Motor skills

Recent articles

leech illustration.

What leeches reveal about movement

Lidia Szczupak turned to the animals to explore how the nervous system coordinates movement.

By Claudia López Lloreda
1 May 2026 | 6 min read

Arboreal deer mice reveal neural roots of dexterity

The rodents offered researchers an opportunity to link genetically driven changes in corticospinal abundance and morphology to climbing cachet.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
8 April 2026 | 0 min watch
Child playing with blocks.

Structure of striatum varies by sex in autistic children

The changes could reflect different developmental trajectories between boys and girls with autism, a new study suggests.

By Holly Barker
27 February 2025 | 4 min read

Karen Adolph explains how we develop our ability to move through the world

How do babies' bodies and their environment teach them to move—and how can robots benefit from these insights?

By Paul Middlebrooks
25 October 2024 | 89 min listen
Photograph of Eugenia Chiappe jumping inside a glass hallway.

Decoding flies’ motor control with acrobat-scientist Eugenia Chiappe

The tiny performers steal the show in Chiappe’s sensorimotor-integration lab in Lisbon, Portugal.

By Elissa Welle
7 May 2024 | 6 min read
Multiple exposure of Rujuta Wilson facing the camera, and walking along her gait mat.

A new look at walking in early childhood: Q&A with Rujuta Wilson

Quantifying toddlers’ gaits promises to improve autism diagnosis and intervention.

By Charles Q. Choi
14 March 2024 | 6 min read
A child uses a tablet device

New tablet-based tools to spot autism draw excitement — and questions

Handheld devices promise to bring autism detection home, but many researchers urge caution.

By Charles Q. Choi
4 January 2024 | 8 min read
Three groups of people meet and mix at a crossroads.

Year in Review: Spectrum’s best in 2023

Here are five must-reads from our coverage of autism research over the past 12 months.

28 December 2023 | 4 min read
A colorful silhouette of a hand.

Glow-in-the-dark labels accelerate AI-assisted animal motion tracking

The labeling technique trains machine-learning algorithms with larger datasets and less effort than ever before.

By Celia Ford
13 November 2023 | 5 min read
Research image of neurons.

Abundant motor proteins disrupt cries in FOXP2 mice

Knocking down the gene that codes for the proteins normalizes the vocalizations.

By Laura Dattaro, Maaisha Osman
28 July 2023 | 3 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of chair and a desk made of open data.

How to incorporate open-science practices into neuroscience training

If we want emerging neuroscientists to implement open science throughout their careers, we need to establish its practices as a core principle of training.

By Kaitlyn Casimo
10 June 2026 | 6 min read

A new atlas of abstracts visualizes the field of human brain mapping—where does your work fit?

Satrajit Ghosh talks to Mac Shine about a community-built tool that places every abstract from the 2026 Organization for Human Brain Mapping meeting inside a semantic map of the broader neuroscience literature. Finding your neighbors in that space might matter more than you think.

By Mac Shine
9 June 2026 | 40 min watch
Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Key role of interferon 1 in maternal immune activation, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 1 June.

By Jill Adams
9 June 2026 | 2 min read