• Argues that it is time to develop a science of experiment planning with the goal of studying and optimizing the strategies used by scientists to make research choices

• Describes a fundamentally different approach to experiment planning in neuroscience that addresses the growing size, complexity, and integration of the literature in this field

• Outlines a strategy to derive maps of research findings that can be used to determine what is known, what is uncertain and how to best contribute to the research record

• Proposes the idea that important experiments in neuroscience can be identified and planned with the help of researchmaps.