The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Featured

Spectrum

Largest leucovorin-autism trial retracted

By Claudia López Lloreda
3 February 2026 | 4 min read

Latest

Artificial intelligence

Betting blind on AI and the scientific mind

Interoception

PIEZO channels are opening the study of mechanosensation in unexpected places

Spectrum

Latest iteration of U.S. federal autism committee comes under fire

Spectrum

‘Tour de force’ study flags fount of interneurons in human brain

Science and society

‘Peer review is our strength’: Q&A with Walter Koroshetz, former NINDS director

Brain Inspired

Michael Shadlen explains how theory of mind ushers nonconscious thoughts into consciousness

Evolution

Viral remnant in chimpanzees silences brain gene humans still use

Emotion

Why emotion research is stuck—and how to move it forward

Today’s action potentials

SCIENCE STAFFING
Undark reports on developments in the “power struggle” over U.S. National Institutes of Health directorships as appointments come under greater political scrutiny.
READ MORE
QUOTE
”

Anyone who writes seriously will recognize how useful writing can be in the thinking process. — TIM REQUARTH, DIRECTOR OF GRADUATE SCIENCE WRITING, RESEARCH ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF NEUROSCIENCE AND PHYSIOLOGY, NYU GROSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

READ MORE
BABY BRAINS
Cliona O’Doherty et al. conducted a functional MRI study in more than 100 infants and found complex function in the ventral visual cortex at 2 months of age. The Transmitter previously reported on research using infant fMRI to study neurodevelopment.
READ MORE

Perspectives

Figure resembling Rodin's The Thinker made from paper scraps.
Artificial intelligence

Betting blind on AI and the scientific mind

By Tim Requarth
2 February 2026 | 11 min read
Emotion Microphone

Why emotion research is stuck—and how to move it forward

By Joshua P. Johansen
26 January 2026 | 0 min watch
A hand moves a square within a set of squares in a consistent gradient, while a hand of lines representing computation passes through.
Neuroscientists using AI

How to collaborate with AI

By Kenneth Harris
19 January 2026 | 6 min read
A network of connected dots of light hovers inside a translucent human head, with figures in lab coats pointing to it from the foreground.
Psychiatry Microphone

Computational psychiatry needs systems neuroscience

By Michael Halassa
13 January 2026 | 7 min read
See all Perspectives See all Perspectives - opens a new tab
Spectrum logo
Progenitors cells in the medial ganglionic eminence become increasingly organized during development as rows of brain imaging progress from top to bottom.
Spectrum

‘Tour de force’ study flags fount of interneurons in human brain

By Holly Barker
29 January 2026 | 4 min read
Spectrum

Pangenomic approaches to the genetics of autism, and more

Spectrum

Common and rare variants shape distinct genetic architecture of autism in African Americans

Marmoset brain slices.
Spectrum

Prenatal viral injections prime primate brain for study

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 January 2026 | 5 min read
See all Spectrum See all Spectrum - opens a new tab

Funding and policy

Walter Koroshetz.
Science and society

‘Peer review is our strength’: Q&A with Walter Koroshetz, former NINDS director

By Angie Voyles Askham
27 January 2026 | 7 min read
Curvy lines link brain scans and a world map.
Policy

BRAIN Initiative researchers ‘dream big’ amid shifts in leadership, funding

By Claudia López Lloreda
23 January 2026 | 6 min read
Two piggy banks whose slots form a plus symbol and a minus symbol.
Funding

Neuroscience, BRAIN Initiative gain budget in ‘bad’ NIH funding bill

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 January 2026 | 4 min read
Nachum Ulanovsky sits against a black background with one bat in his hands and another with its wings spread above his head.
Science and society

Neuroscience’s leaders, legacies and rising stars of 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 2 min read
See all funding and policy See all funding and policy - opens a new tab

Craft and careers

Portrait of Ubadah Sebbagh against a collage background of shapes, test tubes and a building.
Craft and careers

Frameshift: At a biotech firm, Ubadah Sabbagh embraces the expansive world outside academia

By Katie Moisse
20 January 2026 | 7 min read
Overlapping speech bubbles.
Top quotes

Talking shop: The Transmitter’s top quotes of 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 4 min read
Collage illustration of Shari Wiseman.
Frameshift

Frameshift: Shari Wiseman reflects on her pivot from science to publishing

By Katie Moisse
15 December 2025 | 7 min read
See all Craft and careers See all Craft and careers - opens a new tab

Features

Researcher Russell Poldrack's face closeup, with a scanner seen out of focus behind him.
Brain imaging

A brief history of precision self-scanning

When a researcher solved a logistical problem by going rogue, the idea proved remarkably infectious.

By Lauren Gravitz
21 January 2026 | 13 min read
Illustration of two hands holding an abstract geometric object that resembles a human brain.
Neuroscience

The state of neuroscience in 2025: An overview

The Transmitter presents a portrait of the field through four lenses: its focus, its output, its people and its funding.

By The Transmitter
15 November 2025 | 4 min read
See all Features See all Features - opens a new tab

This paper changed my life

Illustration of ants marching back to an anthill.
This paper changed my life Microphone

This paper changed my life: John Tuthill reflects on the subjectivity of selfhood

By John Tuthill
12 January 2026 | 7 min read
Illustration of human figures holding brightly colored connected dots.
This paper changed my life

The best of ‘this paper changed my life’ in 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 2 min read
Illustration of a group of neurons.
This paper changed my life Microphone

This paper changed my life: Nancy Padilla-Coreano on learning the value of population coding

By Nancy Padilla-Coreano
1 December 2025 | 5 min read
See all This paper changed my life See all This paper changed my life - opens a new tab

Publishing

Books.
Books

The Transmitter’s most-read neuroscience book excerpts of 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 2 min read
Stamp over a sheet of paper.
Top news

The Transmitter’s top news articles of 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 3 min read
A stack of papers topped by many paper shreddings against a red background.
Retraction Microphone

Exclusive: Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications that trained neural networks on ‘bonkers’ dataset

By Calli McMurray
8 December 2025 | 5 min read
Kevin B Marvel.
Teaching

A change at the top of SfN as neuroscientists gather in San Diego

By Natalia Mesa
16 November 2025 | 6 min read
See all Publishing See all Publishing - opens a new tab

PROFILES

Stars shooting upward.
Early-career researchers

The Transmitter ’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025

By Francisco J. Rivera Rosario, Lauren Schneider
15 November 2025 | 23 min read
Composite of headshots of researchers who opened new labs in the past several years.
Community

The Transmitter’s New Lab Directory

By Francisco J. Rivera Rosario
15 November 2025 | 21 min read
Nachum Ulanovsky sits against a black background with one bat in his hands and another with its wings spread above his head.
Neuroethology Microphone

Diving in with Nachum Ulanovsky

By Claudia López Lloreda
16 October 2025 | 14 min read
See all Profiles See all Profiles - opens a new tab

Systems neuroscience

Mouse on top of drinking water spout in crowded cage.
Systems neuroscience Microphone

Cracking the neural code for emotional states

By Natalia Mesa
8 January 2026 | 8 min read
Adam Kampff.
Systems neuroscience Microphone

Remembering Adam Kampff, neuroscience educator and researcher

By Lauren Schneider
24 December 2025 | 6 min read
Psychedelics Microphone

Psilocybin rewires specific mouse cortical networks in lasting ways

By Siddhant Pusdekar
5 December 2025 | 0 min watch
Two bouncing balls.
Neuroscience

What are the fastest-growing areas in neuroscience?

By The Transmitter
15 November 2025 | 6 min read
See all Systems neuroscience See all Systems neuroscience - opens a new tab

Books

A see-through human brain with circuits inside it.
Language

‘Wired for Words: The Neural Architecture of Language,’ an excerpt

By Gregory Hickok
2 December 2025 | 8 min read
Colorful drawing of a human brain.
Organoids

‘Neuroethics: The Implications of Mapping and Changing the Brain,’ an excerpt

By Walter Glannon
11 November 2025 | 7 min read
Colored outlines form the silhouette of a human brain in profile.
Memory

‘How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist’s Quest to Alter the Past,’ an excerpt

By Steve Ramirez
7 November 2025 | 9 min read
See all Books See all Books - opens a new tab

The big picture

Illustration of a series of shapes, with a few resembling human eyes.
The big picture

The visual system’s lingering mystery: Connecting neural activity and perception

Figuring out how the brain uses information from visual neurons may require new tools. I asked 10 neuroscientists what experimental and conceptual methods they think we’re missing.

By Grace Lindsay
13 October 2025 | 24 min read
A drosophila connectome.
The big picture Microphone

One year of FlyWire: How the resource is redefining Drosophila research

We asked nine neuroscientists how they are using FlyWire data in their labs, how the connectome has transformed the field and what new tools they would like to see in the future.

By Francisco J. Rivera Rosario
7 October 2025 | 17 min read
See all The big picture See all The big picture - opens a new tab

Sign up for The Transmitter newsletters.

Our biggest stories, delivered to your inbox every day.

Newsletters

Topic alerts

Contributor alerts

Partner alerts

privacy consent banner

Privacy Preference

We use cookies to provide you with the best online experience. By clicking “Accept All,” you help us understand how our site is used and enhance its performance. You can change your choice at any time. To learn more, please visit our Privacy Policy.