Spectrum Autism Research

With agentic AI's rapid infiltration into science, researchers need to develop AI use policies and practices.

Five years after a groundbreaking paper, can a young field move beyond piecemeal studies?

Precise optogenetic modulation of a medullary neuron population reveals their role in anxiety-like behaviors.

The ability to record from large populations of neurons has triggered the development of myriad methods for comparing them. But we're still grappling with how to convert measures of likeness into a better mechanistic understanding.

In a 2007 Science paper, Mark Mayford and his colleagues found that some neurons activated during learning are also recruited during memory retrieval. Noelia Weisstaub shares how this study and others drove an era of great progress in tool development.

Neurons have long taken top billing in memory, but researchers are making the case for astrocytes.

Neuroscience in Chile, and across Latin America, does not lack talent or ideas, but the systems that make science visible—prestigious journals, conferences and networks—increasingly price its researchers out.

In most mammalian retinas, rods outnumber cones. But that ratio is flipped in ground squirrels, a quirk that helps Seth Blackshaw explore how retinal cells develop their identities.

Using imaging technologies, he transformed our understanding of how creativity and scientific discovery arise in the brain.

Shifting the focus of equity initiatives from identity categories to structural barriers can reveal overlooked challenges and increase support and participation worldwide.

A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

Lucid dreaming offers a rare opportunity to observe and probe perception from within.

Artificial intelligence may soon enable researchers to generate high-quality science at a previously unimaginable speed. For science consumers—the public, medical patients, technology users—the likely effects will be positive. For scientists, the effects will be as disruptive as industrial mass production was for artisan manufacturers.

As AI-driven systems are integrated into all aspects of science, we need to make sure that they read and write to a shared data and knowledge space.

By comparing the proprioceptive systems of mosquitos and fruit flies, Sweta Agrawal aims to uncover fundamental features of the ability to sense self-movement.

The brain’s first foundation models exist because some areas of neuroscience did the slow work of developing and adopting standards to help integrate data. Artificial intelligence cannot do that work for us.

The founding director of the University of Maryland's Neuroscience and Cognitive Science program brought neuroscience, math and engineering together.

When a pair of marmosets works together to earn some marshmallow fluff, one of them decides to act only after its brain accumulates enough evidence about what the other is doing, new work shows.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus is banking on whole-brain imaging in the Danionella fish to advance neuroscience, but some scientists forced to close their labs say that even with a three-year runway and transitional support, they feel betrayed by the pivot.

These systems were not built to explain the brain. But treating them as model organisms that we can perturb and evolve will move us closer to that goal.

The approach helps reveal whether maternal genes contribute directly to autism in children or have indirect effects on the prenatal environment.

A 1987 Cell paper showed that a single transcription factor could turn fibroblasts into muscle cells. The work inspired Ardem Patapoutian to think about the molecular codes that define neuronal subtypes.

Agentic coding makes it possible to specify a neuroscience model in hours instead of months. Seven neuroscientists weigh in on what that tectonic change may bring to the field.

The findings add to a small but growing body of research on neurological changes linked to pregnancy, birth and parenting.

If we want emerging neuroscientists to implement open science throughout their careers, we need to establish its practices as a core principle of training.

Complex, goal-directed and even emotionally responsive behavior can unfold without awareness, providing a useful lens for interpreting artificial systems.

Yale University claims its STEP platform might be able to deliver gene-editing tools into the brain via multiple routes. Researchers are eager to see more.

Aubrey Kelly studies the gregarious mammal to explore how the brain controls complex social behaviors “akin to friendship.”

The “Brainhack” hackathon revealed that disagreement in neuroscience runs deeper than most researchers suspect—even in electrophysiology, a field that prides itself on hard data.

The ethics issues that arise in neuroscience research are usually novel, unresolved and understudied. Embedding ethicists in labs helps scientists navigate these challenges and develop strategies in real time to prevent harm.

Myelin may serve as an energy reserve for the brain, according to recent findings, prompting neuroscientists to rethink how the brain stores, shares and protects energy.

The spatial arrangement of neurons in the locus coeruleus of mice corresponds with the cells' targets across the brain, according to a new study.

A systematic review into whether the “rapid prompting method” or “spelling to communicate” can help autistic people express themselves comes up empty yet again.

A group of employees has launched a series of campaigns to advocate for their work and argue against the center's potential transition to an animal sanctuary.

An autistic researcher's paper called attention to a huge disparity in autism funding research between children and adults. It nearly derailed her life.

The freedom to do “wacky” research projects that interest you is a major perk of the teaching stream, says Suzanne Wood, a teaching professor at the University of Toronto.

Exploring why Anthropic's AI, Claude, displays something like emotion could ultimately help us better understand the function that emotions serve in humans.

In a 1982 paper, the Nobel laureate created his namesake recurrent neural network—work that taught Maria Geffen to always ground research questions in biology.

A first-of-its-kind workshop offers a template for autism researchers who want to incorporate community perspectives into their work.

The neuronal circuit controlling repetitive locomotion patterns in any animal has been a mystery until now.

Artificial intelligence is pushing scientific publishing to the brink. For a field as sprawling as neuroscience, the crisis may also be an opportunity to finally connect findings across subfields.

The meeting last week sparked concerns about the latest Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee's ability to perform its core function: developing a strategy to support autism research.

In a “surprise” role, the cells regulate the neurons that produce gonadotropin-releasing hormone.

The results mark a “dramatic shift” in how neuroscientists think about sex differences, and they may help explain sex biases in certain neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Lidia Szczupak turned to the animals to explore how the nervous system coordinates movement.

Face patch cells in macaque monkeys initially respond to images of any object but rapidly transition to attend to faces exclusively, a new study finds.

As a fellow at the Dana Foundation, she merged two familiar passions and discovered a new one: science philanthropy.

Complex, multidimensional tasks that unfold over time could reveal how different brain areas work together to support decisions.

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.