A new study finds that mice with variants in autism-associated genes have difficulty flexibly updating their expectations. The mice relied more on frontal brain areas associated with cognition and reasoning rather than sensory-processing brain regions to process prior information about the world. The results provide new insights into the neurobiology of autism.

The Simons Foundation’s Autism & Neuroscience division is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 Autism and Neuroscience Conferences and Courses Awards. This year the awards provide financial support for scientific conferences or courses that align with the scientific missions of the division’s Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) and Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).

The Simons Foundation is pleased to announce the most recent recipients of its Shenoy Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Neuroscience (SURFiN). Named in memory of neuroscientist Krishna Shenoy, this program aims to spark and sustain interest in neuroscience among undergraduates without access to research training opportunities.

The Simons Foundation is pleased to announce the 2025 class of Fellows-to-Faculty Fellows. The nine recipients will be supported through the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and the Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB).

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is pleased to announce the recipients of its Autism Rat Models Consortium 2.0 grants. This grant program will expand on the work done by the original Autism Rat Models Consortium.

SFARI is pleased to announce that Simons Searchlight has released new data from over 5,600 individuals with autism and/or a related neurodevelopmental disorder.

Large-scale genetic studies have now uncovered more than 200 genes that can be linked to neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) or autism. Many of those genes are implicated through gene-damaging heterozygous de novo mutations that result in haploinsufficiency of the affected gene. Identifying such genes opens the door for the development of gene-specific therapeutics like gene replacement therapy. However, gene replacement therapy comes with many challenges, one of them being the risk of overexpression. Therefore, therapeutics that could result in the upregulation of the remaining healthy allele and do not interfere with endogenous regulatory mechanisms of gene expression would be ideal.

SFARI is pleased to launch a new RFA that aims to provide researchers with the support needed to allocate time and personnel toward working with and publishing from previously collected data.