The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

Featured

Book cover of The Brain, In Theory by Romain Brette.
Theoretical neuroscience

‘The Brain, In Theory,’ an excerpt

By Romain Brette
7 April 2026 | 5 min read

Latest

Choroid plexus

Newly identified barrier cells seal off choroid plexus from CSF, rest of brain

Systems neuroscience

‘Digital sphinx’ raises questions about connectome models

Spectrum

Taking a closer look at astrocytes and autism

Neuro’s ark

Neuro’s ark: Sounding out the evolution of hearing with geckos

Retraction

Researchers retract multisensory learning paper after failed replications

Funding

Letter asks Congress for nearly $500 million to sustain BRAIN Initiative

How to teach this paper

How to teach programming in the age of AI

Science and society

Neuroscience conference policy draws confusion, apology

Today’s action potentials

REPRESENTING REPRESENTATIONS
In a Nature Reviews Neuroscience perspective, Stephan Pohl et al. “propose a core set of conceptual dimensions that characterize representations in neuroscience.”
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QUOTE
”

What emerges is a portrait of a discipline that is, in many ways, healthier than it might appear from the inside. — MAC SHINE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEMS NEUROBIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

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UPCOMING WORKSHOP
Applications are open for African Brain Data Science 2026, a two-week training program intended to “introduce participants to the use of different brain modalities such as MRI, fMRI, MEG, EEG and fNIRS to answer unique neuroscience questions for Africa and Africans.” The application deadline is 30 April.
LEARN MORE

Perspectives

A human arm and a robot arm write code together on a small blackboard.
How to teach this paper

How to teach programming in the age of AI

By Ashley Juavinett
30 March 2026 | 8 min read
Illustration of a laptop computer superimposed over a scroll.
Neuro education

‘Friction-maxxing’ in school: Students should read primary literature, not AI summaries

By Nora Bradford
26 March 2026 | 5 min read
Illustration of a brain that is half organic texture and half geometric pattern.
The big picture

Trading places: What happens when neuroscience turns into machine learning, and machine learning turns into neuroscience?

By Samuel Gershman
23 March 2026 | 22 min read
Brain imaging Microphone

Large-scale neuroimaging datasets often lack information specific to women’s health, constraining AI’s analysis potential

By Amy Kuceyeski
16 March 2026 | 0 min watch
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Spectrum logo
Astrocytes in a mouse brain.
Spectrum

Taking a closer look at astrocytes and autism

By The Transmitter
2 April 2026 | 2 min read
Spectrum

Single-gene systems-level effects, and more

Spectrum

Exon-skipping approach boosts levels of key Rett syndrome protein

Research image of astrocytes in the mouse brain.
Spectrum

Astrocytes in mouse amygdala encode emotional state

By Holly Barker
24 March 2026 | 4 min read
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Funding and policy

Drawing of a brain.
Funding

Letter asks Congress for nearly $500 million to sustain BRAIN Initiative

By Angie Voyles Askham
31 March 2026 | 3 min read
Assembloids in a petri dish.
Funding

Funding for animal research alternatives reaches ‘inflection point’

By Claudia López Lloreda
26 March 2026 | 4 min read
Illustration of a leaking pipe.
Craft and careers Microphone

Securing the academic pipeline amid uncertain U.S. funding climate

By Lucina Q. Uddin
9 March 2026 | 5 min read
Megaphone with many different shapes and textures emanating from it.
Spectrum

New autism committee positions itself as science-backed alternative to government group

By Angie Voyles Askham
5 March 2026 | 5 min read
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Craft and careers

Collage with a portrait of Caitlin Vander Weele in the foreground.
Craft and careers Microphone

Frameshift: How Caitlin Vander Weele made science communication her business

By Katie Moisse
19 March 2026 | 6 min read
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Computational neuroscience

David Sussillo on persistence, luck and the bonds between life and work

By Francisco J. Rivera Rosario, David Sussillo
17 March 2026 | 7 min watch
Sheet of paper with a red pencil struck through it.
Publishing Microphone

Lack of reviewers threatens robustness of neuroscience literature

By Jakob Voigts
2 March 2026 | 14 min read
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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
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This paper changed my life

Illustration of dopamine neurons.
This paper changed my life Microphone

This paper changed my life: Talia Lerner reflects on dopamine neuron diversity and the value of simple experiments

By Talia Lerner
11 March 2026 | 6 min read
Gloved hand reaches out to touch a mouse.
This paper changed my life

This paper changed my life: Ishmail Abdus-Saboor on balancing the study of pain and pleasure

By Ishmail Abdus-Saboor
13 February 2026 | 7 min read
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
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Publishing

Magnifying glass.
Retraction

Researchers retract multisensory learning paper after failed replications

By Calli McMurray
31 March 2026 | 4 min read
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
Overlapping speech bubbles.
Top quotes

Talking shop: The Transmitter’s top quotes of 2025

By The Transmitter
24 December 2025 | 4 min read
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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
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Systems neuroscience

Digital model of a fly next to a digital model of a nematode.
Systems neuroscience

‘Digital sphinx’ raises questions about connectome models

By Natalia Mesa
2 April 2026 | 5 min read
Spatial cognition and navigation

Head direction cells stably orient mice to outside world

By Angie Voyles Askham
25 March 2026 | 0 min watch
Research image of a mouse hippocampus.
Memory Microphone

Hippocampus builds reputation as ‘general-purpose statistical learning machine’

By Natalia Mesa
10 March 2026 | 5 min read
Figure in profile walking through the woods holding a branch that resembles a dendrite.
Dendrites

Dendrites help neuroscientists see the forest for the trees

By Justin O’Hare
27 February 2026 | 7 min read
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Books

Book cover of The Fox, The Shrew, and You features silhouettes of several animals with their brains highlighted.
Evolution

‘The Fox, the Shrew, and You: How Brains Evolved,’ an excerpt

By Rogier Mars
10 March 2026 | 6 min read
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
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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
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