neuroscience

#557 Stephen Fleming - Know Thyself: The New Science of Self-Awareness

Dec 6, 2021

Dr. Stephen Fleming is Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the Department of Experimental Psychology and Principal Investigator at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging where he leads the Metacognition Group, at University College London. The question that drives most his research is: what supports the remarkable capacity for human self-awareness? To address this question, he combines experimental and theoretical approaches (psychophysics, computational modelling, neuroimaging) to understand how people become self-aware of aspects of their cognition and behavior (such as perception, memory and decision-making), and why such awareness is often impaired in psychiatric and neurological disorders. Current interests focus on understanding contributions of human prefrontal cortex to metacognition, and how self-awareness and social cognition may share a core neurocomputational basis. He is the author of Know Thyself: The New Science of Self-Awareness. More»
#508 Scott Small - Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering

Aug 13, 2021

Dr. Scott A. Small is the Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University, where he is the Boris and Rose Katz Professor of Neurology. He is appointed in the Departments of Neurology, Radiology, and Psychiatry. With an expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive aging, Dr. Small’s research focuses on the hippocampus, a circuit in the brain targeted by these and other disorders, notably schizophrenia. He has pioneered the development and application of high-resolution functional MRI techniques that can pinpoint parts of the hippocampus most affected by aging and disease. His lab then uses this information to try to identify causes of these disorders. Over the years, his lab has used this ‘top-down’ approach to isolate pathogenic mechanisms related to Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive aging, and schizophrenia. More recently, his lab has used this insight for drug discovery and to develop novel therapeutic interventions, some of which are currently being tested in patients. He is the author of Forgetting: The Benefits of Not Remembering. More»
#487 Suzana Herculano-Houzel: The Evolution of the Human Brain, and Darwin's Descent of Man

Jun 25, 2021

Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel is Associate Professor of Psychology and Associate Director for Communications at Vanderbilt Brain Institute at Vanderbilt University. She is interested in comparative neuroanatomy, cellular composition of brains, brain morphology, brain evolution, metabolic cost of body and brain, sleep requirement across species, feeding time, and really interested in how all of these are tied together. She writes about neuroscience and science in general for the public. She is the author of The Human Advantage: A New Understanding of How Our Brain Became Remarkable (MIT Press, 2016). More»
#486 Kevin Mitchell: Psychological Epigenetics, and Other Fads in Neuroscience

Jun 24, 2021

Dr. Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. He is interested in the development of connectivity in the brain, specifically in how this process is controlled by genes and how mutations in such genes affect the connectivity of neuronal circuits, influence behavior and perception and contribute to disease. His research group uses genetic approaches in the mouse to address these questions, and they are also involved in collaborative research looking at the genetics and phenotypic manifestations of synaesthesia and schizophrenia in humans. He’s the author of Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are. More»
#413 Michael Anderson: Understanding How The Brain Evolved

Jan 4, 2021

Dr. Michael Anderson is Rotman Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Science, Core member at the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, and Core member at the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario. For 2012-13, Dr. Anderson is a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, at Stanford University. His primary areas of research include an account of the evolution of the cortex via exaptation of existing neural circuitry (the "massive redeployment hypothesis"); the role of behavior, and of the brain's motor-control areas, in supporting higher-order cognitive functions; the foundations of intentionality (the connection between objects of thought and things in the world); and the role of self-monitoring and self-control in maintaining robust real-world agency. More»
#411 Ann-Sophie Barwich - Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind

Dec 31, 2020

Dr. Ann-Sophie Barwich is Assistant Professor of History and Philosophy of Science and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington. She is a cognitive scientist and empirical philosopher & historian of science, technology, and the senses. She divides her brain-time between the Department of History & Philosophy of Science and the Cognitive Science Program. Estimated begin of lab (EEG/Olfactometry) in early 2021. She’s the author of Smellosophy: What the Nose tells the Mind. More»
#407 Joseph LeDoux: The Deep History of Ourselves

Dec 21, 2020

Dr. Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, Professor of Neural Science, Professor of Psychiatry, and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University. His work is focused on the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory. He’s the author of many books, the most recent one being The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains. More»
#391 Matthew Cobb: The Idea of the Brain

Nov 13, 2020

Dr. Matthew Cobb is Professor of Zoology at the University of Manchester, where his research focuses on the sense of smell, insect behavior and the history of science. He is also a historian of the French Resistance. He’s the author of several books, including The Idea of the Brain: A History. More»
#388 Warren Brown: Neuroscience, Dualism, Emergentism, Science and Religion

Nov 6, 2020

Dr. Warren Brown is Director of the Lee Edwards Travis Research Institute and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Doctoral Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Currently, he is most actively involved in neuroscience research in two areas: (1) the cognitive and psychosocial disabilities in a congenital brain malformation called agenesis of the corpus callosum, and (2) the consequences in adults of a childhood hemispherectomy for the control of seizures. Brown has also studied functioning of the corpus callosum in dyslexia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease, and he has done research on brain wave changes associated with aging and dementia, language comprehension, dialysis treatment for kidney disease, and attention deficits in schizophrenia. Dr. Brown has authored or coauthored over 75 scholarly articles in such peer-reviewed scientific journals as Neuropsychologia, Psychophysiology, Biological Psychiatry, Developmental Neuropsychology, Cortex, Nature Review Neuroscience, and Science; 15 chapters in edited scholarly books; and over 150 presentations at scientific meetings. More»
#384 Robert Sapolsky: Behavior, Self-control, Morality, Primates, Humans, and Religion

Oct 29, 2020

Dr. Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology and Professor of Neurology and of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is the author of several informative and comical books that present cutting edge psychoneurobiological knowledge in an enjoyable, easy to read format. He's also a renowned researcher and award-winning professor at Stanford University. He’s the author of books like Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone: And Other Essays on the Biology of the Human Predicament, A Primate's Memoir, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. More»