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Neuroscientists show that mice can learn to manipulate random dopamine impulses for reward From the thrill of hearing an ice cream truck approaching to the spikes of pleasure while sipping a fine wine, the neurological messenger known as dopamine has been popularly described as the brain’s “feel good” chemical related to reward and pleasure. A ubiquitous neurotransmitter that ca...

‘Feel Good’ Brain Messenger Can Be Willfully Controlled, New Study Reveals

UC San Diego physicists create new nano-scale ‘neuristor’ that mimics brain functions To Oleg Shpyrko, the brain is the ultimate device. For certain tasks, the human brain can outperform powerful computers, yet requires the energy output of a light bulb. As one example, the cybersecurity tests required before entering certain websites—picking out pictures of buses and street signs—demonstrate the agility of the human mind over the processing mechanics of a robot. Several groups of physicis...

Breakthrough with Quantum Materials Pushes Biologically Inspired Learning Devices

Map of basal ganglia connectivity uncovers key links with implications for range of disorders Thousands of our daily activities, from making coffee to taking a walk to saying hello to a neighbor, are made possible through an ancient collection of brain structures tucked away near the center of the cranium. The cluster of neurons known as the basal ganglia is a central hub for regulating a vast array of routine motor and behavior functions. But when signaling in the basal ganglia is weakened or broken, debilitatin...

New Blueprint of Brain Connections Reveals Extensive Reach of Central Regulator

Mara Casebeer, a UCSD undergraduate majoring in Physics with a specialization in Biophysics, has been named as one of the 409 recipients of the 2021-2022 Goldwater Scholarship Award. The Goldwater Scholarship Program, one of the oldest and most prestigious national scholarships in the natural sciences, engineering, and mathematics in the United States, seeks to identify and support college sophomores and juniors who show exceptional promise of becoming this Nation’s next generation of research leaders in these fields. ...

Biophysics Undergrad Mara Casebeer Named 2021 Goldwater Scholar

The UC San Diego Department of Physics will present the Roger Dashen Memorial Lecture featuring K.R. Sreenivasan discussing "Eighty Years of Kolmogorov and Beyond." About the Talk Turbulence is an important but incompletely understood phenomenon. The powerful notion of scaling proposed by Kolmogorov 80 years ago has had great impact but we now know its limitations. We will consider them and also what may lie beyond. Event Details

Dashen Memorial Lecture - K.R. Sreenivasan, NYU: Eighty Years of Kolmogorov and Beyond

Micro-scale depictions solve century-old puzzle of brain energy use and blood vessel clusters Our brains are non-stop consumers. A labyrinth of blood vessels, stacked end-to-end comparable in length to the distance from San Diego to Berkeley, ensures a continuous flow of oxygen and sugar to keep our brains functioning at peak levels. But how does this intricate system ensure that more active parts of the brain receive enough nourishment versus less demanding areas? That’s a century-old prob...

Food for Thought: New Maps Reveal How Brains are Kept Nourished

Research is the first to prove exciton superfluidity after decades-long search Take a window screen and put it on top of another. Slide the screens back and forth and a dizzying array of geometrical shapes and wavy patterns come into view. Known as the moiré effect, this phenomenon is now helping physicists at the University of California San Diego explain fundamental properties of exotic particles, such as excitons.

UC San Diego Physicists Uncover Phenomena Tied to New State of Matter

Cells are constantly moving throughout our bodies, performing functions crucial to tissue development, immune responses and general wellbeing. This locomotion—an essential feature of biological processes, both normal and pathological—is guided by chemical cues long studied by scientists interested in cellular migration. But a team of physicists and biologists at UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara took a different route by investigating the effect that the geometry of the biological environment has on cellular movement. U...

Scientists Use Geometry to Track Cell Migrations

Massimiliano Di Ventra, Professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego, received the 2020 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize for Theory. Professor Di Ventra has made major contributions to several areas of nanotechnology and condensed matter theory: He pioneered the study of quantum transport in nanoscale and atomic systems from first principles. He developed novel theoretical and computational techniques, and predicted several nanoscale phenomena that have been later verified expe...

Foresight Institute Awards 2020 Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology to UC San Diego Physics Professor Massimiliano Di Ventra

Harry Suhl, who made seminal contributions to condensed-matter physics and was among the founding faculty at the University of California, San Diego, died on 3 March 2020 after an enviably long, happy, and productive life. He was also well known and much beloved as a quick wit, a gourmet, a sharp dresser, and an all-around bon vivant. Harry was born in Leipzig, Germany, on 18 October 1922. In 1938, during a threatening period for German Jews such as Harry and his family, his father, Bernard, wrote to a tenuous British business cont...

In Memoriam - Harry Suhl (1922-2020)