Defining cell types

Recent articles

This series explores how new high-throughput technologies are changing the way we define brain-cell types—and the challenges that remain.

-A playful “cellular map” features top-down and bottom-up views of the human brain arranged side-by-side as if they were the earth’s two hemispheres in an old-fashioned map of the world. The brains are colored to suggest land masses and bodies of water.

Knowledge graphs can help make sense of the flood of cell-type data

These tools, widely used in the technology industry, could provide a foundation for the study of brain circuits.

By Michael Hawrylycz
28 May 2024 | 7 min read
Illustration of neurons against a blue background.

Where do cell states end and cell types begin?

High-throughput transcriptomics offers powerful new methods for defining different types of brain cells. But we need to think more explicitly about how we use these data to distinguish a cell’s permanent identity from its transient states.

By Anne E. West
22 April 2024 | 6 min read
An illustration of a gold circle and wavy blue plants.

Building a brain: How does it generate its exquisite diversity of cells?

High-throughput technologies have revealed new insights into how the brain develops. But a truly comprehensive map of neurodevelopment requires further advances.

By Tomasz Nowakowski, Karthik Shekhar
18 March 2024 | 6 min read
A diagram of many types of cells

Welcome to the second single-cell revolution: New high-throughput technologies are transforming how we define neurons

This ongoing essay series will explore questions these technologies raise, as well as opportunities they provide for understanding development, evolution and disease.

By Joshua R. Sanes
29 January 2024 | 7 min read

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David Krakauer reflects on the foundations and future of complexity science

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.

By Paul Middlebrooks
14 January 2025 | 106 min listen
Research image showing white matter volume in a child with Angelman syndrome compared with a child without the condition.

White-matter changes; lipids and neuronal migration; dementia

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

By Jill Adams
14 January 2025 | 2 min read
Three sleeping mice.

Fleeting sleep interruptions may help brain reset

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.

By Shaena Montanari
13 January 2025 | 5 min read