It's already known that sex causes the neurotransmitters dopamine and oxytocin to be released in the brain. But a recent study has shown that sex can epigenetically modify the DNA in the brain in a way that facilitates pair bonding. The Cellular Scale has an article over at The Toast today telling you all about it. Check it out: The Virgin Brain ...

Time to get back to Answering Some Questions. Where I attempt to answer the search-engine questions which have led you to The Cellular Scale. I mainly try to answer questions that I am sure are not answered anywhere on this blog.  1. "What does a cellular cell look like?"  Good question. First of all, what is a cellular cell? Is it different from...

This new technique is just too cool not to blog about.  Novak et al. 2013 Figure 1A pre-synaptic patch clamp The synapse is the connection between two neurons. The pre-synaptic part is from the neuron sending a signal and the post-synaptic part is from the neuron receiving the signal. If you want to learn about the connection between the two neurons,...

It's a harsh world in here, in academia. We all already know that academic science is not a carebear teaparty, and apparently now things are worse than ever as far as potential jobs for Ph.D.s and funding goes.  A brief interruption, for an ad: Use Grammarly's plagiarism checker online because it's better to have a computer criticize you than a person....

When my advisor told me that it takes a semester just to graduate, she seriously wasn't kidding.  Here's the math: To graduate this December, I had to have everything signed and turned in on December 6th. Doesn't sound so bad, right? But that basically means I have to defend in November. And my college/department has a mandatory pre-defense which...

Due to starting a major simulation this summer, I am not going to the annual society for neuroscience meeting in San Diego this year. And therefore I won't be neuroblogging it like I did last year. I look forward to reading the posts and tweets from the official neurobloggers this year. Here they are: From Brains to Beyonce by @Spork15 House of...