NICE in Neuro: Neurodiversity Innovation Centers for Excellence in Neuroscience

Neurodiversifying Neuroscience Research

VISION FOR ACADEMIC CULTURE

  • Learn from neurodiversity frameworks to improve how we talk about science and run our labs
Two people sit in chairs facing each other, talking. One speech bubble holds a neuron sketch and the other holds a rainbow infinity symbol.
  • Recognize that universal design ≠ one size fits all
  • Include more types of minds in neuroscience
  • Make feedback signals unambiguous
  • Fund neurodivergent researchers and the labs that keep them
  • Improve retention of neurodivergent folks
  • Write norms down; stop testing who can infer them
A white lab coat with a small rainbow infinity symbol on its pocket.

SCIENTIFIC VISION

  • Sample first, decide what counts as noise afterwards
  • Classify different strategies as findings, not failures
  • Acknowledge that a control group is a norm you choose
  • Report distributions, not just means
Line plot of task performance across sessions for four individual learners and their dotted average. Each learner improves at a different time, while the average rises in one smooth curve.Plot of the fraction of learners by days until proficiency. Four overlapping bell curves, one per learner, sit under a dotted pooled curve that hides their differences.

Averaged learning curves mask the diversity of individuals, and pooled results conceal structured heterogeneity

By Adopting Autistic Communication Values, We Can Improve Scientific Integrity

Science claims to select on ideas. In practice it also selects on fluency in one communication style. Crompton et al. (2020) found that information passes between two autistic people as efficiently as between two non-autistic people; only mixed pairs lose information. “Poor communicator” describes a mismatch, not a person. When we filter for allistic fluency, we are filtering out ideas, not noise.

We believe that making science accessible and making science better are the same project

Illustration of a scientist in a white lab coat and safety glasses, pointing at the text.

Allisticconventional norms

Autisticcommunication values

  • Positive spin on results corresponds to Precision & comprehensive reporting
  • Career-motivated overselling corresponds to Epistemic honesty
  • Authority deference corresponds to Willingness to challenge assumptions
  • Softened peer review corresponds to Direct & honest critical engagement
  • Implicit expectations corresponds to Explicit transparency & documentation
  • Mask-demanding “professionalism” corresponds to Valuing substance over style

The right column is not autistic culture imposed on science; it is what science already claims to value

Variation is an Essential Feature of Brains

Variation makes biological life adaptable and robust

Evolution needs variation; “survival of the fittest” doesn’t work without diversity

Ernst Haeckel's 1904 plate of bats: a long-eared bat, a bat with its mouth open and a bat with its wings spread wide, above seven close-up bat faces that differ in ear and nose shape.

(imagery: Ernst Haeckel, 1904)

Eve Marder showed that different circuits produce the same rhythms

Neurons in lobster ganglion produce nearly identical rhythms from very different combinations of ion channel conductances

Voltage traces from three neurons of a lobster ganglion, labeled PD, LP and PY. Each fires in bursts, one after another, in a repeating rhythm.

(Prinz, Bucher & Marder, 2004)

Illustration of a red lobster.Portrait photo of Eve Marder.

The “average” brain does not exist

MRI scans are warped to match an averaged “reference brain” that represents nobody

Four brain MRI slices seen from above. Person 1, Person 2 and Person 3 each have a different shape and fold pattern. The blurred, symmetric slice labeled Reference (MNI152) is the averaged brain that scans are warped to match.

(Giff et al., 2023)

One genetic mutation can cause different wiring of spinal tracts

Mutations in axon guidance results in a unique re-wiring pattern in each individual mouse brain

Three rows, one per mouse. On the left, microscope images of cyan-stained axon bundles. On the right, matching color-coded diagrams of the nerve branches, which run differently in each mouse.

(Okada et al., 2019)

Our Team

Matt Smear

Matt Smear

Leah Blankenship

Leah Blankenship

Lila Kaye

Lila Kaye

David Gire

David Gire

James Murray

James Murray

Ashley Terrell

Ashley Terrell

Adam Miller

Adam Miller

Joanna O'Neill

Joanna O'Neill

Angie Michaiel

Angie Michaiel

Ifedayo Emmanuel

Ifedayo Emmanuel

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