Spectrum Autism Research

Estropipate, paclitaxel and levocarnitine altered behaviors tied to SCN2A and DYRK1A variants specifically, a new open-source platform revealed.

The findings could influence how researchers interpret signals from techniques that use blood flow as a surrogate for neuronal activity.

A 1960s study by Kelleher and Morse found that lever pressing in squirrel monkeys depended not on whether they received a reward or shock, but on the rules of the task. This taught Calipari to think deeply about factors that influence how behavior is generated and maintained.

These models can partly generalize across species, brain regions and tasks, suggesting that a set of machine-learnable rules govern neural population activity. But will we be able to understand them?

Four statistical measurements of neural network geometry capture how well brains and artificial networks use what they already know to solve new problems, a study suggests.

Researchers must learn to view heterogeneity as an essential feature of the systems they study and a central consideration in experimental design, not a variable to control for or reduce.

Her favorite part of research was talking about it. So she left academia and turned that passion into a successful company.

Senescence presents differently depending on the cell type, toxic trigger and neighboring cells, two new studies find.

The changes would restrict the sharing of human neuroimaging, transcriptomic and genetic data.

Addressing this gap will require collecting widespread data on pregnancy, menopause and other life events women experience—and could bring us closer to the “holy grail” of linking brain and behavior.

The “intuitive” neuropharmacologist pushed against the status quo.

Adjusting genetic analyses could help plug autism's heritability gap, according to a new preprint.

In a 2011 Neuron study, Stephan Lammel and his colleagues showed that dopamine neurons with different projections have different physiological properties. The work inspired Lerner to think about how to challenge widely held assumptions in the field.

New cross-species findings may help settle a long-standing debate about whether the hippocampus is required for passive learning.

Finding creative ways to keep early-career researchers in academia—for example, through part-time roles—can help the field weather the storm.

Dynamic coding helps explain how the brain processes multiple features of speech—from the smallest units of sounds to full sentences—simultaneously.

The cells amplify oxytocin—and may be responsible for sex differences in social behavior, two preprints find.

Carola Städele, a self-proclaimed “tick magnet,” studies the arachnids' sensory neurobiology—in other words, how these tiny parasites zero in on their next meal.

Simple math suggests that small groups of scientists can significantly bias peer review.

The immune-conflict between dam and fetus could help explain sex differences in neurodevelopmental conditions.

Sam Wang, a neuroscientist running for the U.S. House of Representatives, has been considering American democracy for decades.

Brain activity patterns in the ventral visual cortex appear to distinguish images across 12 categories, including birds and trees, longitudinal functional MRI scans suggest.

After a clinical research career, an interlude at Apple and four months in early retirement, Raphe Bernier found joy in teaching.

The genetic variants initially affect brain development in unique ways, but over time they converge on common molecular pathways.

Studying individual synapses has the potential to help neuroscientists develop new theories, better understand brain disorders and reevaluate 70 years of work on synaptic transmission plasticity.

If our field is serious about building general principles of brain function, cross-species dialogue must become a core organizing principle rather than an afterthought.

Without the mechanosensor TMEM63A, the cells cannot deposit the appropriate amount of insulation, according to a new study.

Degradation-resistant proteins pass from neurons to glial cells in a process that may spread protein clumps around the brain, according to a study in mice.

The board of directors at Oregon Health & Science University, which runs the primate center, voted unanimously in favor of the move.

Defining brain cell types is no longer a matter of classification alone, but of embedding their genetic identities within the dynamical organization of population activity.

One of four language-responsive cerebellar regions may encode meaningful information, much like the cortical language network in the left hemisphere, according to a new study.

“MacArthur genius” Kenneth Catania outlined the physiology behind the moles' stellar foraging skills two decades ago. Next, he wants to better characterize their food-seeking behavior.

A reanalysis of the data revealed errors and failed to replicate the results.

The policy aimed to increase the transparency of research in humans but created “a bureaucratic nightmare” for basic neuroscientists.

The atlas details the genetics, birth dates and gene-expression signatures of roughly 150 neuron subtypes in the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord.

If the struggle to articulate an idea is part of how you come to understand it, then tools that bypass that struggle might degrade your capacity for the kind of thinking that matters most for actual discovery.

The retroviral insert appears to inadvertently switch off a gene involved in brain development.

Studying how organisms infer indirect threats and understand changing contexts can establish a common framework that bridges species and levels of analysis.

Neuroscience is chasing the complexity of social behavior, yet we have not answered the simplest question in the chain: How does a brain know “who is who”? Emerging multi-agent artificial intelligence may help accelerate our understanding of this fundamental computation.

Certain gene variants may have greater weight in determining autism likelihood for some populations, a new study shows.

Two independent teams in Africa are developing stem cell lines and organoids from local populations to explore neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative conditions.

Dissecting different parallel processing streams may help us understand the mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms, such as delusions, and unite human and animal research.

Wittlinger, Wehner and Wolf's 2006 “stilts and stumps” Science paper revealed how ants pull off extraordinary feats of navigation using a biological odometer, and it inspired Tuthill to consider how other insects sense their own bodies.

A countenance such as a grimace activates many of the same cortical pathways as voluntary facial movements.

Rather than act as a simple switchboard for innate behaviors, the hypothalamus encodes an animal’s internal state, which influences behavior.

Since debunking an urban legend that headbutting animals don't damage their brain, Nicole Ackermans has been investigating how the behavior correlates with neurodegeneration.

A competition to design small, efficient neural models might provide new insight into real brains—and perhaps unite disparate modeling efforts.

Kampff's do-it-yourself approach inspired a generation of neuroscientists.

The atlas also offers up molecular and cellular targets for new pain therapies.

Amid the rise of billion-parameter models, I argue that toy models, with just a few neurons, remain essential—and may be all neuroscience needs.

Simple behavioral assays—originally validated as drug-screening tools—fall short in studies that aim to unpack the psychedelic mechanism of action, so some behavioral neuroscientists are developing more nuanced tasks.