SPECIAL REPORT 2025

The State of Neuroscience

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apidly transforming, thanks to better tools and bigger datasets: That’s how many neuroscientists characterize the state of the field in 2025. Artificial intelligence, improved modeling and novel ways to manipulate and record from ever-larger populations of cells, among other developments, are teeing up a new era of advances.

At the same time, policy changes and funding cuts in the United States threaten to upend a wide range of research and training programs. Given that uncertainty, at a time when the field seems poised to deliver big on decades of discovery, The Transmitter wanted to take stock: How is basic neuroscience changing, and where do its practitioners think it is headed?

In the stories that follow, we present a portrait of the field through four lenses: its focus, its output, its people and its funding. In each view, featured analyses surface major trends; surveys reveal what neuroscientists think about a variety of challenges; and directories detail rising stars, new labs, funding sources and more. Scroll down to dig in—or start with our overview.

Focus

Portion of The Transmitter’s state of neuroscience semantic map.

Putting 50 years of neuroscience on the map

Navigate the rise and fall of research topics over five decades using our interactive map, which is based on a semantic analysis of nearly 350,000 abstracts in leading neuroscience journals.

Explore the interactive map

Arial view of a house isolated on an iceberg.

Is neuroscience a coherent field? Or is it becoming more fragmented?

The latter, say about half of the neuroscientists we surveyed. They note the sheer volume of research being generated, an increasing trend toward specialization in neuroscience education, and competition among labs. About another quarter told us it is “becoming much more interconnected.”

What are the fastest-growing areas in neuroscience?

Respondents pointed to computational neuroscience, systems neuroscience, neuroimmunology and neuroimaging, among other subfields.

What should the field prioritize over the next 10 years?

Respondents pointed to a range of challenges in basic neuroscience—such as understanding naturalistic behaviors, intelligence and embodied cognition—and called for more circuit-level research, more precise brain recordings and more work in alternative models. Just as many pushed for a translational pivot.

NeuroAI

Human neurotechnology

Future of fMRI

Sex differences in the brain

Defining cell types

Open neuroscience

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[The field of neuroscience is] intellectually fragmented in a way, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. We know so little that we need to have crazy, out-there ideas.

Gregory W. Schwartz, professor of ophthalmology, neuroscience and neurobiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Output

A man with glasses reads from a paper with a graph-like pattern of peaks and valleys on it.

The buzziest neuroscience papers of 2023, 2024

The field took note of work on brain-computer interfaces for speech, the mechanism of psychedelics, a broader definition of hippocampal representations, and more.

What are the most-cited neuroscience papers from the past 30 years?

Highly cited papers reflect the surge in artificial-intelligence research in the field and other technical advances, plus prizewinning work on analgesics, the fusiform face area and ion channels.

How will the field’s relationship to industry change over the next decade? Will a larger neurotechnology sector emerge?

Interactions between academic neuroscience and industry will grow, and the neurotech sector will expand, most survey respondents predict. The current funding upheaval in the United States may accelerate this trend as the field searches for new funding models.

What are the most transformative neuroscience tools and technologies developed in the past five years?

Artificial intelligence and deep-learning methods featured prominently in the survey responses, followed by genetic tools to control circuits, advanced neuroimaging, transcriptomics and various approaches to record brain activity and behavior.

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Retractions news coverage

Bench to bot essay series

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I think there’s been a trend towards building more quantitatively powerful models of the brain.

Samuel Gershman, professor of psychology, Harvard University

People

The Transmitter ’s Rising Stars of Neuroscience 2025

We recognize the outstanding achievements of 25 neuroscientists who stand to shape the field for years to come.

A tree limb-like pattern superimposed over a landscape.

Tracing neuroscience’s family tree to track its growth

By mapping connections among researchers, Neurotree makes it possible to see how the field has evolved and how shifts in lab size, publication rates and training, among other factors, shape its direction.

Composite of headshots of neuroscience prize winners from 2025.

Top neuroscience prize winners in 2025

The awards recognize lifetime achievements and new discoveries.

Composite of headshots of neuroscientists who passed away in the past several years.

The leaders we have lost

Learn more about the lives and legacies of the neuroscientists who passed away between 2023 and 2025.

Composite of headshots of researchers who opened new labs in the past several years.

The Transmitter’s New Lab Directory

Learn about neuroscience labs launched in the past two years, plus a few opening their doors in 2026.

How will neuroscience training need to change in the future?

Training in computational neuroscience, data science and statistics will need to expand, say many of the scientists we surveyed. But that must be balanced with a more traditional grounding in the scientific method and critical thinking. Researchers noted that funding concerns will also affect training, especially for people from underrepresented groups.

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Should neuroscience focus on big team science or the traditional model?

A balanced approach is best, according to the majority of respondents. Many stressed that big team science has value for large-scale, resource-intensive projects, particularly for cell atlases and similar efforts. But some noted that small group support is key for creativity.

Neuroscientist profiles

Report: Static pay, shrinking prospects fuel neuroscience postdoc decline

Report: How eight initiatives are tackling neuroscience’s gender gap

Beyond the bench researcher Q&As

Perspective: Building the future of neuroscience at HBCUs

Bringing neuroscience to rural Mexico: In conversation with Mónica López-Hidalgo

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Data science will be increasingly important whether you do molecular neuroscience or systems neuroscience. You have to be a data scientist because we’re in the stage of tons of data.

Anne West, professor of neurobiology, Duke University

Funding

Illustration of coins falling through space.

Establishing a baseline: Trends in NIH neuroscience funding from 2008 to 2024

Funding for neuroscience-related projects more than doubled in 16 years, rising from $4.2 billion in 2008 to $10.5 billion in 2024, according to an analysis by The Transmitter. That money went largely to private universities in coastal states.

View from inside a piggy bank show coins falling through the slot.

Neuroscience funding: A source directory

Our list features expected and lesser-known governmental and nongovernmental sources of funding for basic neuroscience research.

Which sources fund your neuroscience research?

Government sources are the main overall contributors to neuroscience labs, but funding breakdown varies across labs, career stages and neuroscience subfields, a survey by The Transmitter shows.

Deconstructed scissors in the shape of a percentage sign.

How do you anticipate the field changing in the wake of recent funding cuts?

Most survey respondents said they are bracing for a major reduction in the scientific workforce in the United States; some foresee research and staff shifting from academia to the private sector; and a few predict growth in translational studies and research on artificial intelligence.

Glasses with a pie chart in one of the lenses.

How have funding cuts affected early-career scientists’ futures?

Some say they feel terrified and anxious over all the uncertainty; many are thinking about leaving the United States, academia or science altogether; others plan to stay the course.

Funding and policy news coverage

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Report: ‘A gut punch’: How U.S. neuroscience trainees are grappling with diversity-based funding flux

Report: How advocacy groups are navigating funding cuts

Report: NIH awarded 37 percent fewer neuroscience grants in 2025 than in past years

Report: NIH cuts quash $323 million for neuroscience research and training

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My biggest worry is our next generation of rising scientists, how they are going to be really impacted by this current funding climate. If there is no funding, there are no jobs, what’s their future? Are we losing all those talented scientists to other countries?

Lin Tian, scientific director, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience

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The State of Neuroscience

Focus

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Output

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People

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Funding

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