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Illustration of men’s and women’s faces.

Males and females show different patterns of risk for brain-based conditions. Ignoring these differences does us all a disservice.

Although studying sex differences in the brain is complex, technically awkward and socioculturally loaded, it is absolutely essential.

By Armin Raznahan
9 December 2024 | 9 min listen
Research image of mouse cells.

Immune cell interlopers breach—and repair—brain barrier in mice

The choroid plexus, the protective network of blood vessels and epithelial cells that line the brain’s ventricles, recruits neutrophils and macrophages during inflammation, a new study shows.

By Claudia López Lloreda
20 November 2024 | 6 min listen
Illustration of a brain overlaid with circles containing flowers and circuit-like networks, among other images.

NeuroAI: A field born from the symbiosis between neuroscience, AI

As the history of this nascent discipline reveals, neuroscience has inspired advances in artificial intelligence, and AI has provided a testing ground for models in neuroscience, accelerating progress in both fields.

By Anthony Zador
11 November 2024 | 7 min listen
Research image of fMRI scans on a black background.

Timing tweak turns trashed fMRI scans into treasure

Leveraging start-up “dummy scans,” which are typically discarded in imaging analyses, can shorten an experiment’s length and make data collection more efficient, a new study reveals.

By Angie Voyles Askham
30 October 2024 | 6 min listen
A collage illustration of a woman’s face fragmented by a mosaic of X chromosomes, lines and shapes.

Brains, biases and amyloid beta: Why the female brain deserves a closer look in Alzheimer’s research

New results suggest the disease progresses differently in women, but we need more basic science to unpack the mechanisms involved.

By Rachel Buckley
22 October 2024 | 8 min listen
Illustration of three columns of text with certain passages underlined and circled.

This paper changed my life: ‘Spontaneous cortical activity reveals hallmarks of an optimal internal model of the environment,’ from the Fiser Lab

Fiser’s work taught me how to think about grounding computational models in biologically plausible implementations.

By Megan Peters
16 October 2024 | 6 min listen
Illustration of three figures standing in front of a grid of dots and a world map.

The S-index Challenge: Develop a metric to quantify data-sharing success

The NIH-sponsored effort aims to help incentivize scientists to share data. But many barriers to the widespread adoption of useful data-sharing remain.

By Loren Frank
8 October 2024 | 6 min listen
Illustration of a lab with a smoking crater in the middle of the floor.

A scientific fraud. An investigation. A lab in recovery.

Science is built on trust. What happens when someone destroys it?

By Calli McMurray
4 October 2024 | 27 min listen
Research image of brain scans showing the structural integrity of white-matter tracts.

Repeat scans reveal brain changes that precede childbirth

A detailed look at a “pregnant brain” highlights a need to investigate the neural alterations that occur during a transition experienced by nearly 140 million people worldwide each year.

By Shaena Montanari
16 September 2024 | 9 min listen
Illustration of cranes attempting to assemble a structure out of very small black squares.

Reconstructing dopamine’s link to reward

The field is grappling with whether to modify the long-standing theory of reward prediction error—or abandon it entirely.

By Angie Voyles Askham
13 September 2024 | 20 min listen

Explore more from The Transmitter

Remembering Eleanor Maguire, ‘trailblazer’ of human memory

Maguire, mastermind of the famous London taxi-driver study, broadened the field and championed the importance of spatial representations in memory.

By Calli McMurray
10 January 2025 | 8 min read
Two prairie voles touch snouts in a tank.

Brain gene expression syncs between bonded prairie voles

The overlapping activity in the animals’ nucleus accumbens may underpin pair bonding, a new preprint suggests.

By Shaena Montanari
10 January 2025 | 5 min read
Research image of frog cells.

Many autism-linked proteins influence hair-like cilia on human brain cells

The finding may help explain autism’s association with multiple co-occurring conditions that involve cilia defects.

By Charles Q. Choi
9 January 2025 | 4 min read