Azra Jaferi, Ph.D.

Science Writer and Editor, Freelance

Azra Jaferi is a freelance science writer and editor. Prior to becoming a freelancer, she held in-house editorial roles at various science and technology companies, including IBM Watson Health, the New York Academy of Sciences and Medscape. Jaferi’s work as a writer and editor has been multidisciplinary, spanning topics in the basic, translational and clinical sciences. She has a B.A. in psychology from Barnard College of Columbia University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Michigan, where her research focused on neural circuits underlying habituation to repeated stress. She did postdoctoral research in cellular neuroscience at the Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Latest Content Authored

Mother and son using digital table for communicating with family doctor online from home. Woman getting a diagnosis for her sick son via video chat with digital doctor.

New assessment tool provides a remote telehealth approach to facilitate autism diagnosis during COVID-19 and beyond

So Hyun Kim, Catherine Lord and colleagues developed a new telehealth approach to autism assessment — the Brief Observation of Symptoms of Autism (BOSA) — for use during COVID-19 and beyond.

Molecule of oxytocin, a hormone released from the neurohypophysis, 3D illustration. It causes uterine contraction and milk ejection, used in gynecology and lactation treatment

Oxytocin regulates changes in social brain circuits connectivity in a Cntnap2 mouse model of autism

Daniel Geschwind and colleagues showed that Cntnap2 knockout mice exhibit alterations in brain-wide connectivity related to social behaviors and that oxytocin within the nucleus accumbens regulates changes in connectivity.

Loss of Tsc1 in striatal neurons may contribute to altered motor behaviors in tuberous sclerosis complex and autism

Helen Bateup and colleagues showed that a loss of Tsc1 from striatal direct pathway neurons altered synaptic function and enhanced motor routine learning in mice. These findings suggest that changes in select types of striatal neurons may underlie altered motor behaviors in individuals with tuberous sclerosis complex and autism.