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'Slightly unhinged' federal autism meeting portends unclear research priorities
07 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The meeting last week sparked concerns about the latest Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee’s ability to perform its core function: developing...
Microglia in hypothalamus help kick-start puberty
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a “surprise” role, the cells regulate the neurons that produce gonadotropin-releasing hormone.
Gene activity in human cortex shows striking sex differences
05 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The results mark a “dramatic shift” in how neuroscientists think about sex differences, and they may help explain sex biases in certain neurodegen...
Switching neural code may solve ongoing face-recognition debate
23 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Frameshift: How Mia Thomaidou tapped a fellowship to connect neuroscience to criminal justice
21 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
As a fellow at the Dana Foundation, she merged two familiar passions and discovered a new one: science philanthropy.
To understand decision-making, we need to truly challenge lab animals
20 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Complex, multidimensional tasks that unfold over time could reveal how different brain areas work together to support decisions.
Nearly 400 compounds affect behaviors tied to autism-linked genes in zebrafish
16 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Estropipate, paclitaxel and levocarnitine altered behaviors tied to SCN2A and DYRK1A variants specifically, a new open-source platform revealed.
Arousal neurons' activity explains brain's blood flow dynamics in mice
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The findings could influence how researchers interpret signals from techniques that use blood flow as a surrogate for neuronal activity.
This paper changed my life: Erin Calipari ponders the nuances of rewarding and aversive stimuli
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Why neural foundation models work, and what they might-and might not-teach us about the brain
13 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
These models can partly generalize across species, brain regions and tasks, suggesting that a set of machine-learnable rules govern neural population ...
Error equation predicts brain's ability to generalize
10 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Four statistical measurements of neural network geometry capture how well brains and artificial networks use what they already know to solve new probl...
Embrace complexity to improve the translatability of basic neuroscience
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Researchers must learn to view heterogeneity as an essential feature of the systems they study and a central consideration in experimental design, not...
Frameshift: How Caitlin Vander Weele made science communication her business
19 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Her favorite part of research was talking about it. So she left academia and turned that passion into a successful company.
Signs of aging vary across brain cells
18 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Senescence presents differently depending on the cell type, toxic trigger and neighboring cells, two new studies find.
Neuroscientists challenge NIH's proposed human-data access policy
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The changes would restrict the sharing of human neuroimaging, transcriptomic and genetic data.
Large-scale neuroimaging datasets often lack information specific to women's health, constraining AI's analysis potential
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Addressing this gap will require collecting widespread data on pregnancy, menopause and other life events women experience—and could bring us closer...
Remembering Annette Dolphin, who helped explain gabapentin's effects
13 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The “intuitive” neuropharmacologist pushed against the status quo.
Revised statistical bar extracts less-common variants from autism genetics studies
12 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Adjusting genetic analyses could help plug autism’s heritability gap, according to a new preprint.
This paper changed my life: Talia Lerner reflects on dopamine neuron diversity and the value of simple experiments
11 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In a 2011 Neuron study, Stephan Lammel and his colleagues showed that dopamine neurons with different projections have different physiological propert...
Hippocampus builds reputation as 'general-purpose statistical learning machine'
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
New cross-species findings may help settle a long-standing debate about whether the hippocampus is required for passive learning.
Securing the academic pipeline amid uncertain U.S. funding climate
09 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Finding creative ways to keep early-career researchers in academia—for example, through part-time roles—can help the field weather the storm.
Shifting neural code powers speech comprehension
05 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dynamic coding helps explain how the brain processes multiple features of speech—from the smallest units of sounds to full sentences—simultaneousl...
Astrocytes orchestrate oxytocin's social effects in mice
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The cells amplify oxytocin—and may be responsible for sex differences in social behavior, two preprints find.
Neuro's ark: Spying on the secret sensory world of ticks
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Carola Städele, a self-proclaimed “tick magnet,” studies the arachnids’ sensory neurobiology—in other words, how these tiny parasites zero i...
Lack of reviewers threatens robustness of neuroscience literature
02 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Simple math suggests that small groups of scientists can significantly bias peer review.
Post-infection immune conflict alters fetal development in some male mice
26 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The immune-conflict between dam and fetus could help explain sex differences in neurodevelopmental conditions.
Is there a neuroscientist in the House?
25 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Wang, a neuroscientist running for the U.S. House of Representatives, has been considering American democracy for decades.
Infant visual system categorizes common objects by 2 months of age
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Brain activity patterns in the ventral visual cortex appear to distinguish images across 12 categories, including birds and trees, longitudinal functi...
Frameshift: Raphe Bernier followed his heart out of academia, then made his way back again
20 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
After a clinical research career, an interlude at Apple and four months in early retirement, Raphe Bernier found joy in teaching.
Organoid study reveals shared brain pathways across autism-linked variants
19 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The genetic variants initially affect brain development in unique ways, but over time they converge on common molecular pathways.
Neuroscience needs single-synapse studies
17 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Studying individual synapses has the potential to help neuroscientists develop new theories, better understand brain disorders and reevaluate 70 years...
Neuroscience has a species problem
16 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
If our field is serious about building general principles of brain function, cross-species dialogue must become a core organizing principle rather tha...
Oligodendrocytes need mechanical cues to myelinate axons correctly
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Without the mechanosensor TMEM63A, the cells cannot deposit the appropriate amount of insulation, according to a new study.
Aging neurons outsource garbage disposal, clog microglia
10 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
From genes to dynamics: Examining brain cell types in action may reveal the logic of brain function
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Defining brain cell types is no longer a matter of classification alone, but of embedding their genetic identities within the dynamical organization o...
Oregon primate research center to negotiate with NIH on possible transition to sanctuary
09 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The board of directors at Oregon Health & Science University, which runs the primate center, voted unanimously in favor of the move.
Cerebellum responds to language like cortical areas
06 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
One of four language-responsive cerebellar regions may encode meaningful information, much like the cortical language network in the left hemisphere, ...
Neuro's ark: Understanding fast foraging with star-nosed moles
04 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“MacArthur genius” Kenneth Catania outlined the physiology behind the moles’ stellar foraging skills two decades ago. Next, he wants to better c...
Largest leucovorin-autism trial retracted
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A reanalysis of the data revealed errors and failed to replicate the results.
NIH scraps policy that classified basic research in people as clinical trials
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The policy aimed to increase the transparency of research in humans but created “a bureaucratic nightmare” for basic neuroscientists.
Cell atlas cracks open 'black box' of mammalian spinal cord development
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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....
Betting blind on AI and the scientific mind
02 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Viral remnant in chimpanzees silences brain gene humans still use
27 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The retroviral insert appears to inadvertently switch off a gene involved in brain development.
Why emotion research is stuck-and how to move it forward
26 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Studying how organisms infer indirect threats and understand changing contexts can establish a common framework that bridges species and levels of ana...
How artificial agents can help us understand social recognition
16 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Common and rare variants shape distinct genetic architecture of autism in African Americans
15 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Certain gene variants may have greater weight in determining autism likelihood for some populations, a new study shows.
Bringing African ancestry into cellular neuroscience
14 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Two independent teams in Africa are developing stem cell lines and organoids from local populations to explore neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerativ...
Computational psychiatry needs systems neuroscience
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Dissecting different parallel processing streams may help us understand the mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms, such as delusions, and unite h...
This paper changed my life: John Tuthill reflects on the subjectivity of selfhood
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Wittlinger, Wehner and Wolf’s 2006 “stilts and stumps” Science paper revealed how ants pull off extraordinary feats of navigation using a biolog...
Cracking the neural code for emotional states
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Rather than act as a simple switchboard for innate behaviors, the hypothalamus encodes an animal’s internal state, which influences behavior.
Some facial expressions are less reflexive than previously thought
08 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A countenance such as a grimace activates many of the same cortical pathways as voluntary facial movements.
Neuro's ark: How goats can model neurodegeneration
06 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Since debunking an urban legend that headbutting animals don’t damage their brain, Nicole Ackermans has been investigating how the behavior correlat...
The 1,000 neuron challenge
05 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
A competition to design small, efficient neural models might provide new insight into real brains—and perhaps unite disparate modeling efforts.
Remembering Adam Kampff, neuroscience educator and researcher
24 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kampff’s do-it-yourself approach inspired a generation of neuroscientists.
'Unprecedented' dorsal root ganglion atlas captures 22 types of human sensory neurons
23 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The atlas also offers up molecular and cellular targets for new pain therapies.
Not playing around: Why neuroscience needs toy models
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Psychedelics research in rodents has a behavior problem
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Simple behavioral assays—originally validated as drug-screening tools—fall short in studies that aim to unpack the psychedelic mechanism of action...
New organoid atlas unveils four neurodevelopmental signatures
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The comprehensive resource details data on microcephaly, polymicrogyria, epilepsy and intellectual disability from 352 people.
AI-assisted coding: 10 simple rules to maintain scientific rigor
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
These guidelines can help researchers ensure the integrity of their work while accelerating progress on important scientific questions.
How basic neuroscience has paved the path to new drugs
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A growing list of medications—such as zuranolone for postpartum depression, suzetrigine for pain, and the gepants class of migraine medicines—exis...
Waves of calcium activity dictate eye structure in flies
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Synchronized signals in non-neuronal retinal cells draw the tiny compartments of a fruit fly’s compound eye into alignment during pupal development....
What is the future of organoid and assembloid regulation?
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Four experts weigh in on how to establish ethical guardrails for research on the 3D neuron clusters as these models become ever more complex.
Seeing the world as animals do: How to leverage generative AI for ecological neuroscience
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Generative artificial intelligence will offer a new way to see, simulate and hypothesize about how animals experience their worlds. In doing so, it co...
Exclusive: Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications that trained neural networks on 'bonkers' dataset
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The dataset contains images of children’s faces downloaded from websites about autism, which sparked concerns at Springer Nature about consent and r...
Psilocybin rewires specific mouse cortical networks in lasting ways
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Neuronal activity induced by the psychedelic drug strengthens inputs from sensory brain areas and weakens cortico-cortical recurrent loops.
Beyond the algorithmic oracle: Rethinking machine learning in behavioral neuroscience
03 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Machine learning should not be a replacement for human judgment but rather help us embrace the various assumptions and interpretations that shape beha...
This paper changed my life: Nancy Padilla-Coreano on learning the value of population coding
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 2013 Nature paper by Mattia Rigotti and his colleagues revealed how mixed selectivity neurons—cells that are not selectively tuned to a stimulus...
Noninvasive method lifts curtain on cerebrospinal-fluid dance in human brain
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cerebrospinal fluid shows brain-region-specific dynamics, a new high-resolution MRI approach reveals.
Aging as adaptation: Learning the brain's recipe for resilience
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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.
Perimenopause: An important-and understudied-transition for the brain
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Many well-known perimenopause symptoms arise in the brain, but we still know little about the specific mechanisms at play. More research—in both ani...
Without monkeys, neuroscience has no future
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy ...
Our searchable repository of useful research can restore trust in federally funded basic science
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Called U.S. Public Research Benefits, the database showcases the value of basic science in an easy and accessible format.
How neuroscientists are using AI
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eight researchers explain how they are using large language models to analyze the literature, brainstorm hypotheses and interact with complex datasets...
Neuroscience needs engineers-for more reasons than you think
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adopting an engineering mindset will help the field focus its research priorities.
Ramping up cortical activity in early life sparks autism-like behaviors in mice
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The findings add fuel to the long-running debate over how an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory signaling contributes to the autism.
First Pan-African neuroscience journal gets ready to launch
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With lower-than-average article processing fees, and issues dedicated to topics important to the continent, the journal hopes to give African neurosci...
The missing half of the neurodynamical systems theory
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functi...
Remembering GABA pioneer Edward Kravitz
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Protein tug-of-war controls pace of synaptic development, sets human brains apart
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Human-specific duplicates of SRGAP2 prolong cortical development by manipulating SYNGAP, an autism-linked protein that slows synaptic growth.
Neurons tune electron transport chain to survive onslaught of noxious stimuli
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nociceptors tamp down the production of reactive oxygen species in response to heat, chemical irritants or toxins.
This paper changed my life: Sandra Jurado marvels at the first-ever 3D model of a synaptic vesicle
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this 2006 Cell paper, Shigeo Takamori and his colleagues showcased the molecular machinery of synaptic vesicles in outstanding detail. Their work t...
Diving in with Nachum Ulanovsky
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
With an eye toward realism, the neuroscientist, who has a new study about bats out today, creates microcosms of the natural world to understand animal...
Gene-activity map of developing brain reveals new clues about autism's sex bias
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Boys and girls may be vulnerable to different genetic changes, which could help explain why the condition is more common in boys despite linked varian...
Engrams in amygdala lean on astrocytes to solidify memories
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Disrupting the astrocyte-neuronal dynamic in mice destabilizes their memory of fear conditioning.
Ant olfactory neurons reveal new 'transcriptional shield' mechanism of gene regulation
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A protective screen of spurious transcriptional activity enables each olfactory neuron to express exactly one out of hundreds of olfactory receptors.
New questions around motor neurons and plasticity
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A researcher’s theory hangs muscle degeneration on a broken neural circuit.
One year of FlyWire: How the resource is redefining Drosophila research
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We asked nine neuroscientists how they are using FlyWire data in their labs, how the connectome has transformed the field and what new tools they woul...
Neurons fuel lung tumors that have spread to brain
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Functional synapses between brain cells and cancer cells are key to the metastatic growth, according to new findings from two independent teams.
Why we need basic science to better understand the neurobiology of psychedelics
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the many psychedelics clinical trials underway, there is still much we don’t know about how these drugs work. Preclinical studies represent ...
Reproducibility is a team sport: Lessons from a large-scale collaboration
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Building reproducible systems across labs is possible, even in large-scale neuroscience projects. You just need rigor, collaboration and the willingne...
Local circuit loops within body control fly behavior, new 'embodied' connectome reveals
24 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The mapping, which traces how the central nervous system interacts with the rest of the body, challenges the idea that behavior control is centralized...
Autism experts question HHS statements on Tylenol, leucovorin
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Concerns include the administration’s reliance on weak, correlational evidence rather than established research.
Beyond Newtonian causation in neuroscience: Embracing complex causality
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The traditional mechanistic framework must give way to a richer understanding of how brains actually generate behavior over time.
This paper changed my life: Dan Goodman on a paper that reignited the field of spiking neural networks
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Friedemann Zenke’s 2019 paper, and its related coding tutorial SpyTorch, made it possible to apply modern machine learning to spiking neural network...
First nerve-net connectome shows how evolutionarily ancient nervous system coordinates movement
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The map of a comb jelly’s aboral nerve net, which helps the animal orient and position itself within the water column, reveals a unique system for s...
Paper by memory institute director garners expression of concern over image integrity
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The notice, posted last week in Nature, follows a recent string of corrections to at least three other articles by Li-Huei Tsai’s lab.
International scientific collaboration is more necessary-yet more challenging-than ever
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
These partnerships accelerate neuroscience by enabling researchers to share resources and expertise, as well as generate more relevant and reproducibl...
Sensory gatekeeper drives seizures, autism-like behaviors in mouse model
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The new work, in mice missing the autism-linked gene CNTNAP2, suggests a mechanism to help explain the overlap between epilepsy and autism.
Mitochondria set 'ancient' metabolic thermostat for sleep in flies, separate from circadian rhythms
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
During waking hours, a specialized set of sleep neurons in the fly brain accumulates reactive oxygen species, which eventually trigger sleep to clean ...
Building the future of neuroscience at HBCUs
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Black In Neuro is launching a new program to help historically Black colleges and universities advance neuroscience research and education, focusing o...