A landmark study, based on genetic analysis of nearly 65,000 people, has revealed that a person's risk of schizophrenia is increased if they inherit specific variants in a gene related to "synaptic ...

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 ...

Researchers have shown in mice how immune cells in the brain target and remove unused connections between brain cells during normal development. This research, supported by the National Institutes of ...

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 ...

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

For better or worse, complement proteins tag synapses for elimination by microglia. A paper published July 13 in Nature Neuroscience identifies a neuronal protein that keeps this process in check.

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 ...