Spectrum Autism Research

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.

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.

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.

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.