Problems with the brain’s ability to ‘prune’ itself of unnecessary connections may underlie a wide range of mental health disorders that begin during adolescence, according to research published today ...

Not everything in the brain is meant to last. As our brains assemble, trillions of neural connections have to be built or torn down at the right time and place. Otherwise, the seeds of disorders like ...

Research led by SUNY Downstate Medical Center has identified a brain receptor that appears to initiate adolescent synaptic pruning, a process believed necessary for learning, but one that appears to ...

Researchers led by a group at the Institute of Brain Science, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences and the Nagoya City University School of Medicine report that they have shed ...

A research group led by Kazunobu Sawamoto, a professor at Institute of Brain Science, Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences and National Institute for Physiological Sciences, and ...

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 ...

A late-maturing brain filter in the thalamus prunes noisy sensory inputs over time, helping adults ignore distractions and ...

Researchers report that children with autism appear to have excess synapses -- cellular connections -- in their brains compared with typical children. The scientists also believe it might be possible ...

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 ...

"Pruning is an essential part of brain development," Murugesan said, comparing the process to how a tree needs to have dead or unneeded branches cut to keep it healthy and allow it to grow.