What is pain—and why is it so hard to understand, treat, or even describe? In our latest Tools for Looking into the Brain episode, we sit down with Dr. Sascha Alles, Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesia at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, to unpack the fascinating and often misunderstood world of chronic pain.
Dr. Alles takes us deep into the science behind how pain works, the electrophysiological changes that contribute to pain, and what makes it such a uniquely challenging subject for researchers. We discuss how cutting-edge tools and model systems are reshaping our understanding of the nervous system.
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In today's episode, we are joined by Dr Mateusz Kostecki to discuss the importance of ideas as a theoretical and conceptual basis for generating and motivating neuroscience research. Mateusz is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Heidelberg studying patterns of behaviour in placozoa, blob-like marine invertebrates. Prior to this, Mateusz completed a PhD on the social transmission of behaviour in rodents at the Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Behavior at the Nencki Institute in Warsaw, Poland. During his PhD, he also founded Nencki Open Lab, a neuroscience grassroots initiative that organises workshops, symposia, talks, and other events, with the goal of offering a creative environment in which researchers can discuss their ideas with people from different scientific subfields and learn tools that allow them to develop their experimental setups and analyse their data. In the episode, we talk about Mateusz's research journey, the philosophy behind Nencki Open Lab, how to deal with variability and juggling both theory and experimental approaches as a (neuro)scientist, and how to stay motivated in science.
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In today’s episode we are joined by Dr Francesca Greenstreet to discuss how habits are made and novel research on how habit-forming may not require reward-based learning. We also talk about making the switch from being an experimental neuroscientist to a computational neuroscientist, and Francesca's latest research on how the brain executes reinforcement learning when there is a large action space.
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Welcome to our special summer rerelease series! Carolina and Clara take a trip down memory lane with a special series dedicated to their older episodes, including ones you may have missed!
This week Carolina and Clara discuss enzymes and enzyme-directed evolution. Enzymes are these incredible biological catalysts present in the natural world. However, with recent research carried out by Frances Arnold, and many others, enzymes have been directed to bind with non-organic matter!
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This week we bring to you another episode of Tools for Looking into the Brain, our mini series in collaboration with Scientifica, where we discuss all sorts of neuroscience methods and the reality of academia. In this episode, we are joined by Dr Silvana Valtcheva, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, who researches the neural basis of maternal bahevaiour. We talk about her research journey, from investigating synaptic plasticity to understanding the complexities of postpartum behaviour in living animals, and discuss how to transition across the stages of academia, and where meaning and motivation fit in to science.
Silvana Valtcheva is a principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne Germany. She previously earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Neuroscience before pursuing a PhD in activity-dependent synaptic plasticity, the role of astrocytes, and developmental changes in the control of plasticity with Prof. Laurent Venance in Paris. Following this, Silvana joined the lab of Prof. Robert Froemke in New York City as a postdoctoral fellow, where she investigated the neural pathways and synaptic mechanisms important for the detection of offspring vocalisations in maternal mice. Since 2022, the Valtcheva lab has been investigating the neural circuits and plasticity mechanisms shaping sensory perception and hormonal release in the postpartum brain to drive behaviour.
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This week we're revisiting our episode on the entropic brain, where we discuss entropy, chaos, and disorder in the context of brain activity. In an attempt to reduce the amount of disorder, our brains may stick to a structured framework of activity, limiting its capacity to be creative and generate new ideas or connections. How does this influence our perception of reality? And how can we overcome this natural "negentropic" tendency? Listen to find out!
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In today's episode Carolina and Clara probe at what causality means, both in a philosophical sense and a scientific one. We talk about how neuroscience can probe at causality, the fine line between correlation and causation, how hypotheses are and should be derived, validation and falsification, and more!
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Welcome to our special summer rerelease series! Carolina and Clara take a trip down memory lane with a special series dedicated to their older episodes, including ones you may have missed!
Have you ever wondered how the breath and the mind are connected? In this episode, Carolina and Clara explore the neuroscience of breathing: how the rhythm of breathing influences brain-wide activity, providing a scaffold for the transfer of information across the brain, and how breathing influences our attentional and interoceptive states, which ultimately define our experience of being.
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In this episode (our 100th!) we talk to Dr Raffaele Sarnataro, a postdoctoral researcher in Gero Miesenböck's group at the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour in Oxford University, who is investigating the neurobiological basis of sleep using fruit flies (Drosophila Melanogaster) as a model organism. Raffaele shares with us his latest research on a novel role for mitochondria, in a small specialised population of neurons in the fly brain, to regulate the need for sleep. He also dives into the classical theories of why we sleep, whether the purpose of sleep is universal and evolutionarily conserved, how metabolism is related to sleep across organisms, and how sleep is related to body versus brain. Listen to find out more about the often overlooked mystery of sleep.
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In today's episode Carolina and Clara are joined by Dr Jennifer Wills Lamacq to discuss how adolescents and children are socialised, affected by social media, and how governmental policies affect the landscape of children's social development.
This episode was inspired by the Netflix series "Adolescents" which brought to light crucial issues to be discussed regarding the impact schools and social media has on a child's upbringing. We discussed safe practices to educate children in the online world, how children are being socialised in school, the importance of independence outside the home and children-friendly policies.
Listen to find out more!
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In this episode, Carolina and Clara dive into the question of cognitive ontology. From philosophers like Plato, to psychologists like Thomas Reid, and phrenologists like Franz Gall, many have set out to define how we think and how we should categorise the functions that make up human cognition. While some functions such as sensory processing or memory are intuitively well-defined, others such as empathy or hierarchical processing remain more cryptic. With the emergence of modern neuroscience, the story only gets more complicated, as brain activity of different areas does not neatly fit with our set of cognitive functions- while some areas are specialised for functions, like the amygdala being involved in emotional processing, most areas are actually multifunctional. How can we integrate our neuroscientific knowledge of how the brain functions into our psychological understanding of our mind? Listen to find out more!
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In today's episode Clara and Carolina are joined by Professor Iain Couzin, the director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the German Research Foundation (DFG) Excellence Cluster. His work aims to reveal the principles that underlie evolved collective behavior, using a wide range of biological systems, from insect swarms to schooling fish, primate groups and humans.
In this episode, we discuss the variety of collective behaviours seen across species and probe at some of the key questions in the field including: to what extent can computational models portray the dynamics of collective decision making? What is the purpose of collective behaviours? Do the same rules guide collective behaviours across species? Listen to learn more!
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This week we bring to you another episode of Tools for Looking into the Brain, our mini series in collaboration with Scientifica, where we discuss all sorts of neuroscience method and the reality of academia. In this episode we are joined by Dr Ana Dorrego-Rivas, a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (King's College London). Ana shares with us her research journey so far and what led her to pursue research into the development of the olfactory bulb, and the role of interactions between different subcellular compartments (axons and dendrites). Ana also shares her experience of learning new things, applying for fellowships, and seeking opportunities as a postdoc. We also talk about how PhDs compare to postdocs, where publications fit in, and making the transition from postdoc to PI.
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In today's episode we delve into auto-immune disorders. What are they and how can they be treated? We also discuss why auto-immune disorders are so much more prevalent in women than men, with 80% of cases affecting women, and how lifestyle factors can trigger their onset. We also cover some of the amazing new research carried out to treat the dysregulated immune system.
Today’s episode was made possible thanks to the support of the Biochemical Society public engagement fund. We would like to thank the Biochemical Society for the generous grant supporting Science Communication initiatives like these. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=the+biochemical+society&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
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In this newest episode of our Tools for Looking into the Brain series, we are joined by Dr Elisa Galliano, a neuroscientist, lecturer, and principal investigator at the University of Cambridge, to discuss the process of starting your own lab, with all of its trials and tribulations. We talk about how Elisa landed a PI position, how she managed to start up her lab amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, what being a PI entails (beyond running a lab), and how to navigate the complex world of academia to find stability for the long-term.
This episode is part of our Tools for Looking into the Brain series in collaboration with Scientifica, leading experts and producers of electrophysiology systems. In this series, we explore tools for neuroscientists, ranging from optical and electrophysiology methods to advice for young and early career researchers. Be sure to check out the rest of the series here
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In today's episode Carolina and Clara discuss antibiotic resistance, the danger it poses, how it happens and the new therapies being researched to overcome antibiotic resistance!
Today’s episode was made possible thanks to the support of the Biochemical Society public engagement fund. We would like to thank the Biochemical Society for the generous grant supporting Science Communication initiatives like these. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=the+biochemical+society&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
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To celebrate 3 years since our first Neuroverse episode aired, we are talking about one of the most fascinating and mysterious topics- Love! Join us as we delve into the roots of human love, discuss why love evolved, what its purpose is, and how the development of both our brains and our social systems are intricately connected to the way we love. Happy Valentine's week <3
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In today's episode, Carolina & Clara dive into the philosophy of smell/olfaction. The olfactory system and smell experience is unique to other sensory systems in many ways, including being primarily chemical, much more intimate and absorptive, and arguably the least conscious. Can we reduce smells to chemical odours? How does language limit our perception of smell? What is the core function of human olfaction? And how does smell influence mental health? We explore these questions and more!
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Enjoy our last episode of 2024! Carolina and Clara chat and reminisce about their favourite episodes from the past year, the most enlightening and exciting moments on the podcast, and their hopes for 2025.
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In this exciting event that took place at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre on October 22nd 2024, Carolina and Clara were joined by invited panelists- Jai Bhagat, Aaditya Singh, Clémentine Dominé, and Pierre Glaser- to discuss the fascinating question of whether computational models and machine learning will ever be able to replicate the full complexity of the brain. Together with the audience, the discussion explored where the complexity of the brain lies, the meaning of intelligence, and the possibilities and limitations of computational models.