Audio research news

Photograph of Carol Jennings.

Carol Jennings, whose family’s genetics informed amyloid cascade hypothesis, dies at 70

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

By Elissa Welle
30 April 2024 | 3 min listen
Community Microphone

How to use race and ethnicity data responsibly in neuroscience research

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

By Gina Jiménez
24 April 2024 | 7 min listen
Research image of a lamprey.
Evolution Microphone

New look at lampreys rewrites textbooks on origins of sympathetic nervous system

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.

By Shaena Montanari
17 April 2024 | 3 min listen
Illustration of hands of different colors reaching out to untangle string that is covering a sheet of paper with text on it.
Policy Microphone

NIH seeks input on how structural racism affects brain research, health

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

By Calli McMurray
17 April 2024 | 7 min listen
Image of a red rectangle against a gray background.
Ethics Microphone

FDA describes ‘objectionable conditions’ at New York State Psychiatric Institute

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.

By Brendan Borrell
2 April 2024 | 6 min listen
Neural progenitor cells in a culture medium, color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph (SEM).
Spectrum Microphone

Autism subgroups converge on cell growth pathway

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.

By Angie Voyles Askham
2 April 2024 | 4 min listen
Illustration of a brain made up of many smaller brains.
fMRI Microphone

Breaking down the winner’s curse: Lessons from brain-wide association studies

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

By Nico Dosenbach, Scott Marek
25 March 2024 | 7 min listen

Wild and free: Understanding animal behavior beyond the lab

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.

By Shaena Montanari
20 March 2024 | 8 min listen
Photograph of a cuttlefish underwater.
Policy Microphone

Knowledge gaps in cephalopod care could stall welfare standards

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.

By Calli McMurray
13 March 2024 | 10 min listen
Two red pencils form a letter X against a surf green background.
Retraction Microphone

Nobel Prize winner Thomas Südhof retracts study

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.

By Shaena Montanari
7 March 2024 | 3 min listen

Explore more from The Transmitter

Picture of two Degus in a cage.

How inbreeding almost tanked an up-and-coming model of Alzheimer’s disease

But new genetic analyses and behavioral assays have made the Chilean degu a viable model again, researchers say.

By Calli McMurray
21 May 2024 | 10 min read
Research image of cerebral blood volume in mouse brains.

Sex-dependent cytokine release; KATNAL2 gene; auditory processing in fragile X syndrome

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 20 May.

By Jill Adams
21 May 2024 | 1 min read

At the credit crossroads: Modern neuroscience needs a cultural shift to adopt new authorship practices

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.

By Megan Peters
20 May 2024 | 9 min read