As neuroscience research and adjacent programs grapple with funding and staff cuts, the question is this: Where did neuroscience research falter in the last few years? The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA] is losing funding and headcount. The National Institutes of Health [NIH] is undergoing a major surgery. There are high-level questions against psychiatric medications. Universities are cutting down on graduate admissions for several biomedical programs.
What were the major events in the mainstream, in the last few years, that neuroscience research did not show its might or importance, resulting in gaps that may have contributed to its current fate?
Mental health was on the headlines, yet with all the talk of therapy, policy, and so forth, the field of neuroscience could not define what mental health is, or is not, or why some therapies work, or do not, at least conceptually—within the mechanisms of the relevant components in the cranium. Addiction was in the news with major reports on overdose deaths. Although reversal medications were useful, some of the answers about what addiction might beand how to prevent it, that would have percolated into prevention messages, were not available from neuroscience.
However, there was one major situation where it appeared that neuroscience self-subverted. It was in the aftermath of the report of Special Counsel Robert Hur on then-President Joe Biden's possession of classified documents post-vice-presidency.
There were several news stories with quotes from experts about memory and aging. There were opinion articles as well. While some of them noted that it was possible for memory not to be as efficient in old age, there was a generalized theme of better judgment, wisdom, proper memory tests, impulse control, knowledge, and several other points. The problem is not that some of the points may not be accurate. But, if a neuroscience expert were asked about memory and there was talk of wisdom, what is the difference between how the brain mechanizes memory and how it mechanizes wisdom—or judgment?
The question is beyond the use of common terms for descriptions because of the general news audience since what is called memory is a label—not a mechanism within the cranium.
How does human memory work? This is different from stating that the unit of memory is an engram, or that there is long-term memory, or working memory, or that there is memory consolidation, encoding, retrieval, interference, central executive, default mode, and other terms that are used to describe observations about the human memory.
It is possible to be articulate in all these expressions and not be describing the mechanisms of the human memory. The labels are not the actual science of human memory. It would be like saying that velocity is the engineering of automobiles.
The question is that if an individual sees a chair, what is the configuration or representationof that chair in the mind [as a memory]? How is it possible to identify that a remote control in the room is misplaced and to correct it?
If the consensus is that there is no clear understanding of how the human memory works or how the brain organizes information, it, maybe, would have been better to state that and then explain up to the current evidence in neuroscience, as simple [and as balanced] as possible for the general audience.
While an expert [who needs federal funding for research] could be cautious in discussing the memory of an incumbent [who might win reelection] in the press, it would have been better, so to speak, to find a way to strike a balance, because even if the present was scary, the future, being unknown, should have been a cautionary tale.
It would have been better to stay within neuroscience in explanations—discussing neurons and their signals. Then, stating that these signals are also involved in all functions, including wisdom, judgment, emotions, feelings, intelligence, [regulation or control of] digestion, muscles, and so forth. All functions are within the mechanisms of electrical and chemical signals—conceptually and—up to the current evidence in neuroscience.
A simple way to put it is that electrical signals have intensity, and chemical signals have volume. A reason, conceptually, that digestion regulation for digestion capacity or efficiency might wane with age could also be due to electrical signals’ lower intensity or chemical signals’ lower volume—as a rough example.
This means that it could be possible that memory too, might be affected with age. While life experiences may inform judgment and wisdom, effectiveness may not be as rounded or regular, per se, with senescence. Offering explanations that are nearer to how the brain works, while using [non-cranium components or] labels cautiously, as well as from not just a few experts, but say from some major associations for neuroscience, neurology or others, could have ensured the possibility to be careful about directly correlating advanced age with memory decline or offering why that might be possible, without muddling memory [a label] with [other labels like] wisdom, judgment, knowledge and impulse control—charging instead, at philosophy.
No one knows if grievance, in part, may be responsible for some of the cataclysmic airstrikes—currently—on neuroscience, but it may have been a lost opportunity to have the field, appear to describe aging and memory vaguely, without actually discussing the brain, and then the presidential debate struck, discrediting the subtlety of the experts while making the field of neuroscience [and its research] a collateral damage.
There is an analysis [July 7, 2024] in The Washington Post, Debate brings scrutiny of whether aides shielded signs of Biden’s agingstating that, “When special counsel Robert K. Hur concluded in a February report that President Biden should not be prosecuted for mishandling classified documents in part because a jury would view the president as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Biden and his aides hit back hard. Now, after his halting performance at a debate against Trump brought questions about Biden’s mental sharpness and physical stamina to the forefront, Biden’s senior aides face worries among fellow Democrats and sharp accusations from Republicans that they took steps to conceal the effect the president’s aging has had on his ability to carry out his duties.”
There is a recent [March 19, 2025] report in Axios, Fallout from Trump research cuts expands across academia, stating that, “Trump administration spending cuts and freezes to federal grants are roiling major academic medical research programs, prompting layoffs, and leading administrators to abandon studies and rescind admissions offers to graduate students. The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School rescinded provisional offers to dozens of biomedical Ph.D. students this month. Johns Hopkins University last week moved to eliminate more than 2,200 staff positions, including 247 in the U.S., following the termination of more than $80 million in USAID funding, primarily to its school of public health and a global health affiliate. Elsewhere, Stanford announced a hiring freeze tied to NIH cuts, Baylor's College of Medicine said it will scale back expansion plans and trim its incoming graduate school class while Emory's public health school warned of "potentially radical adjustments."”
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