Sensorimotor

Recent articles

Mosquito.

What mosquitos lay bare about proprioception

By comparing the proprioceptive systems of mosquitos and fruit flies, Sweta Agrawal aims to uncover fundamental features of the ability to sense self-movement.

By Calli McMurray
1 July 2026 | 5 min read
Research image of the mouse dorsal horn.

Cell atlas cracks open ‘black box’ of mammalian spinal cord development

The atlas details the genetics, birth dates and gene-expression signatures of roughly 150 neuron subtypes in the dorsal horn of the mouse spinal cord.

By Natalia Mesa
3 February 2026 | 5 min read

First nerve-net connectome shows how evolutionarily ancient nervous system coordinates movement

The map of a comb jelly’s aboral nerve net, which helps the animal orient and position itself within the water column, reveals a unique system for sensing the world and coordinating movement.

By Siddhant Pusdekar
16 September 2025 | 0 min watch

Body state, sensory signals commingle in mouse whisker cortex

The new study challenges a long-held view that the barrel cortex exclusively encodes sensory signals from the whiskers.

By Claudia López Lloreda
6 August 2025 | 0 min watch

Octopus arm anatomy, molecular makeup revealed in new maps

The datasets provide “a very nice reference” for future functional studies.

By Calli McMurray
25 September 2024 | 1 min watch
Photograph of Eugenia Chiappe jumping inside a glass hallway.

Decoding flies’ motor control with acrobat-scientist Eugenia Chiappe

The tiny performers steal the show in Chiappe’s sensorimotor-integration lab in Lisbon, Portugal.

By Elissa Welle
7 May 2024 | 6 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Monkeys at Dutch primate center.

Dutch primate center awaits October animal research debate

Science is forging ahead at the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, following a reversal of last year’s mandate to phase out primate studies. But researchers aren’t sure how long the reprieve will last.

By Lauren Schenkman
2 September 2026 | 5 min read

When we sleep, our brain is filled with spontaneous neural activity. What is it doing?

Daniel Levenstein explains how internally generated brain activity during sleep shapes our cognition, and why NeuroAI is such a powerful approach to understanding the brain.

By Paul Middlebrooks
2 September 2026 | 96 min listen
Research image of organoids.

Unconfounding genetic and environmental factors, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 31 August.

By Jill Adams
1 September 2026 | 2 min read