I attended the 10 Questions for NHP Systems Neuroscience Workshop 2025, held October 23–25, 2025 at the historic Mellon Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA.

A lot of science, a lot of fun, and a lot of friends.

One highlight was a session where each participant posed two guiding questions for the field:

Mehrdad

Q1. How to bring under experimental control the natural intelligence that primates display when interacting with the physical world and its affordances?

Q2. ...interacting with other primates?

Kathy

Q1. What neural mechanisms shape individual differences in motor strategies, and how do these constraints evolve with development, aging, or injury?

Q2. Computation motif for making motion decisions?

Marlene

Q1. Under what neural conditions do we learn rapidly and generalize to new contexts?

Q2. What are neural reasons for limits on cognition?

Ilya

Q1. How do intrinsic rewards like novelty and uncertainty reduction drive primate behavior?

Q2. How can we best use NHPs to overcome challenges in translational systems neuroscience for psychiatry?

MattRick

Q1. How much of the brain do we need to measure to understand its ongoing function?

Q2. How does the brain multiplex the rich landscape of internal states?

Criteria for a good question
Impact Feasibility Testability NHP Necessity Collaborative Potential
10 Questions for NHP Systems Neuroscience
We escaped — and then we ate.