The neuroscience field is fueled by its people. Check out The Transmitter’s stories from the past year about some of the scientists driving neuroscience forward, including one investigating prosocial behavior in rodents, and another recording—for the first time—individual neural signals in bats in the wild. And explore our remembrances for neuroscientists lost in 2025, such as a trailblazer in the memory field and a leader in the neural basis for hearing. Take a look at a growing challenge to the neuroscientist pipeline, and the work of two determined collaborators who shattered the perception that the octopus brain can’t be studied. Finally, we recognize some of the brightest young talents the field has to offer.
Here are those stories.
Up and out with Peggy Mason
by Sydney Wyatt
Mason helped define the rodent prosocial behavior field, but now she’s changing course.
Diving in with Nachum Ulanovsky
by Claudia Lopez Lloreda
With an eye toward realism, Ulanovsky creates microcosms of the natural world to understand animal behavior.
Remembering Eleanor Maguire, ‘trailblazer’ of human memory
by Calli McMurray
Maguire, mastermind of the famous London taxi-driver study, broadened the field and championed the importance of spatial representations in memory.
Remembering A. James Hudspeth, hair cell explorer
by Calli McMurray
Hudspeth, who died 16 August at age 79, devoted his 50-year career to untangling how the ear converts sound into electrical signals.
Static pay, shrinking prospects fuel neuroscience postdoc decline
by Katie Moisse
Postdoctoral researchers sponsored by the National Institutes of Health now toil longer than ever before, for less money. They are responding accordingly.
Cephalopods, vision’s next frontier
by Calli McMurray
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 Transmitter’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025
by Francisco J. Rivera Rosario and Lauren Schneider
We recognize the outstanding achievements of 25 neuroscientists who stand to shape the field for years to come.
