How to teach this paper

Recent articles

This column by Ashley Juavinett guides educators and self-learners through recent seminal neuroscience papers.

A hand points to a chalkboard with an astrocyte on it.

How to teach this paper: ‘Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are induced by activated microglia,’ by Liddelow et al. (2017)

Shane Liddelow and his collaborators identified the factors that transform astrocytes from their helpful to harmful form. Their work is a great choice if you want to teach students about glial cell types, cell culture, gene expression or protein measurement.

By Ashley Juavinett
30 June 2025 | 10 min read
Against a background of American dollar bills, two hands gesture at a whiteboard that shows liquid flowing from one beacon into another.

How to teach students about science funding

As researchers reel over the uncertain state of U.S. federal funding, educating students on the business of science is more important than ever.

By Ashley Juavinett
19 February 2025 | 8 min read
Photograph of two hands drawing overlapping red and blue waveforms on a chalkboard.

How to teach this paper: ‘Coordination of entorhinal-hippocampal ensemble activity during associative learning,’ by Igarashi et al. (2014)

Kei Igarashi and his colleagues established an important foundation in memory research: the premise that brain regions oscillate together to form synaptic connections and, ultimately, memories.

By Ashley Juavinett
4 November 2024 | 8 min read
Illustration of a canyon landscape with an orange clock face in place of a sun.

How to teach this paper: ‘Behavioral time scale synaptic plasticity underlies CA1 place fields,’ by Bittner and Milstein et al. (2017)

Katie Bittner, Aaron Milstein and their colleagues found that cellular learning can happen over longer timescales than Hebb’s rule predicts. How long should we wait to teach students about this phenomenon?

By Ashley Juavinett
24 June 2024 | 11 min read
An illustration of mice observing a lesson on a tiny chalkboard

How to teach this paper: ‘Creating a false memory in the hippocampus,’ by Ramirez and Liu et al. (2013)

We’ve known how to implant memories in mouse minds for a decade. Can we implant these ideas in our students?

By Ashley Juavinett
6 February 2024 | 10 min read
A hand points to an illustration on a chalkboard.

How to teach this paper: ‘Neural population dynamics during reaching,’ by Churchland & Cunningham et al. (2012)

This foundational paper, with more than 1,500 citations, is an important departure from early neuroscience research. Don’t be afraid of the math in the first paragraph.

By Ashley Juavinett
13 November 2023 | 9 min read

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