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By David Stephen
What is the state of neuroscience in 2025? In the United States at least, or by extension, in Europe? Bad. Actually, quite dire. There is no other way to put it, design it or reframe it.
Neuroscience research just had its worst year in recent history. Usually, there have been congressional budget cuts to science research over the years, but what happened in 2025, in the United States, for neuroscience, was not just budget cuts, it was an ejection and a display of irritation to the people in the field and their work.
The easy way to interpret the situation is, of course, the new government. But the hard way to interpret it is that neuroscience, as a field, failed. It is this failure, or nothing great to show, over the last few years that made them defenestrated — without any consideration for what else they might have that might be promising.
What were the biggest neuroscience-associated mainstream news in the last few years: mental health, drug overdose, problem gambling and then intelligence [artificial, but as an opening for human intelligence directly not any other one, human first, no loss of focus].
What did neuroscience, as a field, present as a general solution that everyone can use? Even theoretical, platformed digitally? Nothing, zero. They had no say in the dynamics for answers on the big stage. They kept doing their science, but lost on public relevance.
While they appeared to escape unscathed, previously, the new government for whatever reason showed them the door, because they saw or heard little about them worth preserving?
The United States has the NIH Brain Initiative. The EU had a Human Brain Project. Massive funding, no answer for anything in the mainstream, except more funding, more excuses, more status quo, more fake theories, lack of hard questions, selecting for those who never break rank and group think.
Amid these, what is the role of a new scientific publication?
The Transmitter
November 13, 2023, a press release stated, “The Transmitter is an essential resource for the neuroscience community, dedicated to helping scientists at all career stages stay current and build new connections. The publication aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. As part of that mission, The Transmitter offers a steady stream of up-to-date news and analysis of the field, written by journalists and scientists.”
In the last two years, what needed to be said in neuroscience, that only the existence of The Transmitter [TT] made possible? If TT say that they gave platform to neuroscientists. Yes, they did, only to use TT to say what they have been saying elsewhere or say something indifferent, because TT has said they can say.
On November 13, 2024, The Transmitter said, “Where else would you read a column on “How to teach this paper,” a story on “Making cancer nervous” or a narrative on what happens in a neuroscience lab after scientific fraud?”
Well, everywhere else and if preferable now, with AI. Unfortunately, even at the core purpose of The Transmitter, their existence has not been particularly special. In one way, they appear credible. They obey the experts. They are so ordinary that there is no chance they can ever advance research. The best they have achieved is getting back links from major press. Well, accounts on Medium and Substack also do, meaning it is nothing major to highlight, given their backing by Simons Foundation that gets that already.
How do you have a publication — in neuroscience with two major areas psychiatry and neurology — where there is little solution, and there is no vision, no direction, just focus on branding and high-caution, to be at the mercy of experts?
In just one year, neuroscience funding got cut, labs and programs were shut and discontinued, lots of changes emerged without caution against the carefully structured world The Transmitter and their appeal targets built.
There was nothing The Transmitter wrote or did, that helped in any way against the air strikes on the field. Even where they tried to give voice to debates, the voice was weak because what would have made it strong, The Transmitter never struck out, for mainstream relevance. The Transmitter does not understand that what becomes of anything is what intelligence makes of it. And since they did not deploy improvement intelligence to neuroscience reporting — and where attention should go — neuroscience scrapped out.
TT never held any goal in neuroscience to champion it to victory. There is mental health, which is in mainstream news, they could not become the best source of it, finding new ways to define it in theoretical neuroscience.
The Transmitter launched about a year into the ChatGPT evolutionary phase, they could not center around human intelligence, pursuing probable answers on it, as part of a cause for humanity, backed by the field. They built no influence. They never became a fortress for the field.
This was not the dream of Jim Simons, who left the academe to win in the industry and then support science.
The Transmitter does not recognize that a scientist can be published, affiliated and high-profiled yet be a major embarrassment to knowledge. They don’t know they actually have to be selective in how they make their picks. It is mostly anything goes. Everything is important.
In this AI era, lots of professors are attacking AI and AI companies. Just because they are against AI does not mean they are for humanity. Attacking AI is what makes them relevant, such that they would not have gotten any attention otherwise. What have any of them done for human intelligence, as a concept, to improve it for problem-solving, as a general solution, for humanity? The Transmitter does not know how to spot sham, they go for optics. They emphasize prestige in a neuroscience that has been disgraced by steep funding cuts. The Transmitter is so hallucinatory that they just [November 15, 2025] released a state of neuroscience report for 2025, with all kinds of information, none of which solves the relevance problem for 2026, 2027 or beyond.
The house of neuroscience is on fire. The field was treated so badly in 2025, that rather than pity, moral or cheap rebuttals, they are supposed to mount for war, with work that are in mainstream. Of which, the biggest now is human intelligence. The second is mental health.
Neuroscience now has three divisions, neurology, psychiatry and intelligence. So, what is the future of neuroscience, electrical and chemical signals, directly to explain how the brain works, moving on from the century plus [Cajal] dominance of neurons. The Transmitter is unlikely to ever have anything particularly useful to transform divisions of neuroscience or lay the foundation for its future.
The AI frontier teams may have a lot of faults, but they tend to know where to look in their field to be formidable, and are in physical reality more than those in neuroscience, who are totally unaware of how irrelevant they are, given how they have been trampled in 2025, and have no impact on society. 2026 may even be worse for the field, and then 2027, as they fail, and AI wins and they keep seeking out crumbs and The Transmitter supplies them ranking seats before the iceberg. The AI people hype, in part, because they have something to show. It is not that neuroscience can’t hype, it is that there is little there.
There is a recent [November 10, 2025] policy article on The Transmitter, Without monkeys, neuroscience has no future, stating that, “Research in primate brains has been essential for the development of brain-computer interfaces and artificial neural networks. New funding and policy changes put the future of such advances at risk.”
No, without a theory that looks beyond neurons to signals as the next thing, neuroscience has no future. Such low radiance and protest-themed pieces as this will never make any difference. Yes, some researches are complex and the brain is especially tough. However, solving some mainstream problems is possible by new conceptual filaments from established empirical neuroscience.
There is a new report on NPR, Young brain researchers ponder other careers amid federal funding cuts, stating that “But cuts and disruptions have come from the executive branch, not Congress. So, neuroscientists are taking their case directly to the public. The society’s website, for example, now includes videos of scientists explaining what they do and why it matters.”
Actually, no one cares about the Society for Neuroscience, their meeting [November 15 – 19, 2025] their videos or whatever. The Society for Neuroscience — that didn’t care about overdose families, problem gambling loved ones, mental health cases and those whose human intelligence is already replaced at work by AI — wants the public to care about them, to keep them fed. Ingen.
It is not what anyone one does or why the doer thinks it matters. It is what is in the mainstream that the world consumes — even while other efforts continue, that may decide. Now, with nothing in mainstream from neuroscience, “If you disrupt the grant in the middle of it, you’re going to disrupt that whole progression, and you’ll get to a point where the work that you’ve already done is worthless.”
