Despite evidence for a role in plasticity and other crucial functions, many neuroscientists still view these proteins as “brain goop.” The field needs technical advances and a shift in scientific thinking to move beyond this outdated perspective.Source: Spectrum News

The findings—providing “the next step in the whole pathway”—help explain the disease’s late onset and offer hope that it has an extended therapeutic window.Source: Spectrum News

Genetic variants on the X chromosome, including those in the gene DDX53, contribute to autism’s gender imbalance, two new studies suggest.Source: Spectrum News

Brief, seconds-long microarousals during deep sleep “ride on the wave” of locus coeruleus activity in mice and correlate with periods of waste clearing and memory consolidation, new research suggests.Source: Spectrum News

In his book “The Complex World,” Krakauer explores how complexity science developed, from its early roots to the four pillars that now define it—entropy, evolution, dynamics and computation.Source: Spectrum News

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 13 January.Source: Spectrum News

Among other reasons, this tradition helps researchers rekindle the unfettered joy that initially brought them to the field. Source: Spectrum News

Maguire, mastermind of the famous London taxi-driver study, broadened the field and championed the importance of spatial representations in memory. Source: Spectrum News

The overlapping activity in the animals’ nucleus accumbens may underpin pair bonding, a new preprint suggests.Source: Spectrum News

The finding may help explain autism’s association with multiple co-occurring conditions that involve cilia defects.Source: Spectrum News

Neuronal and non-neuronal cells throughout the brain also express genes—particularly those related to neuronal structure and immune function—differently in aged mice, according to a new atlas.Source: Spectrum News

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 6 January.Source: Spectrum News

The majority of cells in the cerebral cortex are unspecialized, according to an unpublished analysis—and scientists need to take care in naming neurons, the researchers warn.Source: Spectrum News

This paper taught me that we can use mathematical modeling to understand how neural networks are organized—and led me to a doctoral program in the department led by its authors.Source: Spectrum News