Podcasts

Stimulating the brain with Damien Fair

The MacArthur Foundation “genius” discusses his return to his home state of Minnesota and why it’s important to protect the developing brain.

Season 2 of ‘Synaptic’ draws to a close

Season 3 will begin next year.

Timothy Ryan on his pivotal switch from studying particle physics to decoding synaptic transmission

Dissuaded from pursuing theoretical physics and deterred by the “long feedback loop” in experimental physics, the National Academy of Sciences member took inspiration from “polymath” Watt Webb and “visionary” Stephen Smith—and learned to work “completely outside his comfort zone.”

John Beggs unpacks the critical brain hypothesis

Beggs outlines why and how brains operate at criticality, a sweet spot between order and chaos.

Oscar Ferrante, Rony Hirschhorn and Alex Lepauvre discuss putting integrated information and global neuronal workspace theories of consciousness to the test

The trio is part of the adversarial collaboration launched to test various theories of consciousness, a project known as COGITATE.

Dean Buonomano explores the concept of time in neuroscience and physics

He outlines why he thinks integrated information theory is unscientific and discusses how timing is a fundamental computation in brains.

Escaping groupthink: What animals’ behavioral quirks reveal about the brain

Neuroscientists have long ignored the variability in animals’ behavioral responses in favor of studying differences across groups. But work on the brain differences that underlie that variability is beginning to pay off.

Immune cells block pain in female mice only

Regulatory T cells in the spinal meninges release endogenous opioids in a sex-specific manner, new work shows.

The BabyLM Challenge: In search of more efficient learning algorithms, researchers look to infants

A competition that trains language models on relatively small datasets of words, closer in size to what a child hears up to age 13, seeks solutions to some of the major challenges of today’s large language models.

‘Emergent and transactional’: How Jonathan Green is rethinking autism and interventions

The experienced clinician discusses writing his recent paper, and its reception in the field.

The story of autism research in Australia: A conversation with Cheryl Dissanayake

With the help of a generous benefactor, autism research in Australia is gathering critical mass.

New journals seek to fill neurodiversity gap

The two journals, although differing in initial support, both realized the need for a publication focused exclusively on the neurodiverse experience.