Developments in Behavioral Neuroscience as Reflected by the Most Viewed and Highly Cited Articles Published in Brain Sciences in 2025

Each year, Brain Sciences identifies the most downloaded, viewed, and cited articles for each section and invites the Section Editor to compile a selection based on originality, methodological rigor, relevance to current research trends, and overall scholarly impact. Below are our top six choices. It is worth highlighting certain unexpected trends. While the Section’s scope predictably emphasizes the understanding of neural mechanisms underlying behavior, the top two positions in our 2025 selection are occupied by a narrative and a systematic review that are not directly and immediately related to such scope. In our view, this is not an anomaly but rather signals the need to become used to the fact that in peer-reviewed scientific publishing, it is also appropriate to consider something we can call “social engagement”. The two reviews highlighted here fall into this category, all while maintaining the rigorous standards of classic neuroscientific reviews. It indicates a way of conducting scientific research that is deeply embedded in the broader world, with an effort to shorten the distance between field experts and society at large. In the list of choices, there are also more “conventional” articles, pointing out once again a tendency to consider reviews among the most relevant articles. On the one hand, this is almost expected in terms of citations, downloads, or views. On the other hand, it indicates the need to identify new, supplementary criteria to evaluate the quality of a single article that do not reflect this intrinsic bias.