Illustrated portrait of Lauren O’Connell. — illustration by Richard A. Chance

Setting up a frog colony and pair bonding with Lauren O’Connell

To become a scientist, O’Connell first needed to leave the family farm.

By Brady Huggett

1 March 2024 | 1 min read

https://doi.org/10.53053/SBMU8501 Cite this article

0:00 /

Lauren O’Connell is assistant professor of biology at Stanford University. In this episode of “Synaptic,” O’Connell talks about observing wolf spiders in the wild and how the concept of evolution reset her brain.

Read the transcript.

Get alerts for “Synaptic” in your inbox.

Subscribe to get notified every time a new episode is released.

tags:

Synaptic, Behavioral neuroscience, Cortisol, Empathy, Evolution

Recommended reading

Synaptic

Stimulating the brain with Damien Fair

By Brady Huggett

3 February 2025 | 68 min listen

Synaptic

Season 2 of ‘Synaptic’ draws to a close

By Brady Huggett

1 November 2024 | 2 min listen

Synaptic

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

By Brady Huggett

1 October 2024 | 70 min listen

Explore more from The Transmitter

Headshots of Philip Adeniyi, Samir Ahboucha, Willias Masoch and Daniel Gams Massi.

Publishing

First Pan-African neuroscience journal gets ready to launch

By Lauren Schenkman

28 October 2025 | 5 min listen

Illustration of an open journal featuring lines of text and small illustrations of eyes and mouths.

Spectrum

New method identifies two-hit genetic variation in autism; and more

By Jill Adams

28 October 2025 | 2 min read

Illustration of a series of floating pools of water overflowing into each other.

Neural dynamics

The missing half of the neurodynamical systems theory

By Xiao-Jing Wang

27 October 2025 | 9 min listen