Haihong Ye wrote a fascinating post on Action Potential, the blog of the journal Nature Neuroscience, last month, on the amazing changes in Chinese neuroscience over the past decade. He writes: “Over the past 10 years, especially the last five, the whole world has been amazed by the Chinese economy. To me, however, the improvement in biological science research in China is much more amazing. In the summer of 1998 I left Beijing and went to the US to pursue a PhD in neuroscience. In 2007, after nine years of graduate study and post-doc training abroad, I came back to Beijing, seeking opportunities for further career development. What a difference some strong funding and visionary directives, not to mention a decade, can make.”

Please visit Action Potential to read on and to discuss this stimulating article about the driving forces behind the country’s neuroscientific achievements, the problems in maintaining progress, and how things look for the future.

For those interested in reading more on the topic, Chinese neuroscience was featured in Nature Neurocience’s March editorial (11, 1; 2008).