(CIT): NIH Neuroscience Seminar Series The brain is a massive network of electrically active cells (neurons) that communicate with each other via specialized cell junctions (synapses). Throughout development and adult life, the brain responds to experience by adjusting the strength of coupling of synapses and by changing the spatial pattern of connections between neurons. Long-term information can be stored by the nervous system in the form of altered structure and chemistry of synapses or by formation of new synapses. This so-called "plasticity" of synapses is believed to be the basis of learning and memory in the brain. For more information, visit Morgan Sheng.