Rebecca Boyle


Rebecca Boyle is an award-winning science writer covering astronomy, zoonoses and everything in between. She writes for Popular Science, Wired and New Scientist, among other publications for adults and children.

From this contributor

Spectrum from The Transmitter.
Spectrum

The brain’s secret gardeners

By Rebecca Boyle
3 February 2016 | 14 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Mice playing, engaged in learning and memory: some of their brains are yellow, and some are red, matching a red and yellow legend that runs through the image to underscore both memory and learning.
This paper changed my life

This paper changed my life: A technical breakthrough for memory studies

In a 2007 Science paper, Mark Mayford and his colleagues found that some neurons activated during learning are also recruited during memory retrieval. Noelia Weisstaub shares how this study and others drove an era of great progress in tool development.

By Noelia Weisstaub
14 August 2026 | 5 min read
Developmental neuroscience

Early experience reshapes zebrafish retinal cells, alters behavior

The cells undergo a classic form of plasticity previously thought to occur only in downstream visual circuits.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
13 August 2026 | 0 min watch
Research image of expression of MEIS2 in PV interneurons.
Spectrum

Loss of interneuron plasticity may be shared hallmark of neurodevelopmental conditions

Restoring an experience-dependent interneuron plasticity gene in adulthood improves memory and cuts seizures in CNTNAP2 knockout mice, a new study shows.

By Claudia López Lloreda
12 August 2026 | 5 min read