Letter asks Congress for nearly $500 million to sustain BRAIN Initiative The boost would help counter the planned sunsetting of one of the program’s long-standing funding streams.

The requested boost would help counter the planned sunsetting of one of the program’s long-standing funding streams, which will result in a $195 million drop in funding for fiscal year 2027.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/lett...

The nontraditional model organism renaissance Each month, The Transmitter explores creative approaches neuroscientists are taking to solve problems that arise in their research. In this installment, we see how researchers work backward from speci...

Explore “Brainstorming,” @thetransmitter.bsky.social’s new LinkedIn newsletter that looks at how neuroscientists are solving research challenges. The first edition features nontraditional model organisms that are well suited for studying certain behaviors or neurological conditions.

bit.ly/4v6x506

“In her obituary, her mentee, Catherine Veil, says that [Marcelle Lapicque] fought against the prejudices of her time … it may be that the prejudices included race and not just sexism,” says @oligoclonalband.medsky.social.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/history-of-n...

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

"The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has so far not received approval to spend any of the research funding allocated in a budget bill signed into law on 3 February. " www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thanks to @oligoclonalband.medsky.social, Alexis Simpkins, @manon-auffret.bsky.social and Jean-Gaël Barbara for the research; to Frank Stahnisch for the historical context; and to Ninetynine Films for the lovely video work.

It was so fun to work with @rebeccasky.bsky.social on this video about the life and work of pioneering neuroscientist Marcelle Lapicque! Check it out here:

Infant brain categorizes common objects by two months of age Brain activity patterns in the ventral visual cortex appear to distinguish images across 12 categories, including birds and trees, fMRI scans suggest.

Functional MRI scans of more than 100 2-month-old infants suggest that they are capable of distinguishing among a variety of different objects. The findings challenge perceptions of cognitive development as a gradual process.

By @helenak.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/cognitive-ne...

Thanks Angie! If you’re starting out your career in neuroscience check out our early career newsletter. It features articles catered towards early career researchers, job opportunities and much more!

Newsletters and alerts The latest news and perspectives on the neuroscience topics that interest you most, direct to your inbox

@franciscorr25.bsky.social is really killing it with this newsletter. You can subscribe here to get it in your inbox! www.thetransmitter.org/newsletters-...

Are there any traditions or practices from the labs you trained at that you will implement in your lab? I did my Ph.D. in György Buzsáki’s lab. Whenever anyone left the lab, György would give an awkward speech about the story of the person’s time in the lab. The person leaving would, in turn, give their own speech from their perspective and talk about what they learned from György and the other lab members. It was all quite touching, and I think it really helped the lab feel like a community that valued the people who came through and the time they spent there. It also showed new lab members just how nonlinear research can be—no one ended up doing the project they had planned when they joined. I’ve seen a lot of amazing speeches, and I hope to have a similar “celebration of the time in the lab” practice in my own group. The other thing I’d like to carry forward is that the lab always has lunch together. Both my Ph.D. and postdoc labs did this, and it’s quite nice for building a sense of community.

And I love @dlevenstein.bsky.social's ideas for building community in the lab:

Are there any traditions or practices from the labs you trained at that you will implement in your lab? I plan to use a “slide stack”—a practice that worked well for me when I was a trainee. Basically, every trainee will maintain a running Google Slides document, and every week, the trainee can add updates about their projects. This allows me to preview everything before one-on-one meetings, making them more efficient. For the trainee, the slide stack will act as an archive of checkpoints—which is helpful for “debugging” things throughout the projects—and as a template for making polished materials for talks and papers.

There are always great mentoring tips in @thetransmitter.bsky.social's early career newsletter, Launch. This one from new PI @qlu.bsky.social in today's edition stood out to me as being a particularly useful idea!

Single gene sways caregiving circuits, behavior in male mice Brain levels of the agouti gene determine whether African striped mice are doting fathers—or infanticidal ones.

The one gene that makes mice good dads—or infanticidal parents.

By @natmesanash.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/social-behav...

Ken Catania's class at Vanderbilt that covered the neurobiology of fascinating animals like the star-nosed mole is one of the reasons I pursued a career in neuroscience! So fun to read this Q&A:

#neuroskyence

‘Peer review is our strength’: Q&A with Walter Koroshetz, former NINDS director In his first week off the job, the former National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke director urges U.S. scientists to remain optimistic about the future of neuroscience research…

“As long as we can remain optimistic about the future of science and communicate that optimism to young people, we’re going to be fine,” says Walter Koroshetz, former NINDS director.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...

‘Peer review is our strength’: Q&A with Walter Koroshetz, former NINDS director In his first week off the job, the former National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke director urges U.S. scientists to remain optimistic about the future of neuroscience research…

Former NINDS director Walter Koroshetz sat down with @avaskham.bsky.social to reflect on his tenure and share his thoughts on the "attempts at influence" from politicians www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...

After NINDS director ouster, 40 neuroscience organizations press U.S. Congress for oversight over hiring process A letter signed by the groups asks Congress to ensure that scientific expertise remains a priority in the search for a new director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

A letter signed by 40 neuroscience groups asks Congress to ensure that scientific expertise remains a priority in the search for a new director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/science-and-...

Neuroscience, BRAIN Initiative gain budget in ‘bad’ NIH funding bill The bill goes before the House of Representatives today and outlines increases for neuroscience-related research—including a 33 percent increase to the BRAIN Initiative—but maintains a multiyear…

The bill includes a 33 percent budget increase for the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative, which has faced significant funding cuts over the past two years.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/funding/neur...

Exclusive: key NIH review panels due to lose all members by the end of 2026 Thirteen of the agency’s advisory councils, which must review grant applications before funding is awarded, are on track to have no voting members.

🚨 New from me: Grant review at more than half of NIH's institutes could be frozen by the end of the year.

That's because crucial NIH grant-review panels are slated to be empty at those institutes by Jan 2027.

A wonky bureaucratic problem with big implications.

A short 🧵

Prenatal viral injections prime primate brain for study The approach makes it possible to deploy tools such as CRISPR and optogenetics across the monkey brain before birth.

A new method for delivering genes to the primate brain enables researchers to apply existing genetic tools across the monkey brain.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/pre...

Good news from NIH!

Michael Chiang has apparently been reappointed as Director of the National Eye Institute

www.nei.nih.gov/about/our-mi...

A list of appropriation amounts from the "minibus" bill that includes the NIH budget.

Reposting with comments.

NIDDK budget appears to be cut because there is a separate fund for diabetes, elsewhere in the bill.

NINDS budget is increased because of funds transferred from the Office of the Director (OD) for ALS, Alzheimer's.

NIEHS seems like a real cut.

OD cut is related to NINDS.

A mathematical glitch means that lesion network mapping, which aims to find condition-specific dysfunctional networks, produces strikingly similar results regardless of the condition being studied:

What can the Brain Knowledge Platform do for you? 🧠📈

Join us on Jan. 14, 11am-12pm PT for a webinar on the new features and data in world's most comprehensive brain cell atlas.

🔗 alleninstitute-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Le5E...

Sex hormone boosts female rats’ sensitivity to unexpected rewards During the high-estradiol stages of their estrus cycle, female rats learn faster than they do during other stages—and than male rats overall—thanks to a boost in their dopaminergic response to reward…

“It’s giving mechanistic insight into how estrogen modulates reinforcement learning—all the way down to the molecular mechanism,” says Ilana Witten.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/sex-hormones...

A change at the top of SfN as neuroscientists gather in San Diego Kevin B. Marvel, longtime head of the American Astronomical Society, will lead SfN after a year of uncertainty in the neuroscience field.

Given the issues facing neuroscience around government policy and funding, the naming of an outsider to SfN’s top position caught some neuroscientists by surprise.

By Natalia Mesa

#neuroskyence #SfN2025 #SfN25

www.thetransmitter.org/teaching/kev...

While I was out on maternity leave, the Transmitter team produced this incredibly rich and informative special report on the state of neuroscience as a field. It's out now — go explore it here!!

#neuroskyence

Neuroscience Cell Types Webinars Neuroscience webinars from the Allen Institute to hear about latest cell types researchers from various scientists.

Join us on Dec. 2 for a webinar on the major advances in basal ganglia mapping, including cross-species cellular mapping and open-access visualization tools.

📅 Dec. 2, 9-10:30am PT
📍 Online
🔗 Register: alleninstitute.org/events/neuroscience-cell...

#studyBRAIN #neuroskyence

Timing tweak turns trashed fMRI scans into treasure Leveraging start-up “dummy scans,” which are typically discarded in imaging analyses, can shorten an experiment’s length and make data collection more efficient, a new study reveals.

This article in The Transmitter covering our paper may be one of the best scientific content headlines of all time. www.thetransmitter.org/fmri/timing-...

Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS): a flexible paradigm for event-related fMRI Nature Methods - Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS) is an acquisition scheme for event-related fMRI that generates data with high temporal signal-to-noise ratios interspaced with...

14 months after submission, our article “Stimulus-modulated approach to steady state (SASS): a flexible paradigm for event-related fMRI" is now out in @natmethods.nature.com . You can read it here rdcu.be/ePJo6
It is the first first author paper from my student @renilmathew.bsky.social 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 …1/N