The Algonauts Project 2025
How the Human Brain Makes Sense of Multimodal Movies
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January 6th, 2025: The Algonauts Project 2025 challenge is now open for submissions! Watch this video for an introduction to the challenge (5 min). Submit your best model predictions to the competition until July 13th, 2025.
The Algonauts Project 2025 challenge focuses on predicting responses in the human brain as participants perceive complex multimodal movies. Through collaboration with the Courtois Project on Neuronal Modelling (CNeuroMod) team, the challenge runs on the largest human brain dataset available, opening new venues for accurate models of neural responses to multimodal naturalistic stimulation. To promote more robust models of the brain, the 2025 challenge features a selection process based on out-of-distribution generalization. The challenge is organized in partnership with the Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN).
Introduction video to the Algonauts Project 2025 challenge.
The Algonauts Project, first launched in 2019, is on a mission to bring biological and machine intelligence researchers together on a common platform to exchange ideas and pioneer the intelligence frontier. Inspired by the astronauts' exploration of space, "algonauts" explore human and artificial intelligence with state-of-the-art algorithmic tools, thus advancing both fields.
Inspired by astronauts who launched into space to explore a new frontier, the Algonauts Project aims to explore human and machine intelligence with the latest algorithmic tools. Comparing brains and models could lead to unexpected insights into what makes intelligent systems efficient, robust and trustworthy.
The brain has inspired many of the algorithms responsible for the recent and spectacular progress in artificial intelligence. Those algorithms are now critical in testing new theories about the brain. The Algonauts Project brings together intelligence researchers in both domains to accelerate the pace of innovation.
Hackathon-like competitions create an environment for sharing and collaboration, which are important for advancing science and ensuring that results are valid and reproducible. The Algonauts Project is committed to a spirit of open collaboration.
The Algonauts Project is designed to expand to other fields, from physics and biology to the social sciences, and to complement experimental, theoretical and computational disciplines. It will grow, in content and methods, with the communities that shape this endeavor.
The Algonauts Project 2025 challenge will evaluate computational models on how well they predict human brain data recorded while humans perceive multimodal naturalistic movies, using CNeuroMod, a massive human brain dataset collected for that purpose.
Watch the first video above for an introduction to the Algonauts 2025 challenge, and the second video for a detailed walkthrough of the development kit. When you are ready to participate, the third video will guide you through the Codabench competition submission process.
1st Place
7,500 € prize and a reimbursement of up to 1,500 € for travel expenses and conference registration fees to present at CCN 2025.
2nd Place
5,000 € prize.
3rd Place
3,000 € prize.
The top three entries will be invited to present their encoding models during a talk at the CCN conference held in Amsterdam (Netherlands) in August 2025.
| Challenge model building phase: | January 6th, 2025 to July 6th, 2025, at 00:00am (UTC-0) |
| Challenge model selection phase: | July 6th, 2025 to July 13th, 2025, at 00:00am (UTC-0) |
| Challenge report/code submission deadline: | July 25th, 2025 |
| Challenge results released: | August 5th, 2025 |
| Session at CCN 2025: | August 12th–13th, 2025 |
If you participate in the challenge, use this form to submit the challenge report and code.
For general inquiries about the Algonauts Project, please contact algonauts.mit@gmail.com.
For specific questions about the Algonauts Project challenge, please use the Codabench Forum.
If you wish to stay updated on the Algonauts Project, including this year’s challenge, join our mailing list, or follow us on social media:
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If you use the resources provided for the Algonauts Project 2025 challenge, please cite the following papers:
