“In neuroscience, “mechanism” is a common and powerful concept. Mechanisms are often viewed as causal systems, which helps explain their central role in neuroscience. Causes are factors that can control, predict and explain their effects, giving us an understanding of why things happen and a way to target future outcomes. Identifying causal relationships and systems is necessary to understand the natural world, and the brain is no exception. Uncovering the causal structure of the brain—whether at the molecular, cellular, neural-circuit or brain-region scales—plays a crucial role in our understanding of how the brain works.

Mechanism isn’t just a common causal concept in neuroscience—it is often viewed as the causal concept required to understand the brain. To that end, funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and top neuroscience journals often refer to “mechanism” and “mechanistic findings” to determine what research they should fund and publish. It’s clearly a status term in neuroscience, intended to capture the standard of quality work in the field.

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To examine how different subfields of neuroscience think about mechanisms, we asked [nine] researchers [including UCI’s Michael Yassa] three questions. How is the notion of “mechanism” used and valued in your subfield? Are there other types of causal systems (or evidence) that you think should be given more weight? Does the apparent preference for mechanisms in journal guidelines and grant calls capture its status in your subfield?”

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