Explore every episode of the podcast Audio research news

The current Autism CARES Act sunsets in late September.

Nicole Rust describes her career-changing literary journey of joy, free will and the evolution of a field.

New research is resurfacing old ideas about where the protein forms the disease’s hallmark plaques.

Old heuristics to acknowledge contributors—calling out first and last authors, with everyone else in between—don’t work well for large collaborative and interdisciplinary projects, yet they remain the default.

Emerging methods make it possible to combine the two tactics from opposite ends of the analytic spectrum, enabling scientists to have their cake and eat it too.

As a new professor, I was caught off guard by one part of the job: my role as an evaluator.

Her advocacy work aided the discovery of a rare inherited form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and helped connect affected people with researchers.

Follow these four tips to avoid using the information in problematic ways, including as a proxy for environmental variables.

Sympathetic neurons pepper the embryos of the jawless fish—Earth’s first vertebrates—and overturn the idea that “fight or flight” was an innovation of jawed vertebrates.

The feedback could lead to “novel ways” to conduct studies and reduce health disparities, a National Institutes of Health employee says.

The facility’s institutional review board failed to report a 2021 incident and “serious and ongoing noncompliance” by a principal investigator, according to a letter released by the federal agency this week.

Faulty mTOR signaling, implicated in syndromic forms of autism, also hinders cells grown from people with idiopathic autism or autism-linked deletions on chromosome 16.

Few institutions have mechanisms for the type of long-term positions that would best benefit the science.

We found an issue with a specific type of brain imaging study and tried to share it with the field. Then the backlash began.

Technological advancements have made it possible to study animals in more natural settings, but researchers are debating what that really means and whether natural is always better.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health wants to regulate research involving cephalopods. But there aren’t enough rigorous studies to base the regulations on, veteran cephalopod researchers say.

The retraction follows an editorial expression of concern that the journal applied to the paper in October, seven months after it was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Activity in the tiny brain region helps submissive rodents learn to avoid aggressors, and aggressive mice to curb their attacks, according to two recent studies.

The award-winning researcher’s discoveries have changed the way we think about the brain; that’s exactly what her critics dislike.

The cerebellum swelled in size before flight evolved among modern birds’ dinosaur ancestors, according to a new comparison of fossilized skulls and living birds.

New technology that delivers much more than a simple DNA sequence could have a major impact on brain research, enabling researchers to study transcript diversity, imprinting and more.

Nerve cells in the brain and throughout the body can turbocharge tumor growth — a finding that not only expands conventional ideas about the nervous system but points to novel therapeutic targets for a range of malignancies.

People with electrodes embedded deep in their brain are collaborating with a growing posse of plucky researchers to uncover the mysteries of real-world recall.

This statistical error is common in systems neuroscience. Fortunately, straightforward methods can help you prevent it.

To make data truly reusable, we need to invest in data curators, who help people enter the information into repositories.

The collection offers a glimpse into differences in cell composition — across people and brain regions — that may shape neural function.

More than one-third of a cohort of autistic toddlers no longer meet criteria for the condition at school age, according to a new study, but the findings may not generalize because the cohort is predominantly white and affluent.

After 10 years of work, Neurona may have the data to quiet its skeptics. But its ongoing clinical trial will be the ultimate test.

The mutations disrupt protein translation as well as the cell’s skeleton, according to a new study.

Increasing or reducing the levels of the UBE3A gene, which is associated with autism and autism-related syndromes, results in altered patterns of synaptic pruning — a process that snips away brain cell connections.

Autism researchers can’t agree on how far to go to validate the input they gather from minimally verbal autistic people who use certain communication devices.

A genome-wide association study lays a foundation for deeper investigation of these variants in neurodevelopmental conditions.

Postdoctoral positions are relatively short, so starting out on the right foot can make all the difference. Researchers offer their advice for making that happen.

The underlying regional neurobiology of the conditions may differ from person to person.

Brains made of neurons from two species raise new concerns.

The new tool could help clinicians diagnose autism in children younger than 3, the findings show.

A protective pathway that pauses protein synthesis is muted in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome, according to a new study.

Jammed online surveys and invaded video calls are forcing researchers to rethink their outreach methods.

Most children with the condition, however, gain communication and social abilities over time.

The findings in rhesus macaque monkeys may provide clues to sex differences in the heredity of social behavior in people.

Brain scans of hundreds of infants suggest that up to 80 percent of those with autism have unusual amounts of cerebrospinal fluid. Researchers are studying how this might contribute to the condition.

Academics are not always aware of the standards — both explicit and implicit — that are used to assess them for promotion. We explore these expectations and more in this month’s issue of the Spectrum Launch newsletter.

The most prevalent conditions include obesity, neurological disorders, anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

The 4-year-old journal focuses on research that aims to improve the lives of autistic adults.

The New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City is undergoing an audit and a change in leadership following a suicide that occurred during one of its clinical trials.

The insect-cognition researcher has done his work across continents, but Argentina is never far from his mind.

A speech-language pathologist by training, Wetherby has spent more than four decades developing tools to help identify and treat autism early; now her work has taken on a more personal sense of urgency.

The mutation increases the activity of an autism-linked protein and leads to social difficulties and other behavioral differences in mice.

Children with congenital heart disease have an increased likelihood of autism. Why?

The request is energizing scientists investigating autistic people who largely don’t communicate with spoken words.