A decades-long boom in brain science in the United States may be heading for a bust.
Ongoing disruptions in federal funding are causing many young brain scientists to reconsider their career choice, according to leaders of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), which represents more than 37,000 researchers and clinicians.
If those scientists change fields or leave the country, SfN officials say, it could hobble the nation's efforts to understand and treat brain disorders including Alzheimer's, autism, Parkinson's and schizophrenia.
"The U.S. has been a world leader in research for decades, and that leadership position is now at risk," says John Morrison, a professor at the University of California, Davis and president of SfN.
Morrison expects that discussions about federal funding are likely to have a prominent place in the group's annual five-day meeting, which begins Saturday in San Diego and is expected to attract about 20,000 brain scientists.
"It's hard to escape, because we're all being directly affected by it," Morrison says.
Science, disrupted
In the months since President Trump took office, the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation have been buffeted by cuts, grant terminations, and abrupt policy changes.
Federal health officials have said those measures reflect an effort to reduce fraud and waste, end support of 'woke' science, and align research with the administration's priorities.
But the process has been unsettling for young scientists like Clara Zundel, a postdoctoral researcher at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Zundel, who studies how pollution affects the developing brain, currently has funding from the National Institutes of Health. But consideration of an NIH grant that would extend her funding has been delayed, she says.
As a result, she decided not to spend the money to attend this year's neuroscience meeting. Instead, she's focusing on finding a job in an increasingly tight market.
"Many universities are still on partial or even full hiring freezes," Zundel says. "So it's just made it really scary to think how I'm going to take that next step."
Zundel isn't ready to abandon her career plans just yet.
"I absolutely love what I do, and I want to continue doing what I do," she says.
Still. "Talk to me in another three months," she says, "and I might change my mind."
Other young researchers are even less certain, Morrison says.
"You hear things like, 'I've prepared my whole life for this. Is it gone now? Is it no longer possible to be the scientist that I always wanted to be?'" he says. "Many will just choose something else."
Others may take their research to another country. And if funding cuts and uncertainty persist, Morrison says, the field of neuroscience could lose a whole generation of scientists.
Congress funds, White House cuts
The NIH often awards five-year grants, and scientists tend to structure their research around that timeline. But in recent months, many grants have been paused or prematurely terminated.
"If you disrupt the grant in the middle, the work you've already done [may be] worthless," Morrison says.
He also challenges the administration's claim that it is saving taxpayers' money.
In the long run, he says, the human and financial costs of cutting research will be huge.
Take Alzheimer's. Research into the neurodegenerative disorder costs the federal government a few billion dollars per year, Morrison says. But caring for people with the disease costs far more — hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And that cost, he says, will continue to rise until researchers find better treatments or a way to prevent the disease.
Morrison says it's an excellent example of a principle expressed by the late Mary Lasker, a philanthropist and champion of medical research, who famously said: "If you think research is expensive, try disease."
That sentiment is one reason brain science has long enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress, says Diane Lipscombe, a professor at Brown University and chair of government and public affairs at the Society for Neuroscience.
Another is that, ever since World War II, science has been a huge boost to the U.S. economy, she says. That's because publicly-funded research not only helps train future physicians and scientists, it leads to new drugs and medical devices, biotech companies that spin off from universities, and patents on vaccines, cancer treatments, and even gene-editing technology.
"I don't think we've ever talked with anyone in the [House] or Senate who disagreed with that," Lipscombe says.
But the current round of 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 links to videos of scientists explaining the work they do and why it matters.
Lipscombe thinks that message will be heard. So when she talks to young scientists asking for career advice, she tries to offer an optimistic message.
"You just have to stay with what you love because things will get better," she says.
At least, that's the hope.
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