Open neuroscience

Recent articles

Interconnected lines form a world map.

Science must step away from nationally managed infrastructure

Scientific data and independence are at risk. We need to work with community-driven services and university libraries to create new multi-country organizations that are resilient to political interference.

By Dan Goodman
20 February 2025 | 7 min read
Grid of human brain scans.

Dose, scan, repeat: Tracking the neurological effects of oral contraceptives

We know little about how the brain responds to oral contraceptives, despite their widespread use. I am committed to changing that: I scanned my brain 75 times over the course of a year and plan to make my data openly available.

By Carina Heller
20 January 2025 | 7 min read
A curly line connects two pencils that are hovering over overlapping speech bubbles.

Say what? The Transmitter’s top quotes of 2024

“We’ve cured mouse-heimer’s thousands of times...”—find out who said this to a Transmitter reporter, and read our other favorite quotes from the past year.

By The Transmitter
23 December 2024 | 2 min read
Illustration of an open book with the pages creating a brain shape, and with a tassel resembling a DNA sequence.

Open-access neuroscience comes to the classroom: Q&A with Liz Kirby

Neuroscience textbooks can be prohibitively expensive for some undergraduate students. A new open-access alternative seeks to change that.

By Francisco J. Rivera Rosario
13 December 2024 | 6 min read
Illustration of a funnel taking abstract shapes in at the top and spouting an organized flow of shapes out at the bottom.

To keep or not to keep: Neurophysiology’s data dilemma

An exponential growth in data size presents neuroscientists with a significant challenge: Should we be keeping all raw data or focusing on processed datasets? I asked experimentalists and theorists for their thoughts.

By Nima Dehghani
25 November 2024 | 5 min read
Illustration of three figures standing in front of a grid of dots and a world map.

The S-index Challenge: Develop a metric to quantify data-sharing success

The NIH-sponsored effort aims to help incentivize scientists to share data. But many barriers to the widespread adoption of useful data-sharing remain.

By Loren Frank
8 October 2024 | 6 min listen
Illustration of three figures cleaning data with brooms and brushes.

A README for open neuroscience

Making data (and code) useful for yourself automatically makes it useful for others.

By Samuel Gershman
9 September 2024 | 5 min read
Illustrated portrait of Lin Tian.

Biosensors and being fearless with Lin Tian

Tian discusses protein function and structure, and the historic city in China where she was born.

By Brady Huggett
1 September 2024 | 62 min listen
Illustration of a blue face with sunglasses.

Neuroscience needs a career path for software engineers

Few institutions have mechanisms for the type of long-term positions that would best benefit the science.

By Gaëlle Chapuis, Olivier Winter
19 August 2024 | 7 min listen
Illustration of a hand holding a pen reaching towards a blank sheet of paper.

Neuroimaging researchers pen statement protesting UK Biobank data-access changes

The signatories asked the organization to grant all imaging researchers a data-download exemption until the cloud platform can accommodate their processing needs.

By Calli McMurray
30 July 2024 | 4 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Dendritic spine images.

Targeting NMDA receptor subunit reverses fragile X traits in mice

The subunit acts as a “volume control” on signaling that shapes the density of dendritic spines, the new work suggests.

By Angie Voyles Askham
6 March 2025 | 5 min read
A pregnant woman seen in profile, sitting on the edge of a bed.

Maternal infection’s link to autism may be a mirage

Family-linked factors explain most associations between maternal illness and autism, a study of 1.1 million Danish children finds.

By Charles Q. Choi
6 March 2025 | 3 min read
Headshots of Michelle Monje and Frank Winkler.

2025 Brain Prize honors pair of cancer neuroscientists

Michelle Monje and Frank Winkler share the $1.4 million award for their discovery of synapses between brain cancer cells and neurons.

By Sydney Wyatt
5 March 2025 | 3 min read