Nature Neuroscience · 2025

This study combines postmortem histology, multimodal neuroimaging and effective connectivity modelling to examine the anatomy of the default mode network. It identifies substantial variation in cortical cytoarchitecture within the network and relates these differences to structural connectivity and signal flow. The results indicate that default mode regions balance their outputs across levels of the sensory hierarchy, providing an anatomical framework for investigating the network’s contribution to diverse cognitive processes.

Nature Communications · 2025

Across two independent autism imaging cohorts, the study identifies reproducible reductions in local resting-state brain activity, particularly in default mode network regions. Spatial analyses link these alterations to distributions of several neurotransmitter receptors and transporters. Comparisons with experimental pharmacological imaging show a similar pattern after ketamine, whereas midazolam does not reproduce the same whole-brain relationship. The findings connect group-level functional differences with neurochemical organisation; they do not establish an individual diagnostic test.

Nature Communications · 2024

The study relates normative cortical thickness trajectories across the lifespan to molecular and cellular brain atlases. Associations vary with age: developmental changes relate to receptor distributions, cell populations and metabolic features, while adult trajectories show different neurochemical relationships. Developmental gene expression and longitudinal imaging from more than 8,000 adolescents provide complementary validation. By combining normative modelling with multimodal atlases, the analysis identifies biological organisation associated with regional patterns of cortical development and ageing.

npj Digital Medicine · 2025

This study uses four months of passive smartphone monitoring to compare daily communication patterns in autistic and neurotypical adults. App-use data are grouped into written, verbal and mixed communication categories. Autistic participants show a relative preference for written over verbal communication, extending earlier questionnaire-based findings with measurements collected in daily life. The work illustrates how digital phenotyping can characterize behavioural differences outside the clinic, while the observational design does not establish causes or individual diagnostic performance.