Several lines of evidence suggest that males and females differ in their biological response to stressful situations. A new study from researchers at IICT and CCMB, Hyderabad, explores one mechanism for this, demonstrating that the heterochromatin region of the Y-chromosome may contribute to the regulation of anxiety-like behaviour and stress response in male mice.

A recent large-scale study of almost four thousand Indian children found the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders to be nearly 12%. During the course of the study, the authors identified, developed and validated diagnostic tools for several of these disorders in the Indian context and have now made them available in the public domain for anyone to use.

Artificial light at night has become a staple part of city-living and is quickly encroaching into rural regions as well. Vinod Kumar's group at the IndoUS Center for Biological Timing, University of Delhi recently discovered that exposure to bright lights at night can affect the parts of the brain involved in mood and cognition and lead to depression-like symptoms, by using Indian crows as a model system.

Physical forces play a major role in how the cells in our brain grow and signal to each other. In a recent study, scientists from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore, and University of Hyderabad developed a simple assay to show that neurons are shaped by attachment to the substrate underneath them.

The Wellcome Trust/DBT India Alliance and the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) jointly facilitated the India-EMBO Symposium titled 'From synapses to memory: RNA based regulatory mechanisms' recently held at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), Manesar. The symposium spanned across four days (15 - 18 October) and witnessed the coming together of luminaries in the field of molecular neuroscience, both national and international.

The quality of sleep a mother gets during pregnancy may be linked intimately with the health and development of the child, even after birth. In a new study using rats as model systems, researchers show that disturbances in sleep during the final trimester of pregnancy results in altered sleep profiles and delayed brain maturation in the offspring.

Many birds use seasonal cues to regulate their reproductive cycles. They do this by sensing day-lengths (photoperiods) or night-lengths (scotoperiods). Researchers from the Indo–US Center for Biological Timing, University of Delhi and University of Lucknow investigated the neurobiological pathways that mediate this process in one such bird - the spotted munia (Lonchura punctulata).