Spectrum Autism Research

The mechanisms that control the labor roles of ants may also be conserved in naked mole rats, a new study shows.

A 2022 paper was retracted after an independent team of researchers reanalyzed the data and questioned its validity.

Predictive sensory processing in sleeping Drosophila echoes vertebrate research, establishing an evolutionarily conserved neural signature of sleep.

Data reuse represents an opportunity to accelerate the pace of science, reduce costs and increase the value of our collective research investments. New tools that make open data easier to use—and new pressures, including funding cuts—may increase uptake.

But the finding has not settled the long-standing debate over the existence and extent of neurogenesis during adulthood, says Yale University neuroscientist Juan Arellano.

Astrocytes serve as crucial mediators of neuromodulatory processes previously attributed to direct communication between neurons, four new studies show.

Cyclic shifts in estradiol levels coincide with changes in dendritic spine density and the activity of place cells in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, a new study shows.

After decades of debate, the region's role is being rewritten. Rather than using sensory input to simply log key points in time and space, the hippocampus may serve to contextualize our experiences and memories—and ultimately make predictions about the future.

Effectively teaching students how to employ AI in their writing assignments requires clear guidelines—and detailed, case-specific examples.

His theories around the neuropod have challenged the boundaries of classic ideas regarding gut-brain communication.

People with the syndrome, caused by variants in the gene PTEN, often have autism or cancer, or both, but it depends on the genetic diversity encoded in the components of distinct cell signaling pathways, according to a new study.

Cells in the bogong moth brain respond to astral landmarks to orient the insects in the direction they need to go.

This classic paper by zoologist John Pringle describes the haltere—a small structure in flies that plays a crucial role in flight control. It taught me to think about circuits and behavior as greater than the sum of their parts.

The results help explain how the hippocampus can recall information about a place without an animal physically revisiting it.

Movement-sensing neurons that target the striatum influence a mouse's choice of action by favoring routine.

The real fun of being a neuroscientist, and maybe the key to asking and answering new questions, is to think big and take intellectual risks.

Streamlining the problem from 3D to 1D eases the expedition—a strategy the study investigators deployed to rewire an olfactory circuit in flies.

The interpeduncular nucleus produces an aversion to nicotine, even at low doses, and helps moderate how rewarding mice find the drug.

New findings on the role of neural activity in developing circuits are challenging our prior notions about the rules that govern critical periods.

Human neuroscience research has largely overlooked this spatial scale—which bridges cells and brain areas. But new advances in functional MRI technology are changing that.

First an educator and now an internationally recognized researcher, the Kenyan psychologist is changing autism science and services in sub-Saharan Africa.

Donald Hebb's theory—memorably summarized as “cells that fire together, wire together”—does not explain the shifting hippocampal connections in mice learning to navigate a virtual environment, according to a new study.

For decades, scientists have been teased by the strange but inaccessible cephalopod visual system. Now, thanks to a technological breakthrough from a lab in Oregon, data are finally coming straight from the octopus brain.

Neuroscientists have long ignored the variability in animals' behavioral responses in favor of studying differences across groups. But work on the brain differences that underlie that variability is beginning to pay off.

Regulatory T cells in the spinal meninges release endogenous opioids in a sex-specific manner, new work shows.

A competition that trains language models on relatively small datasets of words, closer in size to what a child hears up to age 13, seeks solutions to some of the major challenges of today's large language models.

The annual meeting brought autism researchers, advocates and clinicians to Seattle to discuss the latest research, including attempts to define subgroups, a potential new CHD8 macaque model and life expectancy gaps.

It's unclear if the cancellation at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse extends to the fellowships awarded by other institutes within the National Institutes of Health.

Trainees from underrepresented backgrounds are losing pillars of support in the current funding climate. Grassroots mentorship organizations are stepping in to continue championing early-career researchers.

Valerio Mante and David Sussillo, along with their mentors Krishna Shenoy and Bill Newsome, revealed the complexity of neural population dynamics and the power of recurrent neural networks.

A lack of six new brain donors may stop the project from meeting its goal to pair molecular and cellular data with the functional organization of the cortex.

Whether looking back at his career highlights or forward to his latest projects, the psychiatrist is committed to supporting autistic people at every age.

The rapid eye movement (REM) phase preserves newly acquired memories, but deeper non-REM sleep helps to adapt and update them, according to “heroic” day-long electrode recordings in rats.

We need a new conceptual framework for understanding cognitive functions—particularly how globally distributed brain states are formed and maintained for hours.

Evolutionarily newer regions sport mitochondria with a higher capacity for energy production than older regions, according to the first detailed map of the organelles in a tissue slice, adding to mounting evidence that the brain features a metabolic gradient.

A game-changing cell culture method developed in Ben Barres' lab completely transformed the way we study astrocytes and helped me build a career studying their reactive substates.

Part of our job as educators is to give students a deeper understanding of the true diversity of sex and gender in the natural world.

But to fully grasp the tools' potential, we need to better understand how electric and magnetic fields interact with the brain.

Person-to-person variability in brain activity might represent meaningful differences in cognitive processes, rather than random noise.

It's time to fashion olfactory neuroscience stimuli based on odor concentrations in the wild, say study investigators Elizabeth Hong and Matt Wachowiak.

Recent technological advances provide a range of new and different information about brain physiology. But taking full advantage of these gains depends on collaboration between engineers and neuroscientists.

Researchers associated with the repositories received an email from the U.S. National Institutes of Health in March noting that they must comply with a 20 January executive order from President Trump that recognizes only two sexes: male and female.

A cubic millimeter of brain tissue, meticulously sectioned, stained and scrutinized over the past seven years, reveals in stunning detail the role of inhibitory interneurons in brain structure and function.

Many of the axed grants support scientists from underrepresented communities.

We need to develop research programs that link phenomena across levels, from genes and molecules to cells, circuits, networks and behavior.

Transplanted cells offer insight into human-specific properties, such as a lengthy cortical development and sensitivity to neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease.

Even in the absence of any formal instruction to do so, we should continue to hold our ourselves and our neuroscience colleagues accountable for SABV practices.

As this work begins to bear fruit, researchers “are becoming less afraid to ask very difficult questions that you can uniquely ask in people.”

A government spending bill, which was approved today by the House of Representatives and heads next to a Senate vote, allocates 20 percent less funding for the program than last year.

A lack of programming experience can derail experimental aspirations. But custom software packages, web-based applications and video tutorials make functional MRI concepts easier to grasp.

“It's hard to know what's real,” says neuroscientist Josh Dubnau after a dizzying week in which diversity-related grant applications were pulled from study sections only to be reinstated five days later, among other reversals.