Methods

Recent articles

a funnel collects falling images and objects related to various fields of neuroscience

AI can’t solve the brain without data that fit together

The brain's first foundation models exist because some areas of neuroscience did the slow work of developing and adopting standards to help integrate data. Artificial intelligence cannot do that work for us.

By Sean Hill
29 June 2026 | 8 min read
Thermal image of Danionella fish.

Exclusive: Janelia sunsets rodent work, launches transparent fish project

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus is banking on whole-brain imaging in the Danionella fish to advance neuroscience, but some scientists forced to close their labs say that even with a three-year runway and transitional support, they feel betrayed by the pivot.

By Calli McMurray
22 June 2026 | 5 min read
Illustration of pixelated AI models.

Models at the speed of thought: How AI coding is reshaping theoretical neuroscience

Agentic coding makes it possible to specify a neuroscience model in hours instead of months. Seven neuroscientists weigh in on what that tectonic change may bring to the field.

By Brian DePasquale
16 June 2026 | 17 min read
Illustration of pixelated eye and stacks of paper.

Writing science that humans and machines can read

Large language models are now routinely used to search, summarize and synthesize the literature at scales impossible for any individual researcher—yet scientific publishing has not adapted to that reality.

By Rachel Parkinson
15 June 2026 | 7 min read

A new atlas of abstracts visualizes the field of human brain mapping—where does your work fit?

Satrajit Ghosh talks to Mac Shine about a community-built tool that places every abstract from the 2026 Organization for Human Brain Mapping meeting inside a semantic map of the broader neuroscience literature. Finding your neighbors in that space might matter more than you think.

By Mac Shine
9 June 2026 | 40 min watch

What counts as a ‘naturalistic’ behavior?

Nedah Nemati explains how neuroscience methods and the lived experience of the scientists themselves shape how we define the behaviors we seek to explain.

By Paul Middlebrooks
3 June 2026 | 1 min read
Illustration of differing lines of data.

Eighteen teams analyzed the same neurophysiology dataset—and got wildly different answers

The “Brainhack” hackathon revealed that disagreement in neuroscience runs deeper than most researchers suspect—even in electrophysiology, a field that prides itself on hard data.

By Gaëlle Chapuis, Mattia Chini
1 June 2026 | 7 min read
Faceless blue figure attempting to decipher emotion.

What can AI teach us about ‘emotions’?

Exploring why Anthropic’s AI, Claude, displays something like emotion could ultimately help us better understand the function that emotions serve in humans.

By Nicole Rust
18 May 2026 | 7 min read

The silent majority: How astrocytes shape the brain across scales

Melissa Cooper talks to Mac Shine about her new work that reveals how these glial cells—long dismissed as the brain’s housekeepers—wire together in precise, long-range networks that remodel in response to experience.

By Mac Shine
12 May 2026 | 29 min watch
typing on computer.

Why expertise won’t protect you from AI’s influence

When writing a grant or reasoning about a problem, artificial intelligence can exert a subtle bias that often goes undetected, even if we’re doing our best to be aware of it.

By Tim Requarth
4 May 2026 | 6 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image of cursor movement from high gamma activity.

Recording warning: Common brain signal may be misunderstood

High gamma activity in electrophysiologic recordings reflects widespread neural activity, not merely local firing, as previously thought.

By Claudia López Lloreda
30 June 2026 | 5 min read
Mouse drinking syrup from syringe.

Fructose silences hunger-driving neurons less than glucose does

Two simple sugars show the complexities of gut-brain communication.

By Sarah Thau
30 June 2026 | 3 min read
Research image of mice brains, showing larger cerebral cortices and smaller subcortical volumes.

A new subtyping model for autism phenotypes late in development, and more

Here is a roundup of autism-related news and research spotted around the web for the week of 29 June.

By Sarah Thau
30 June 2026 | 2 min read