Definition
Neurotree is an online, volunteer‑run database that records the academic genealogy of neuroscientists. It maps mentor‑mentee relationships—such as doctoral supervision, postdoctoral fellowships, and research collaborations—into a tree‑like structure, allowing users to trace intellectual lineages within the field of neuroscience.
Overview
Founded in January 2005 by Stephen V. David (Oregon Health & Science University) and Benjamin Y. Hayden (University of Rochester), Neurotree was the original discipline‑specific branch of what later became the Academic Family Tree (formerly the Academic Family Tree). The platform collects information from published sources (e.g., ProQuest dissertations) and contributions by volunteers, who add, edit, and verify entries. As of September 2023, the broader Academic Family Tree—which incorporates Neurotree—contained over 870 000 individuals and nearly 880 000 mentorship connections across 73 discipline‑specific trees, with Neurotree representing the neuroscience component.
Neurotree’s primary functions include:
- Visualizing mentorship networks and degrees of separation between scholars.
- Providing searchable records of neuroscientists’ academic ancestors and descendants.
- Supplying data for meta‑analyses of mentorship impact, field growth, and scientometric studies.
The database is freely accessible to the public and its contents are released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC‑BY 3.0) license.
Etymology / Origin
The name “Neurotree” combines “neuro‑,” referring to neuroscience, with “tree,” a metaphor borrowed from biological genealogy to denote hierarchical relationships among individuals. The term was coined by the founders to emphasize the platform’s purpose of charting the scholarly lineage of neuroscientists.
Characteristics
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Scope | Focuses on mentorship links in neuroscience, including doctoral advisors, postdoctoral mentors, and research supervisors. |
| Data Sources | Derived from published academic records, institutional archives, and user‑submitted information; entries are curated by volunteer editors. |
| Interface | Web‑based graphical view of family trees; includes tools such as “Distance” to compute the number of academic steps between two researchers. |
| Accessibility | Open to all users; data can be downloaded and reused under CC‑BY 3.0. |
| Funding | Received grant support from the Metaknowledge Network (2014) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (2016, 2019). |
| Reliability | While extensive, the volunteer‑curated nature means entries are not formally peer‑reviewed; users are cautioned to verify critical information. |
Related Topics
- Academic Family Tree – The umbrella platform that now hosts Neurotree alongside other discipline‑specific genealogies (e.g., Psychology, Mathematics).
- Mathematics Genealogy Project – A similar genealogy database focused on mathematicians, often referenced for comparative studies.
- Academic genealogy – The broader practice of documenting mentor‑mentee relationships across scholarly fields.
- Scientometrics – The quantitative study of science, which utilizes data from resources like Neurotree to assess mentorship networks and research impact.
- Mentorship in science – Research area examining how mentor characteristics influence career trajectories, frequently citing Neurotree data.
References
- David, S. V., & Hayden, B. Y. (2012). Neurotree: A collaborative, graphical database of the academic genealogy of neuroscience. PLOS ONE, 7(10), e46608. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046608
- Wikipedia contributors. (2024). Academic Family Tree. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Family_Tree (accessed 7 April 2026).
- Liénard, J. F., et al. (2018). Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers. Nature Communications, 9, 4840. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07034-y