The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives
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Oxytocin shapes both mouse mom and pup behavior
Sensory gatekeeper drives seizures, autism-like behaviors in mouse model
Michael Breakspear and Mac Shine explain how brain processing changes across neural population scales
Today’s action potentials
”There’s an incredible level of mechanistic insight in the paper. — JOSEPH GLEESON, PROFESSOR OF NEUROSCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Upcoming Webinars
Astrocytes: From Metabolism to Cognition
The tubulin code in neuron health and disease : focus on de…
International scientific collaboration is more necessary—yet more challenging—than ever
Building the future of neuroscience at HBCUs
Emotion research has a communication conundrum
From bench to bot: Why AI-powered writing may not deliver on its promise
Sensory gatekeeper drives seizures, autism-like behaviors in mouse model
Long-standing theoretical neuroscience fellowship program loses financial support
Exclusive: Harvard University lays off fly database team
Quantifying funding sources across neuroscience labs
Fear and loathing on study section: Reviewing grant proposals while the system is burning
Should neuroscientists ‘vibe code’?
What U.S. science stands to lose without international graduate students and postdoctoral researchers
How to build a truly global computational neuroscience community
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.
Keeping it personal: How to preserve your voice when using AI
From bench to bot: How important is prompt engineering?
Up and out with Peggy Mason
Mason helped define the rodent prosocial behavior field, but now she’s changing course.
Neuroscientist Gerry Fischbach, in his own words
Everything everywhere all at once: Decision-making signals engage entire brain
The Transmitter’s reading list: Six upcoming neuroscience books, plus notable titles in 2025
The challenge of defining a neural population
Body state, sensory signals commingle in mouse whisker cortex
‘Bird Brains and Behavior,’ an excerpt
‘Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn’t Solved Brain Disorders—and How We Can Change That,’ an excerpt
‘Natural Neuroscience: Toward a Systems Neuroscience of Natural Behaviors,’ 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.
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.