The Transmitter

10/30/2025

Dutch lawmakers have approved the phase-out of primate research at one of Europe’s biggest facilities. Neuroscientists are worried.

By Lauren Schenkman

The Dutch Senate has ordered the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands to shift its funding away from primate experiments by 2030.

10/30/2025

Hundreds of animal studies about early brain injury after subarachnoid hemorrhage show signs of image manipulation or duplication, which may have stalled research into treatments.

By Lauren Schneider

First-time sleuths found potentially problematic images in hundreds of papers about early brain injury after subarachnoid hemorrhage.

10/30/2025

Over-active excitatory neurons in the cortex in infant mice lead to social deficits, according to a new preprint that study researchers claim can sway the debate over how signaling imbalances contribute to autism.

By Sarah DeWeerdt

The findings add fuel to the long-running debate over how an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory signaling contributes to the autism.

10/30/2025

Psychedelics disrupt the link between vascular and neuronal activity, which complicates interpretations of fMRI data. Adopting a more holistic view of what constitutes brain activity may help.

By Calli McMurray

The drugs disrupt the link between vascular and neuronal activity, which complicates interpretations of fMRI data. Adopting a more holistic view of what constitutes brain activity may help…

10/28/2025

The first Pan-African neuroscience journal, the African Brain Journal, prepares to launch.

By Lauren Schenkman

The new journal hopes to give African neuroscience research much-needed international visibility.

10/27/2025

Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions, writes Xiao-Jing Wang.

Bifurcations—an underexplored concept in neuroscience—can help explain how small differences in neural circuits give rise to entirely novel functions.

10/24/2025

Edward Kravitz, a Harvard biochemist who proved GABA's inhibitory power, passed away last month. He will "be remembered for his humanity, for his social conscience and his desire to help those less fortunate than he,” says Ronald Harris-Warrick.

By Claudia López Lloreda

The biochemist, who died last month at age 92, was part of the first neurobiology department in the world and showed that gamma-aminobutyric acid is inhibitory.

10/23/2025

Why do human synapses take so much longer to form than those in other mammals? Chimeric mice transplanted with human neurons are beginning to provide some answers.

By Holly Barker

Human-specific duplicates of SRGAP2 prolong cortical development by manipulating SYNGAP, an autism-linked protein that slows synaptic growth.

10/22/2025

How is it that some nociceptors—the sensory neurons that detect heat, chemical irritants and toxins—can withstand a lifespan’s worth of exposure to noxious stimuli, whereas others die? New findings reveal how they do it.

By Viviane Callier

Some nociceptors can survive a lifetime’s worth of exposure to noxious stimuli by reducing their mitochondria’s production of reactive oxygen species.

10/22/2025

In the latest episode of Brain Inspired, Vincente Raja suggests that neuroscientists should pay more attention to the principles of Gibsonian ecological psychology, such as affordances, ecological information and resonance.

Neuroscientists should pay attention to the principles of Gibsonian ecological psychology, such as affordances, ecological information and resonance.

10/21/2025

“It resembled a molecular piñata—tiny, spherical and absolutely bursting with surprises inside and out.” Sandra Jurado marvels at the paper that mapped synaptic vesicle structure—the latest in our “This paper changed my life” series.

In this 2006 Cell paper, Shigeo Takamori and his colleagues showcased the molecular machinery of synaptic vesicles in outstanding detail. Their work taught me that these aren’t just passive containers…

10/20/2025

Applying new tools to entire brains, starting with C. elegans, offers the opportunity to uncover how molecules work together to generate neural physiology, and how neurons generate behavior, write Edward Boyden and Konrad Körding.

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