Spectrum sources and reporters share which sessions they are most excited to attend at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, which starts on Saturday.

Representation was the theme of this this week, with a deep discussion on ‘profound autism’ and info about an upcoming conference.

Here is a roundup of news and research for the week of 31 October.

This month’s issue is packed with tips for early-career researchers heading to the first in-person meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in three years.

The open-source software makes it possible to overlay disparate datasets and potentially accelerate hypothesis generation.

Recent Twitter threads explore a new approach to autism diagnosis, a mysterious genetic region and social determinants of health.

Here is a roundup of news and research for the week of 24 October.

The technique could be used to identify and control cells involved in autism.

My experience at the Autism-Europe International Congress — and as a parent of a child with profound autism — makes me more convinced than ever that we need to bifurcate the diagnosis of ‘autism spectrum disorder’ and add a new diagnosis of ‘profound autism’ to better serve this vulnerable population.

The developmental models have advantages over natural embryos and other synthetic models, such as organoids, but present technical and ethical challenges.