanemab and slowed their decline. Here's what that really bought, and what it cost.
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Scientists found an aggression switch in the mouse brain
A 2011 study switched on a pinhead of neurons in the mouse hypothalamus and a calm male attacked almost anything. Here's how aggression got a physical address in the brain.
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Why do you need to sleep?
You spend a third of your life unconscious and you can't skip it. For something that costly, sleep must be doing real work. Here's what the research says it's for.
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Why can't most drugs reach your brain?
You can swallow a pill and it reaches your whole body, but most drugs never reach your brain. The blood-brain barrier is why, and it's the hardest problem in brain medicine.
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What does an fMRI actually measure?
When a headline says a brain region lit up, what was actually measured? Not thoughts, and not even electricity. Blood, indirectly, and a few seconds late.
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How does memory actually work?
A memory isn't a recording filed away in a drawer. It's a physical change in your neurons, and your brain rebuilds it every time you remember.
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What is a neuron, really?
Most people learned in school that a neuron is "a brain cell that sends signals." That's about as useful as describing a phone as "a thing that sends signals." Let's build it from scratch.
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Dopamine doesn't do what you think it does.
Dopamine isn't really the "pleasure chemical." It's something stranger and more interesting, and the popular misuse of the word has consequences.
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