The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives
Featured
To understand the brain as a network organ, we must image cortical layers
Neuroscientist Gerry Fischbach, in his own words
Null and Noteworthy: Learning theory validated 20 years later
Today’s action potentials
”It was supposed to be a technical proof of principle—a demonstration that shortly we can scale up to the whole mouse brain level. — ILA FIETE, PROFESSOR OF BRAIN AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Rethinking how neural activity sculpts critical periods
Neuroscience needs to empower early-career researchers, not fund moon shots
The BabyLM Challenge: In search of more efficient learning algorithms, researchers look to infants
Upcoming Online Seminars
Multisite connectome teams lose federal funding as result of Harvard cuts
NIDA shutters diversity fellowship program, axes active awards
‘We still exist’: How four neuroscience advocacy groups are navigating federal DEI funding cuts
How to communicate the value of curiosity-driven research
Neuroscience Ph.D. programs adjust admissions in response to U.S. funding uncertainty
Cephalopods, vision’s next frontier
For decades, scientists have been teased by the strange but inaccessible cephalopod visual system. Now, thanks to a technological breakthrough from a lab in Oregon, data are finally coming straight from the octopus brain.
The last two-author neuroscience paper?
Author lists on papers have ballooned, and it’s getting hard to discern contribution.
Why the 21st-century neuroscientist needs to be neuroethically engaged
Thinking about thinking: AI offers theoretical insights into human memory
Keeping it personal: How to preserve your voice when using AI
From bench to bot: How important is prompt engineering?
From bench to bot: Does AI really make you a more efficient writer?
Amina Abubakar translates autism research and care for Kenya
First an educator and now an internationally recognized researcher, the Kenyan psychologist is changing autism science and services in sub-Saharan Africa.
Releasing the Hydra with Rafael Yuste
Amid confusion around U.S. science, some neuroscientists prepare to rally
To keep or not to keep: Neurophysiology’s data dilemma
The S-index Challenge: Develop a metric to quantify data-sharing success
A README for open neuroscience
‘Natural Neuroscience: Toward a Systems Neuroscience of Natural Behaviors,’ an excerpt
‘Bioethics and Brains: A Disciplined and Principled Neuroethics,’ an excerpt
‘Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s,’ an excerpt
Accepting “the bitter lesson” and embracing the brain’s complexity
To gain insight into complex neural data, we must move toward a data-driven regime, training large models on vast amounts of information. We asked nine experts on computational neuroscience and neural data analysis to weigh in.
What makes memories last—dynamic ensembles or static synapses?
Teasing out how different subfields conceptualize central terms might help move this long-standing debate forward. I asked eight scientists to weigh in.