Synaptic pruning is the process in which the brain removes neurons and synapses that it does not need. This usually takes place when a person is 2–10 years old. The brain contains millions of neurons ...

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental condition in which affected individuals experience difficulties in social communication and exhibit restricted, repetitive patterns of ...

Adolescence is widely thought to be a time when the brain trims away excess neural connections, refining circuits through synaptic pruning. New research now suggests this view may be incomplete.

Researchers from Kyushu University discovered a previously unrecognized synaptic "hotspot" that forms during adolescence, challenging the long-held view that adolescent brain development was dominated ...

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 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 ...

A multidisciplinary team of scientists has discovered the mechanism that controls synaptic pruning of new neurons in the adult brain. The team discovered that microglial cells control the number of ...

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 ...