David Adam is a U.K.-based science journalist with a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Leeds. He is a former staff writer for The Guardian and former editor for Nature. He is also the author of “The Man Who Couldn’t Stop,” a bestselling book about obsessive-compulsive disorder. Learn more.
David Adam
Science writer
From this contributor
New questions around motor neurons and plasticity
A researcher’s theory hangs muscle degeneration on a broken neural circuit.
New questions around motor neurons and plasticity
By
David Adam
10 October 2025 | 11 min listen
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Michael Breakspear and Mac Shine explain how brain processing changes across neural population scales
Breakspear and Shine find a scale-free property of brain activity that is conserved across diverse species, suggesting that a universal principle of brain activity underlies cognition.
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Keith Hengen and Woodrow Shew explore criticality and cognition
The two discuss their evolving views of brain criticality as a central organizing principle of cognition, development and learning.
Keith Hengen and Woodrow Shew explore criticality and cognition
The two discuss their evolving views of brain criticality as a central organizing principle of cognition, development and learning.
By
Paul Middlebrooks
16 July 2025 | 94 min listen
Body state, sensory signals commingle in mouse whisker cortex
The new study challenges a long-held view that the barrel cortex exclusively encodes sensory signals from the whiskers.
Body state, sensory signals commingle in mouse whisker cortex
The new study challenges a long-held view that the barrel cortex exclusively encodes sensory signals from the whiskers.
By
Claudia López Lloreda
6 August 2025 | 6 min listen