Representation

Recent articles

Cortical area remixes macaques’ knowledge blocks to solve new problems

When monkeys draw complex shapes, their neural activity reflects patterns of activation elicited by drawing simpler, component shapes.

By Lauren Schenkman
19 June 2026 | 0 min watch
Book cover of The Brain, In Theory by Romain Brette.

‘The Brain, In Theory,’ an excerpt

In his new book, Brette pushes back against theories that describe the brain as a “biological computer.” In this excerpt from Chapter 4, he challenges equating brain evolution with programming, and the universality of neural network models.

By Romain Brette
7 April 2026 | 5 min read

Head direction cells stably orient mice to outside world

The cells’ representations show little drift over time—unlike those of other navigation system neurons—and may provide a “rigid backbone” for more flexible sensory and cognitive responses.

By Angie Voyles Askham
25 March 2026 | 0 min watch
Headshots of Philip Adeniyi, Samir Ahboucha, Willias Masocha and Daniel Gams Massi.

First Pan-African neuroscience journal gets ready to launch

With lower-than-average article processing fees, and issues dedicated to topics important to the continent, the journal hopes to give African neuroscience research much-needed international visibility.

By Lauren Schenkman
28 October 2025 | 4 min read

What do neuroscientists mean when they use the term ‘representation’?

A group of neuroscientists and philosophers discuss the use and misuse of the term "representation" across the cognitive sciences and how it influences the way we interpret the connection between neural, behavioral and mental activity.

By Paul Middlebrooks
4 June 2025 | 127 min listen
Photograph of the BRIDGE team and students visiting a laboratory.

Sharing Africa’s brain data: Q&A with Amadi Ihunwo

These data are “virtually mandatory” to advance neuroscience, says Ihunwo, a co-investigator of the Brain Research International Data Governance & Exchange (BRIDGE) initiative, which seeks to develop a global framework for sharing, using and protecting neuroscience data.

By Lauren Schenkman
20 May 2025 | 6 min read

Aran Nayebi discusses a NeuroAI update to the Turing test

And he highlights the need to match neural representations across machines and organisms to build better autonomous agents.

By Paul Middlebrooks
9 April 2025 | 104 min listen
Illustration of an image of a landscape repeated over and over again, with some versions distorted and warped.

What makes memories last—dynamic ensembles or static synapses?

Teasing out how different subfields conceptualize central terms might help move this long-standing debate forward. I asked eight scientists to weigh in.

By Jason Shepherd
14 October 2024 | 30 min read
Photograph of a child sitting at a laptop and performing an executive function test.

Brain imaging at the fair with Ka Ip

Does environment affect how children from diverse backgrounds perform on tests of executive function? Ip went to the Minnesota State Fair to find out.

By Angie Voyles Askham
24 September 2024 | 9 min read
Illustration of a frog in front of a composite of images of flora and fauna in the frog’s surroundings.

When do neural representations give rise to mental representations?

To answer this question, consider the animal’s umwelt, or what it needs to know about the world.

By Kevin Mitchell
13 February 2024 | 7 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
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