Cell types

Recent articles

Cortical organoids.

Five-year-old human brain organoids aged on schedule

The cultured spheres typically mimic only prenatal development, but the five-year-old ones grown in Paola Arlotta’s lab acquired postnatal features.

By Claudia López Lloreda
19 August 2026 | 5 min read

Textbook model of hippocampus’s role in memory may need updating

The CA3 region, long thought to have just one circuit, has two, sporting different wiring and functions, a new preprint suggests.

By Alissa de Chassey
4 August 2026 | 5 min read
Research image of brain cells involved with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) illuminated through genetic tools

Allen Institute sets sights on treatments for five brain diseases

The Brain Health Accelerator program aims to harness single-cell transcriptomics and cell-type-specific genetic tools to develop treatments for Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases, Lewy body dementia and ALS.

By Calli McMurray
2 June 2026 | 5 min read
Research image of patterns of expression of autosomal genes.

Gene activity in human cortex shows striking sex differences

The results mark a “dramatic shift” in how neuroscientists think about sex differences, and they may help explain sex biases in certain neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental conditions.

By Lauren Schenkman
5 May 2026 | 5 min read

Liset de la Prida explains how neuron subtypes may control the activity of large neural populations, from manifolds to ripples

De la Prida's work analyzing the varieties of sharp wave ripples in the hippocampus led to her discovery that specific types of neurons control the properties of neural manifolds.

By Paul Middlebrooks
22 April 2026 | 104 min listen
Illustration of flocking birds.

From genes to dynamics: Examining brain cell types in action may reveal the logic of brain function

Defining brain cell types is no longer a matter of classification alone, but of embedding their genetic identities within the dynamical organization of population activity.

By Liset M. de la Prida
9 February 2026 | 6 min read
Progenitors cells in the medial ganglionic eminence become increasingly organized during development as rows of brain imaging progress from top to bottom.

‘Tour de force’ study flags fount of interneurons in human brain

The newly discovered cell type might point to the origins of the inhibitory imbalance linked to autism and other conditions.

By Holly Barker
29 January 2026 | 4 min read
Research image of the human dorsal root ganglion.

‘Unprecedented’ dorsal root ganglion atlas captures 22 types of human sensory neurons

The atlas also offers up molecular and cellular targets for new pain therapies.

By Calli McMurray
23 December 2025 | 5 min read
Research image of human thalamus.

Among brain changes studied in autism, spotlight shifts to subcortex

The striatum and thalamus are more likely than the cerebral cortex to express autism variants or bear transcriptional changes, two unpublished studies find.

By Holly Barker
11 December 2025 | 5 min read
Mouse brain slices and atlases.

Constellation of studies charts brain development, offers ‘dramatic revision’

The atlases could pinpoint pathways that determine the fate of cells linked to neurodevelopmental conditions.

By Holly Barker
5 November 2025 | 6 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of a coral, sea urchin, snail, and fish.

Climate neuroscience needs ‘integration’ and ‘guided’ research

Five years after a groundbreaking paper, can a young field move beyond piecemeal studies?

By Sarah DeWeerdt
21 August 2026 | 7 min read
Neuronal genes SATB2 and MEF2C.

Nuclear location helps control gene activity during brain development

A study of developing human brain tissue suggests that genes switch on more strongly when they move from the nucleus’s edge toward structures that contain proteins involved in making and processing RNA.

By Giorgia Guglielmi
20 August 2026 | 4 min read