Astrocytes: The Key to Overcoming Overwhelm.

New research has discovered a brain circuit involving astrocytes, a type of brain cell that moderates the chatter between overactive neurons, which could hold the key to treating attention disorders like ADHD. The study sheds new light on how the brain processes information when overwhelmed and how astrocytes play a pivotal role in regulating cortical state and linking arousal-associated desynchrony to cortical circuit resynchronization. The researchers found that noradrenaline sends one chemical message to neurons to be more alert, while sending another to astrocytes to quiet down the over-active neurons.