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Recent articles

An image of a fossil.

Expanding ‘little brain’ may have powered dinosaur flight

The cerebellum swelled in size before flight evolved among modern birds’ dinosaur ancestors, according to a new comparison of fossilized skulls and living birds.

By Annie Melchor
23 February 2024 | 4 min read
Illustration of hands organizing objects of various shapes and sizes.

Simply making data publicly available isn’t enough. We need to make it easy — that requires community buy-in.

I helped create a standard to make it easy to upload, analyze and compare functional MRI data. An ecosystem of tools has since grown up around it, boosting reproducibility and speeding up research.

By Russell Poldrack
17 January 2024 | 7 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Brain Flows book cover

‘Brain Flows: How Network Dynamics Compose the Human Mind,’ an excerpt

In his new book, published today, Michael W. Cole examines how the movement of neuronal activity between neuronal populations shapes free will, intelligence and creativity. In this excerpt from Chapter 1, Cole explores why activity flows could unify efforts to map brain functions and connectivity.

By Michael W. Cole
3 November 2026 | 9 min read
Research image showing copy number variants in prenatal cortical neurons.

Prenatal pruning of neurons with copy number variants; and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 2 November.

By Jill Adams
3 November 2026 | 2 min read

New Stanford initiative aims to build digital twin of human brain

The effort, funded by private donors, seeks to train the model on a trove of MRI and magnetoencephalography data that scientists plan to collect over the next five years—but questions about its scientific utility and feasibility remain.

By Natalia Mesa
2 November 2026 | 0 min watch