The Transmitter

The Transmitter is a vital tool for everyone in the neuroscience field, supporting researchers at every level in keeping up with the latest developments and networking opportunities. This publication focuses on providing valuable information, insights, and resources to foster collaboration within neuroscience and enhance research efforts. To further its goal, The Transmitter delivers a continuous flow of current news and analyses about the discipline, crafted by both journalists and scientists.

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During decision-making, brain shows multiple distinct subtypes of activity

6 days ago | thetransmitter.org | Claudia Lopez Lloreda

Brain imaging research may be grappling with a fresh challenge. Scanning the brain of a single person can reveal the areas they use to complete a task, although the exact pattern differs from person to person. But averaging the results across many people—as scientists often do—fails to capture some important nuances, a new functional MRI (fMRI) study suggests.
Proposed NIH budget cut threatens ‘massive destruction of American science’

1 week ago | thetransmitter.org | Angie Voyles Askham

Neuroscience research backed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) could undergo major upheaval and budget cuts, if things go according to a leaked proposal from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The 64-page document, dated 10 April and first reported by The Washington Post, proposes an NIH budget of just under $27 billion—about a 40 percent cut from the 2025 budget of $47 billion.
Too much or too little brain synchrony may underlie autism subtypes

1 week ago | thetransmitter.org | Calli McMurray |Jill Adams |Holly Barker |Charles Choi

Twenty mouse models of autism can be sorted into two subtypes based on functional connectivity across the entire brain, a new preprint reports. The subtypes reflect changes in different molecular pathways and map on to nearly one-quarter of autistic people represented in a large dataset.
Smell studies often use unnaturally high odor concentrations, analysis reveals

1 week ago | thetransmitter.org | Calli McMurray |Benjamin Young |Jill Adams |Mark Humphries

Olfactory neuroscientists have known for a while that their stimuli stink. In many experiments, lab animals inhale puffs of a single strong odorant for only a few seconds at a time, an experience that “likely bears little resemblance—either in concentration or in form—to the ways in which animals naturalistically interact with odors,” says Sandeep Robert Datta, professor of neurobiology at Harvard University.
Christian Cazares

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Christian Cazares |Paul Middlebrooks |Claudia Lopez Lloreda

Christian Cazares is a postdoctoral research fellow in Bradley Voytek’s lab at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He uses electrophysiology to bridge human electroencephalography, neural organoids and mouse models to study neurodevelopmental conditions. His long-term goal is to start a lab that researches cortical circuits for cognitive abilities, including decision-making, and their disruption in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Split gene therapy delivers promise in mice modeling Dravet syndrome

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Holly Barker

A potential new gene therapy for Dravet syndrome increases survival and prevents seizures, according to initial tests in mice, a new study shows. The approach delivers two viruses—each carrying a portion of the therapeutic gene—selectively to inhibitory interneurons, the cell type affected in the condition.
Inhibitory cells orchestrate neural activity in mouse brain

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Katie Moisse |Laura Dattaro |Tyler Sloan |Mark Humphries

Contributing editor The Transmitter Share this article: Tags: Connectome, Artificial intelligence, Axons, Calcium imaging, Cellular neuroscience, Circuits, Connectivity, Dendrites, Excitatory signaling, Inhibitory signaling, Interneurons, Machine learning, Microscopy, Neural circuits, Synapses, Synaptic plasticity, Visual cortex The most comprehensive map to date of cell structure and function in the mouse cortex reveals a previously unappreciated level of coordination among inhibitory...
Aran Nayebi discusses a NeuroAI update to the Turing test

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Paul Middlebrooks

Special faculty research associateCarnegie Mellon University Share this article: Tags: Brain Inspired, Artificial intelligence, NeuroAI, Representation Your browser doesn't support the audio element Download In this “Brain Inspired” episode, Aran Nayebi, assistant professor of machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, joins Paul Middlebrooks to discuss his reverse-engineering approach to build autonomous artificial-intelligence agents.
To make a meaningful contribution to neuroscience, fMRI must break out of its silo

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Avram J. Holmes |Andrew Jahn |Emily Finn |Austin Coley

Human thought and behavior emerge through complex and reciprocal interactions that link microscale molecular and cellular processes with macroscale functional patterns. Functional MRI (fMRI), one of the most common methods for studying the human brain, detects these latter patterns through the “blood oxygen level dependent,” or BOLD, signal, a composite measure of both neural and vascular signals that reflects an indirect measure of brain activity.
Releasing the Hydra with Rafael Yuste

2 weeks ago | thetransmitter.org | Brady Huggett

Features editorThe Transmitter ReporterThe Transmitter Share this article: Tags: Neural networks, Calcium imaging, Cortex, Dendrites, Neurons Rafael Yuste woke up in his bedroom. It was early on a Sunday morning at the end of March 2019. Manhattan was quiet outside his windows. He had been dreaming of Sydney Brenner, sitting face to face with the Nobel-Prize-winning biologist.