One of the most important unseen developments in neuroscience during the years 2010-2020 was the creation of online community spaces for open exchange about methods.
One of these places was Science Twitter, which was used as an exchange platform for scientific and in-depth technical discussions. With the transformation into X, this community fell apart and was not really able to piece itself together since.
Another platform for exchange among experts was the NeuroMethods Slack channel, created in 2018 by Benjamin Saunders. Over the years, this platform also lost some of its initial traction. First, users moved from NeuroMethods to Science Twitter. At the same time, a new generation of scientists entered the playground and used different channels and platforms. More recently, Slack’s own limitations (storing past conversations) have undermined the idea of building a persistent, searchable knowledge base.
Now, mainly driven by Eleonore Duvelle, this space has been moved to a new platform, replacing Slack with Zulip (https://neuromethods.zulipchat.com/). Researchers can join using an academic email or can contact the workspace manager directly via email.
NeuroMethods on Zulip not only offers a “space for neuroscientists to ask and answer questions about methods in neuroscience” but also preserves a (growing) history of past discussions across diverse topics such as:
- spike sorting software
- virus serotypes
- vendor comparisons for surgery setups
- transgenic mouse lines
- antibodies
- tetrode production
- choice of commutators
- data analysis workflows
- and much more
If you are a neuroscience researcher who would like to help others with your knowledge, want to explore technical discussions from past years, or have technical questions of your own – it is worth taking a look:
A blog about neurophysiology 