The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Today’s action potentials

BEE-ING OF USE
F. Muth et al. highlight bumblebees’ utility as a model for studying cognitive ecology due to researchers’ thorough understanding of the insects’ natural history.
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QUOTE

I went and downloaded the dataset, and I was completely horrified. — DOROTHY BISHOP, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

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ASTROCYTE ATLAS
In Neuron, Margaret E. Schroeder et al. publish a new transcriptomic atlas of mouse and marmoset brains that shows “striking” astrocyte heterogeneity across brain regions and suggests that regional astrocytes specialize further during postnatal development.
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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
Illustration of a neuron.

New questions around motor neurons and plasticity

A researcher’s theory hangs muscle degeneration on a broken neural circuit.

By David Adam
10 October 2025 | 9 min read
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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
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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.

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
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