Systems neuroscience

Recent articles

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Catch up on what you missed from our recent coverage, and get breaking news alerts.

Two trajectories cross over each other showing areas of alignment and misalignment.

Mind over metrics: How can we tell if two brains (or AI models) are alike?

The ability to record from large populations of neurons has triggered the development of myriad methods for comparing them. But we’re still grappling with how to convert measures of likeness into a better mechanistic understanding.

By Alex Williams
17 August 2026 | 7 min read

New findings begin to resolve theta sweep debate

Theta sweeps have been mired in controversy for decades, but the field is starting to converge on a consensus view of their function.

By Natalia Mesa
6 August 2026 | 1 min watch
Dendrite.

Dendrites compute independently of cell body

Depending on their distance from the cell body, dendrites play different roles in learning and memory.

By Natalia Mesa
29 July 2026 | 5 min read
Research image of mouse brain.

Making waves: Sleep-like brain activity in awake mice lowers sleep need, boosts memory

Alternating on/off firing patterns don’t just characterize deep, slow-wave sleep, they drive some of its restorative benefits, new findings suggest.

By Alissa de Chassey
16 July 2026 | 4 min read
Two lab mice fighting.

From friend to foe: How the brain updates feelings toward others

A specific hippocampus-to-amygdala pathway reassigns emotional valence to a known individual, whereas the hippocampus’s own representation of that individual’s identity remains stable.

By Natalia Mesa
9 July 2026 | 5 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Links between tuberous sclerosis complex and autism, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 17 August.

By Jill Adams
18 August 2026 | 1 min read
Taylor Bolt photo illustration.

The fun and flexibility of data science

Taylor Bolt spent his Ph.D. and postdoc digging through brain imaging data for clues to cognition. In industry, the datasets are different but the joy of answering questions with data remains.

By Katie Moisse
18 August 2026 | 7 min read
Mice playing, engaged in learning and memory: some of their brains are yellow, and some are red, matching a red and yellow legend that runs through the image to underscore both memory and learning.

Este artículo cambió mi vida: Un descubrimiento técnico para estudios de la memoria

En un artículo de Science del 2007, Mark Mayford y sus compañeros encontraron neuronas activadas durante el aprendizaje son reclutadas durante la recuperación de la memoria. Noela Weisstaub comparte como este estudio y otros impulsaron una era de gran progreso en el desarrollo de herramientas

By Noelia Weisstaub
14 August 2026 | 5 min read