Nerve cells communicate with one another via signaling molecules. The rule is: the more of these molecules, the stronger the signal. Drugs and diseases influence these processes and can weaken or strengthen the signal. Together with colleagues of Einstein BIH Visiting Fellow Thomas Südhof from Stanford University, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2013 and is supported by Stiftung Charité, Charité researchers have now been able to explain how these communication “modulators” work. They have published their results in the scientific journal Cell.