Shouldn’t Neuroscience Be Focused More On Human Intelligence?
What is the point of the Society for Neuroscience [SfN] 2025 meeting being held on November 15 – 19, 2025, if it is not centered on human intelligence? Who else do they expect should assume responsibility for the care of human intelligence, as artificial intelligence continues to grow in capacity?
AI companies do not care. They would rather invest and lose money rearing AI than admit a human intelligence research lab. They brandish their work as being for humanity, when the very thing that defines humanity, intelligence, is being eroded by AI.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies do not care. Neuroscience is not on the radar of a number of them, and then human intelligence is not anything worth mentioning. There is nothing they have on offer about human intelligence, even within digital health.
The World Health Organization has no document, policy, research lab, or program, on human intelligence. The World Health Assembly also has no focus on human intelligence. The United Nations and the United Nations Security Council have no consideration for it. The W.H.O. and the U.N. assume there are better priorities than human intelligence, when, if you check, the lack of attention to human intelligence is a factor in some of the problems they seek to solve. Still, nothing compared to what AI is about to unleash against humanity in the labor force, education, companionship, conflict, epidemics, and so forth, as AI rises and human intelligence slumps.
The W.H.O. and the U.N. may be following the propaganda that AI of today is nothing. Maybe it is not clear to them that GPT-5 already has more expertise in most areas of knowledge than you can find people for, in most nations of the earth. Maybe they do not know that what matters is intelligence in the lead or in control, with information that can win, not simply intelligence ability.
Maybe they do not know that operational intelligence is not what moves the world forward, but improvement intelligence. And that for some time now, improvement in intelligence has been mild to progress, but cumulative, over time. But that AI is not slow and coming for everything intelligence, to sweep the digital and master the physical world. AI is likely to make humans refugees in their own world.
So, who should tend human intelligence? Who should define it, explain the types, and explore possible mechanisms of it in the brain? Of what use is the Society for Neuroscience if at this time in history, they cannot rise to the occasion?
What is more important than a situation of intelligence-collapse that will affect every human alive and the yet unborn? What is the point of neuroscience, if its two divisions, psychiatry and neurology, have no new, thorough answers? How come that, of all they have learned, while working on their long-term solutions on those, they cannot at least dedicate work to developing architecture for human intelligence? Why did they lose hope in human intelligence, giving it no backing as AI evaluation and benchmarks grow?
What is the SfN doing, at this point, other than being completely irrelevant? What reputation or credibility do they, their meetings, journals, awards, keynotes, posters, nanosymposium, minisymposium, and so forth have, if they cannot come through for human intelligence?
They are heading for a meeting this November. They have never risen to any occasion on the center stage. When, a few years ago, mental health was in the news everywhere, the SfN had zero impact. Now that sports betting and gambling are in the news, there is also nothing from them.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR), is like a dictionary of observation, not a neuroscience book, with likely components and conceptual mechanisms in the brain. They could not work on a major project for a parallel to the DSM-5-TR, interpreted in theoretical neuroscience.
Now that intelligence is front and center, the SfN has also chickened out. It is possible that they do not want anything to do with human intelligence because they do not have any new insight into it or know what to do about it.
However, they should at least cancel the unnecessary meetings and remove neuroscience from their name, to ensure that the hope that the world needs for brain progress never depends on them. They already have dates for other meetings as well, [2026: November 14–18, Washington, D.C., 2027: October 23–27, Chicago. 2028: November 11–15, San Diego]
They have lots of vanity projects, with no usefulness in helping human intelligence at scale.
In September 2025, the SfN wrote, “What is Neuronline? Neuronline is a member-focused resource site for learning and discussion, where neuroscientists at all career stages can share great science, forge collaborations, and reflect on what’s happening in the field of neuroscience. Neuronline’s webinars, articles, videos, and other media content are based on SfN programming developed by SfN committees and member contributions.”
This article was written for WHN by David Stephen, who currently does research in conceptual brain science with a focus on the electrical and chemical signals for how they mechanize the human mind, with implications for mental health, disorders, neurotechnology, consciousness, learning, artificial intelligence, and nurture. He was a visiting scholar in medical entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL. He did computer vision research at Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona.
As with anything you read on the internet, this article on neuroscience should not be construed as medical advice; please talk to your doctor or primary care provider before changing your wellness routine. WHN neither agrees nor disagrees with any of the materials posted. This article is not intended to provide a medical diagnosis, recommendation, treatment, or endorsement.
Opinion Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article on neuroscience are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of WHN/A4M. Any content provided by guest authors is of their own opinion and is not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything else. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
