Members of the public can touch a human brain during Brain Awareness Day on Saturday, March 16 at The Leonardo. Brain Awareness Day activities will be presented at the museum free of charge from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the atrium of The Leonardo, 209 E. 500 South in downtown Salt Lake City. The […]

A protein involved in cognition and storing long-term memories looks and acts like a protein from viruses. The protein, called Arc, has properties similar to those that viruses use for infecting host cells, and originated from a chance evolutionary event that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. The prospect that virus-like proteins could be […]

Like much of the rest of the body, the brain loses flexibility with age, impacting the ability to learn, remember and adapt. Now, scientists at University of Utah Health report they can rejuvenate the plasticity of the mouse brain, specifically in the visual cortex, increasing its ability to change in response to experience. Manipulating a […]

A computer-driven automated drill, similar to those used to machine auto parts, could play a pivotal role in future surgical procedures. The new machine can make one type of complex cranial surgery 50 times faster than standard procedures, decreasing from two hours to two and a half minutes. Researchers at the University of Utah developed […]

Mathematical simulations at the University of Utah show parasitic flies may spell extinction for Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands, but that pest-control efforts might save the birds that helped inspire the theory of evolution. The new study “shows that the fly has the potential to drive populations of the most common species of Darwin’s […]

The animal brain is so complex, it would take a supercomputer and vast amounts of data to create a detailed 3-D model of the billions of neurons that power it. But computer scientists and a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Utah have developed software that maps out a monkey’s brain and more easily […]