List of Breakthrough Prize Winners in Life Sciences Hints at the Lack of Progress in Cognitive Neuroscience

The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a 3-million dollar prize given for advances in biology.  The prize was founded by 2013 after donations by high-tech billionaires such as Mark Zuckerberg. Let's take a look at a list of all the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences that have been awarded since 2013, quoting from the wikipedia.org page that lists them:

• "for the genetics of neural circuits and behavior, and synaptic guidepost molecules"
• "for linkage mapping of Mendelian disease in humans using DNA polymorphisms"
• "for the discovery of PI 3-Kinase and its role in cancer metabolism"
• "for describing the role of Wnt signaling in tissue stem cells and cancer"
• "for research on telomeres, illuminating how they protect chromosome ends and their role in genome instability in cancer"
• "for discoveries in the mechanisms of angiogenesis that led to therapies for cancer and eye diseases"
• "for the discovery of general principles for identifying human disease genes, and enabling their application to medicine through the creation and analysis of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the human genome"
• "for cancer genes and targeted therapy"
• "for characterization of human cancer genes"
• "for induced pluripotent stem cells"
• "for cancer genomics and tumor suppressor genes"
• "for the discovery of T cell checkpoint blockade as effective cancer therapy"
• "for defining the interlocking circuits in the brain that malfunction in Parkinson’s disease – this scientific foundation underlies the circuit-based treatment of Parkinson’s disease by deep brain stimulation"
• "for the discovery of Target of Rapamycin (TOR) and its role in cell growth control"
• "for discoveries leading to the development of controlled drug-release systems and new biomaterials"
• "for the discovery of genes and biochemical mechanisms that cause hypertension"
• "for discovering critical molecular determinants and biological functions of intracellular protein degradation"
• "for the discovery and pioneering work on the development of high-frequency deep brain stimulation (DBS), which has revolutionized the treatment of Parkinson’s disease"
• "for the discovery of covalent modifications of histone proteins and their critical roles in the regulation of gene expression and chromatin organization, advancing the understanding of diseases ranging from birth defects to cancer"
• "for the discovery of a new world of genetic regulation by microRNAs, a class of tiny RNA molecules that inhibit translation or destabilize complementary mRNA targets"
• "for harnessing an ancient mechanism of bacterial immunity into a powerful and general technology for editing genomes, with wide-ranging implications across biology and medicine"
• "for the development and implementation of optogenetics – the programming of neurons to express light-activated ion channels and pumps, so that their electrical activity can be controlled by light"
• "for discovering mutations in the amyloid precursor protein (APP) gene that cause early onset Alzheimer’s disease, linking accumulation of APP-derived beta-amyloid peptide to Alzheimer’s pathogenesis and inspiring new strategies for disease prevention"
• "for the discovery of human genetic variants that alter the levels and distribution of cholesterol and other lipids, inspiring new approaches to the prevention of cardiovascular and liver disease"
• "for pioneering the sequencing of ancient DNA and ancient genomes, thereby illuminating the origins of modern humans, our relationships to extinct relatives such as Neanderthals, and the evolution of human populations and traits"
• "for elucidating how eukaryotic cells sense and respond to damage in their DNA and providing insights into the development and treatment of cancer"
• "for discovering the centrality of RNA in forming the active centers of the ribosome, the fundamental machinery of protein synthesis in all cells, thereby connecting modern biology to the origin of life and also explaining how many natural antibiotics disrupt protein synthesis"
• "for pioneering research on the Wnt pathway, one of the crucial intercellular signaling systems in development, cancer and stem cell biology"
• "for elucidating autophagy, the recycling system that cells use to generate nutrients from their own inessential or damaged components"
• "for discoveries of the genetic causes and biochemical mechanisms of spinocerebellar ataxia and Rett syndrome, findings that have provided insight into the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative and neurological diseases"
• "for discovering how plants optimize their growth, development, and cellular structure to transform sunlight into chemical energy"
• "for elucidating the unfolded protein response, a cellular quality-control system that detects disease-causing unfolded proteins and directs cells to take corrective measures"
• "for elucidating the sophisticated mechanism that mediates the perilous separation of duplicated chromosomes during cell division and thereby prevents genetic diseases such as cancer"
• "for elucidating the molecular pathogenesis of a type of inherited ALS, including the role of glia in neurodegeneration, and for establishing antisense oligonucleotide therapy in animal models of ALS and Huntington disease"
• "for the development of an effective antisense oligonucleotide therapy for children with the neurodegenerative disease spinal muscular atrophy"
• "for determining the consequences of aneuploidy, an abnormal chromosome number resulting from chromosome mis-segregation"
• for discovering hidden structures in cells by developing super-resolution imaging – a method that transcends the fundamental spatial resolution limit of light microscopy"
• "for elucidating how DNA triggers immune and autoimmune responses from the interior of a cell through the discovery of the DNA-sensing enzyme cGAS"
• "for the discovery of a new endocrine system through which adipose tissue signals the brain to regulate food intake"
• "for discovering functions of molecular chaperones in mediating protein folding and preventing protein aggregation"
• "for discovering molecules, cells, and mechanisms underlying pain sensation"
• "for discovering TDP43 protein aggregates in frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and revealing that different forms of alpha-synuclein, in different cell types, underlie Parkinson’s disease and Multiple System Atrophy"
• "for developing technology that allowed the design of proteins never seen before in nature, including novel proteins that have the potential for therapeutic intervention in human diseases"
• "for deconstructing the complex behavior of parenting to the level of cell-types and their wiring, and demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors are present in both sexes"
• "for discovering that fetal DNA is present in maternal blood and can be used for the prenatal testing of trisomy 21 and other genetic disorders"
• "for elucidating a quality control pathway that clears damaged mitochondria and thereby protects against Parkinson’s Disease"
• "for elucidating the molecular basis of neurodegenerative and cardiac transthyretin diseases, and for developing tafamidis, a drug that slows their progression"
• "for engineering modified RNA technology which enabled rapid development of effective COVID-19 vaccines"
• "for the development of a robust and affordable method to determine DNA sequences on a massive scale, which has transformed the practice of science and medicine"

In the list above there is a lack of any breakthroughs from the area of cognitive neuroscience, with the possible exception of the one line referring to parenting behaviors. We hear no mention of the words "memory" or "consciousness" or "cognition" or "learning" or "understanding" or "thinking." 

Let's look at the only line above referring to something from cognitive neuroscience: the line that makes a misleadingly broad reference to someone "demonstrating that the neural circuits governing both male and female-specific parenting behaviors are present in both sexes." No one has actually shown that neural circuits govern any type of behavior in any organism.  The line is referring to a 2021 award to Catherine Dulac.  If we look at the corresponding paper she co-authored ("Galanin neurons in the medial preoptic area govern parental behavior"), we will find  nothing very impressive. It is an experimental paper merely dealing with an extremely narrow topic: mice and their behavior when presented with never-before-seen baby mice (called mice pups).  The paper claims to have altered behavior of mice when presented with unfamiliar mice pups, by altering the brains of the mice.  

Unfortunately, the paper fails to be a robust demonstration, because it often uses study group sizes smaller than 15, as small as only 8.  15 subjects per study group is the minimum needed for a robust experimental demonstration. Also the paper fails to discuss how a serious blinding protocol was implemented, merely mentioning two cases in which an observer was blind to something, rather than mentioning in detail how a thorough blinding protocol was implemented.  In the "Statistics" part of the paper the authors confess their failure to do a sample size calculation, which is a calculation done to make sure that adequate sample sizes were used. They state, "The sample sizes in our study were chosen based on common practice in animal behavior experiments."  That is the kind of thing that people state when they failed to calculate the sample sizes needed for a robust result.  It is well known that these days neuroscience experimenters are habitually failing to use adequate sample sizes, with such a failure being more the rule than the exception, as discussed in the widely cited paper "Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience."  So when a paper says "the sample sizes in our study were chosen based on common practice in animal behavior experiments," we should treat that as a confession that a poor practice was followed. 

So the only claimed  "breakthrough" in the field of cognitive neuroscience turns out to be a "small potatoes" affair, something that did not follow experimental best practices, and does not qualify at all as a breakthrough.  

The list above is a kind of Exhibit A that I can cite to back up my claim that no progress has been made in supporting neruoscientist dogmas that brains store memories or that brains are the source of human minds.  In the past decade hundreds of millions of dollars have been doled out to our cognitive neuroscientists, but they have had no success in substantiating the claims they keep making about brains storing memories and brains producing minds. 

The list above also suggests two other things:

• No major progress is being made by biologists in understanding the origin of life. The only reference to the origin of life in the list above is a superfluous and unwarranted claim that a discovery about "the centrality of RNA in forming the active centers of the ribosome" has accomplished some feat of "connecting modern biology to the origin of life," a vague and vacuous phrase that does not really mean much of anything. 
• No major progress is being made by scientists in understanding  morphogenesis, how the enormously organized state of a full human body is able to gradually arise from the million-times-simpler state of a speck-sized egg. The list above mentions no progress in the field of developmental biology. 

A lack of progress in cognitive neuroscience is suggested by the quote below from a recent neuroscience paper: 

"Neuroscience is at the stage biology was at before Darwin. It has a myriad of detailed observations but no single theory explaining the connections between all of those observations. We do not even know if such a brain theory should be at the molecular level or at the level of brain regions, or at any scale between."