What’s All the Buzz? Trending Topics and Phrases of Neurology in 2025

In neurology, "buzzwords" often emerge as shorthand for broader shifts in research, technology, and clinical thinking. While they can sound abstract, these terms typically reflect meaningful changes in how neurologic diseases are studied, diagnosed, and treated, highlighting areas where innovation and clinical interest are rapidly converging.

In 2025, several buzzwords gained traction as neurologists navigated increasingly data rich and biologically complex care. Terms such as artificial intelligence, gene therapy, personalized therapy, neuroplasticity, and genetics became central to conversations across subspecialties, reflecting a growing emphasis on precision medicine, disease modification, and individualized approaches to neurologic care.

Key Buzzwords of 2025

Artificial Intelligence (AI) –

Artificial intelligence has become a defining force in neurology in 2025, shifting from experimental use toward meaningful clinical and research integration. Across subspecialties, AI tools are being applied to analyze complex neurologic data streams such as imaging, EEG, and electronic health records with increasing accuracy and efficiency. These approaches are helping clinicians identify disease patterns earlier, characterize heterogeneity within neurologic conditions, and support more individualized treatment strategies. Rather than replacing clinical judgment, AI is increasingly positioned as an augmentative tool that enhances diagnostic confidence, streamlines workflows, and supports data driven decision making.

In 2025, several AI driven studies highlighted how machine learning is advancing neurologic diagnostics across disease areas. In epilepsy, the SzCORE benchmarking framework systematically evaluated seizure detection algorithms using continuous EEG, underscoring both recent performance gains and persistent challenges related to generalizability and the need for standardized evaluation metrics. In neurodegenerative disease, deep learning models applied to EEG data showed strong accuracy in distinguishing Alzheimer disease from frontotemporal dementia and estimating disease severity, offering a noninvasive complement to imaging and biomarker based diagnostics.^1,2

Gene Therapy –

Gene therapy has increasingly become a central theme in neurology in 2025 as advances in vector design, delivery techniques, and disease-specific targeting converge to make once-theoretical treatments a clinical reality. The field’s evolution reflects a shift from symptomatic management toward interventions that modify disease mechanisms at the genetic level, offering the potential for durable or even curative effects in disorders with well-defined molecular causes. Clinical researchers are actively exploring gene delivery systems capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier or targeting specific neural populations, expanding the scope of neurologic conditions that could benefit from genetic intervention and driving both scientific and commercial interest in the approach.

Several noteworthy developments in 2025 illustrated this momentum. One of the most prominent examples is AMT-130, an adeno-associated viral vector gene therapy evaluated in a global clinical trial for Huntington disease, where high-dose recipients showed significantly slowed disease progression compared with natural history cohorts, marking one of the first demonstrations of gene therapy’s disease-modifying potential in a major neurodegenerative disorder. Preclinical work in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has also shown that gene therapy constructs can slow loss of motor function in relevant models, highlighting potential future avenues for ALS treatment.^3,4

Personalized Therapy –

Personalized therapy in neurology has gained substantial traction in 2025 as advances in precision medicine, genomics, and adaptive technologies converge to tailor treatment strategies to individual patient characteristics. Moving beyond traditional one-size-fits-all approaches, personalized therapy emphasizes interventions shaped by a patient’s unique clinical profile, genetics, biomarkers, and real-time physiologic signals. This shift, seen increasingly in neurology, reflects a broader trend in medical practice and research toward treatments that not only target disease mechanisms more accurately but also optimize outcomes by accounting for inter-individual variability in response and risk. The rapid expansion of the global personalized medicine market underscores this shift, with neurology positioned as a key area for growth driven by targeted therapies and individualized care models.

Throughout the year, the discussion around personalized medicine increased significantly, with several different studies that support this shift in mindset. For patients with Parkinson disease (PD), long-term personalized adaptive deep brain stimulation showed clinical benefit by adjusting stimulation parameters based on patient-specific neural activity, enhancing symptom control while minimizing side effects.⁵ As mentioned in the AI section, experimental AI-driven algorithms that dynamically optimize neurostimulation settings based on individual autonomy and performance metrics have emerged as tools to further refine and adapt therapy in home settings.⁶ Furthermore, in conditions like epilepsy, advances in genetics, neurophysiology, and data driven analytics have allowed treatment to be tailored to individual patients rather than seizure type alone.

Neuroplasticity –

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to adapt its structure and function in response to experience, injury, and environmental change, a concept now recognized as a lifelong property of the nervous system rather than one limited to early development. This capacity underlies learning, memory, and recovery after neurologic injury, and has become increasingly central to research and clinical strategies aimed at enhancing functional recovery and modifying disease trajectories across neurologic disorders.

In 2025, neuroplasticity continued to gain traction as a buzzword because it is bridging basic science discoveries with translational applications across neurologic conditions. New imaging work suggests that certain cortical layers retain adaptive capacity well into advanced age, providing evidence for continued plasticity beyond earlier expectations. Clinically oriented research and trend analyses have also connected neuroplasticity with tech-assisted rehabilitation, including AI, virtual reality, and brain stimulation, which have been increasingly explored to extend recovery windows after stroke or brain injury and improve functional outcomes.^7,8

Genetics –

Genetics has become a central buzzword in neurology as advances in sequencing technologies, variant interpretation, and genotype-phenotype correlation increasingly influence both diagnosis and treatment. Once focused mainly on rare pediatric disorders, genetic testing is now applied across a wide range of neurologic conditions, including epilepsy, neuromuscular disease, and movement disorders. The expanding use of whole exome and genome sequencing has improved diagnostic yield and shortened diagnostic odysseys, helping clinicians anchor clinical phenotypes to underlying molecular mechanisms, while also reshaping how neurologists conceptualize disease classification and management. Studies have highlighted that monogenic variants, such as those in SCN1A, GRIN2A, and DEPDC5, contribute significantly to neonatal and variable-onset epilepsy syndromes, reinforcing the impact of genetics on clinical understanding in epilepsy care.

In 2025, genetics continued to drive clinical relevance through its growing role in therapy selection and trial design. Genetic stratification is now central to the development and use of disease-modifying therapies for neuromuscular disorders like Duchenne muscular dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy, where pathogenic variants in the DMD and SMN1 genes directly inform eligibility for gene replacement and antisense oligonucleotide approaches. An adeno-associated viral vector gene therapy that delivers micro-dystrophin in Duchenne muscular dystrophy has received regulatory approval and consensus guidelines have been published to support standardized delivery and monitoring in clinical practice. Moreover, recent regulatory action has expanded newborn screening to include Duchenne muscular dystrophy and other rare genetic neurologic disorders, emphasizing early genetic detection to optimize outcomes.⁹

REFERENCES
1. Dan J, Shahbazinia A, Kechris C, Atienza D. SzCORE as a benchmark: report from the seizure detection challenge at the 2025 AI in Epilepsy and Neurological Disorders Conference. Electrical Engineering and Systems Science. Published online May 19, 2025. doi:10.48550/arXiv.2505.18191
2. FAU Engineers Decode Dementia Type Using AI and EEG Brainwave Analysis. Florida Atlantic University. December 10, 2025. Accessed December 17, 2025. https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/ai-eeg-decodes-dementia-type?utm_
3. UniQure announces positive topline results from pivotal phase I/II study of AMT-130 in patients with Huntington’s disease. News release. UniQure. September 24, 2025. Accessed September 24, 2025. https://uniqure.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/uniqure-announces-positive-topline-results-pivotal-phase-iii
4. Gene therapy may slow loss of motor function in ALS, Penn and CHOP research finds. News release. Penn Medicine. June 25, 2025. Accessed December 17, 2025. https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/gene-therapy-may-slow-loss-of-motor-function-in-als
5. Bronte-Stewart HM, Beudel M, Ostrem JL, et al. Long-Term Personalized Adaptive Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson Disease. A Nonrandomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Neurol. 2025;82(11):1171-1180. doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.2781
6. Kadosh RC, Ciobotaru D, Karstens MI, Nguyen V. Personalized home based neurostimulation via AI optimization augments sustained attention. Nature Medicine. 2025;463:8. doi:10.1038/s41746-025-01744-6
7. Evidence for neuroplasticity into advanced age speaks for the lifelong adaptability of the human brain. News release. Hertie-Institut. August 18, 2025. Accessed December 17, 2025. https://www.hih-tuebingen.de/en/press/press-releases/article/hinweise-auf-neuroplastizitaet-bis-ins-hohe-alter-sprechen-fuer-die-lebenslange-anpassungsfaehigkeit-des-menschlichen-gehirns
8. Cirillo G, Papa M. Editorial: Editors' showcase: neuroplasticity and development. Mol Neurosci. 2025;18. doi:10.3389/fnmol.2025.1558715
9. Kennedy approves adding two rare disorders to newborn screenings. Reuters. December 16, 2025. Accessed December 17, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/kennedy-approves-adding-two-rare-disorders-newborn-screenings-2025-12-16/