Not all scientists appreciate the "why" behind science writing for the public - not just as a service, but for themselves. (I didn't always get it). In this piece for Nature Reviews Neuroscience, I draw on the neuroscience of curiosity & decision making to unpack its value. Share link - open to all: https://rdcu.be/eCGr7

It's publication day for 📘Elusive Cures. What a moment! This is my 1st book & my 1st time on Mindscape (one of my favorite podcasts). Here, @npub1x3gn...k6wt and I have a wide-ranging conversation about the brain, including: Why are brain and mental disorders so hard to understand and treat? The podcast:

317 | Nicole Rust on Why Neuroscience Hasn’t Solved Brain Disorders – Sean Carroll

The book:

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

I hope Senator John Fetterman and his team enjoy nonfiction books (or at least this one). Nearly everyone is either themselves afflicted with a brain or mental condition, or knows someone who is. We must do better for those individuals! To achieve that, we need federal support of science.

This! This the type of work that makes me so optimistic that the next 3 decades of brain research will be more impactful that the last for understanding/treating mental conditions. We finally have the right measurement tools & analyses (eg for emotion). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adt3971 Treating the brain as a complex dynamical system where emotions are persistent, emergent properties is key to understanding emotion. This is what we'll look back on in 30 years and point to as the genius of this era.

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

And this type of cross-species comparative work enables exactly the types of causal perturbation experiments that some are grumbling haven't been done yet. Like this ⬇️ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07915-x

Day 24 (breakthrough): The BrainGate brain computer interface enables individuals with extreme paralysis to move. It's the product of decades of scientific discoveries & engineering. For one man, he imagines writing letters and it's transformed into text. It's remarkable! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03506-2 More on BrainGate:

BrainGate

BrainGate

A consortium of clinicians, scientists, and engineers developing brain-computer interfaces to restore movement and communication for people with pa...

#ElusiveCures30

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

Day 26 (breakthrough): AI. "Building" was once held up as a test of understanding. With AI, we can build w/out it. AlphaFold is an AI model that predicts protein structures from DNA, created w/out understanding protein folding. It changes the game. #ElusiveCures30

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2

30 days to the launch of Elusive Cures! I learned so much writing it, and I want to share it.

Elusive Cures

A neuroscientist’s bold proposal for tackling one of the greatest challenges of our time—brain and mental illnesses

For the next 30 days, I'll post brain & mind research breakthroughs on odd days, and highlight unmet needs on even ones. #ElusiveCures30 First breakthrough: Recording tech & why it matters. The brain is a complex system in which its parts need to be studied simultaneously b/c its emergent properties follow from their interactions. We can now do that for the first time in history. Up to 1 million neurons in mice! https://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(24)00121-1 And this is leading to ways to measure things we've never been able to before. Like how activity in the hypothalamus of a mouse gets sucked into a persistent "line attractor" to drive aggression. Understanding that is a step toward understanding emotion in humans. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07915-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07915-x

What a fun time to be named Nicole … I’ll guess hold off on sending y’all those random DMs I had planned.

In the era of Trump 2.0, we're calling on all scientists and friends to advocate and unpack science in a public-facing way. This is much bigger than anyone of us. But if we all do one thing, imagine the cumulative impact! It need not be a burden. More here, in @npub17rvd...w9lk

The Transmitter: Neuroscience News and Perspectives

In your New Year’s resolutions for 2025, consider public outreach

If every person in the neuroscience community committed to doing one thing, imagine the cumulative difference it would make.

Terrific! Paywalls are disappearing! No more 12 month embargo between when NIH funded work appears in a journal and when it becomes accessible to all (as of December 2025). https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-issues-new-policy-speed-access-agency-funded-research-results