Spectrum Autism Research

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.

The comprehensive resource details data on microcephaly, polymicrogyria, epilepsy and intellectual disability from 352 people.

These guidelines can help researchers ensure the integrity of their work while accelerating progress on important scientific questions.

A growing list of medications—such as zuranolone for postpartum depression, suzetrigine for pain, and the gepants class of migraine medicines—exist because of insights from basic research.

Synchronized signals in non-neuronal retinal cells draw the tiny compartments of a fruit fly's compound eye into alignment during pupal development.

Four experts weigh in on how to establish ethical guardrails for research on the 3D neuron clusters as these models become ever more complex.

The dataset contains images of children's faces downloaded from websites about autism, which sparked concerns at Springer Nature about consent and reliability.

Generative artificial intelligence will offer a new way to see, simulate and hypothesize about how animals experience their worlds. In doing so, it could help bridge the long-standing gap between neural function and behavior.

Neuronal activity induced by the psychedelic drug strengthens inputs from sensory brain areas and weakens cortico-cortical recurrent loops.

Machine learning should not be a replacement for human judgment but rather help us embrace the various assumptions and interpretations that shape behavioral research.

The 2013 Nature paper by Mattia Rigotti and his colleagues revealed how mixed selectivity neurons—cells that are not selectively tuned to a stimulus—play a key role in cognition.

Cerebrospinal fluid shows brain-region-specific dynamics, a new high-resolution MRI approach reveals.

Some age-related changes in the brain and in behavior are not solely the result of cognitive decline but rather part of a larger adaptive process.

Many well-known perimenopause symptoms arise in the brain, but we still know little about the specific mechanisms at play. More research—in both animals and humans—is essential.

Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy changes put the future of such advances at risk.

Called U.S. Public Research Benefits, the database showcases the value of basic science in an easy and accessible format.

Eight researchers explain how they are using large language models to analyze the literature, brainstorm hypotheses and interact with complex datasets.

Adopting an engineering mindset will help the field focus its research priorities.

The findings add fuel to the long-running debate over how an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory signaling contributes to the autism.

With lower-than-average article processing fees, and issues dedicated to topics important to the continent, the journal hopes to give African neuroscience research much-needed international visibility.

Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions.

The biochemist, who died last month at age 92, was part of the first neurobiology department in the world and showed that gamma-aminobutyric acid is inhibitory.

Human-specific duplicates of SRGAP2 prolong cortical development by manipulating SYNGAP, an autism-linked protein that slows synaptic growth.