Getting help for depression can be like purgatory. Setting aside for a moment the stigma and other barriers to seeking treatment in the first place, finding the right combination of medication and/or therapy can be a months- or years-long process of trial and error. And for about one third of people, nothing seems to work.

Today we're talking with Dr. Leanne Williams, the founding director of the Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness and Vincent V.C. Woo Professor in the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Williams and her team have recently used brain imaging and machine learning techniques to identify six distinct "biotypes" of depression — each of which may require a different approach to treatment. Beyond setting the stage for more targeted therapies, better understanding the biology behind the disease could finally cut through the stigma of one of the world's most common brain disorders.

Learn more

• Williams' Personalized and Translational Neuroscience Lab (PANlab)
• The Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness
• NEW: Cognitive behavioral therapy enhances brain circuits to relieve depression (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Six distinct types of depression identified in Stanford Medicine-led study
  (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
  • Personalized brain circuit scores identify clinically distinct biotypes in depression and anxiety (Nature Medicine, 2024)
• Brain scans could help personalize treatment for people who are depressed or suicidal (Science, 2022)
• Williams' scientific publications
  
  

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we're talking with Stanford neuro-oncologist, Michelle Monje. This is actually the third time we've had Michelle on the show, in part because she's been a pioneer of three exciting frontiers in neuroscience — so far! 

This week, we're going to talk about cancer neuroscience. Michelle founded this new field with her discovery that deadly brain tumors not only link up physically with the healthy brain tissue surrounding them, but the cancers actually need the brain's electrical activity to grow and spread.

It turns out that many cancers — not only in the brain — depend on nervous system innervation for their survival. Understanding this dependent relationship better may present an exciting new line of attack for oncology. 

Join us to learn more!

News coverage

• Brain tumors caused by normal neuron activity in mice predisposed to such tumors
• Brain tumors form synapses with healthy neurons, Stanford-led study finds
• Deadly brain cancers act like 'vampires' by hijacking normal cells to grow
• Engineered immune cells target broad range of pediatric solid tumors in mice

Relevant Publications

• Glioma synapses recruit mechanisms of adaptive plasticity
• Glioblastoma remodelling of human neural circuits decreases survival
• Electrical and synaptic integration of glioma into neural circuits
• Targeting neuronal activity-regulated neuroligin-3 dependency in high-grade glioma
• Neuronal Activity Promotes Glioma Growth through Neuroligin-3 Secretion

Review Articles

• The neuroscience of cancer
• Cancer hallmarks intersect with neuroscience in the tumor microenvironment
• Roadmap for the Emerging Field of Cancer Neuroscience

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we're going to talk about how psychedelics alter our perception of reality and what that says about... reality!

Welcome  to part two of our conversation with Stanford anesthesiologist and psychedelics researcher Boris Heifets!

Last time, we talked with Boris about the question of why psychedelics help people with mental health disorders.

This week, we're going to dive into a different question, which is to explore how psychedelics work in the brain. How are they able to alter something as fundamental as our perceptions of reality — and could understanding these effects teach us about the nature of our everyday perceptions?

Learn more:

• Review: Therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics and entactogens (Heifets and Olsen, 2024)
• As psychedelics near approval, there’s no consensus on how they work (STAT News, 2023)
• How do psychedelics work? (Carhart-Harris, 2019)
• Heifets Lab website

Episode credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Psychedelics are a hot topic in psychiatry today.  They’re producing dramatic reversals for patients with severe depression, PTSD, and other mental health conditions. But scientists still have fundamental questions about why these drugs are so effective.

For example, is the "trip" even necessary? Some think it is not and are working to design drugs with similar brain chemistry but no psychoactive effects — “Taking the trip out of the drug.”

Others suspect that many of the benefits of psychedelics can be attributed to hype and expectation: People expect to get better, so they do.

Normally scientists control for placebo using a blinded study where patients don't know if they're getting the real treatment or a sugar pill. But how are you going to do this with mind-altering substances? Patients are probably going to figure out pretty quickly whether they got a sugar cube with or without LSD.

Today's guest, Stanford anesthesiologist Boris Heifets, has come up with a particularly clever strategy to tease apart the psychedelic experience, biochemistry, hype and placebo. 

Listen for the whole story!

Learn more:

• The Heifets Lab at Stanford Medicine
• The Early Days of a Psychedelic Resurgence? (Stanford Medicine Magazine, 2024)

Depression, ketamine & anesthesia:

• Randomized trial of ketamine masked by surgical anesthesia in patients with depression (Nature 2023 - paywall)
• Ketamine’s effect on depression may hinge on hope (Stanford Medicine, 2023)

Anesthetic dreams and trauma recovery:

• Case report 1: dreaming & knife attack (A & A Practice, 2022 - paywall)
• Case report 2: dreaming & PTSD (American Journal of Psychiatry, 2024)
• Could anesthesia-induced dreams wipe away trauma? (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Video: Mothers with PTSD following their sons' deaths talk about dreaming of their sons under anesthesia (Heifets Lab, 2024 — content advisory)

Related episodes:

• S1 E1: Psychedelics and Empathy
• S3 E3: OCD and Ketamine

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we're talking about the neuroscience of climate change with neuroeconomist Nik Sawe.

If you follow the science or the news, you know how big of a risk climate change is. Storms, coastal flooding, heat waves, extinctions, mass migration — the list goes on.

But — as you can probably also appreciate — it’s really hard to properly perceive that risk. It’s much easier to focus on today’s emergency, this week’s looming deadline, this quarter’s economic forecast — where the risks are objectively much smaller, but feel more pressing.

This is where neuroscience comes in: Why are our brains so bad at perceiving this existential, long-term risk to our society and our planet? And are there ways we could work with our brains' limitations to improve our decision-making around environmental issues and the future more broadly?

To answer this question, we spoke with Nik Sawe, a neuro-economist who uses brain imaging to study environmental decision making in the  lab of Brian Knutson in the Stanford Department of Psychology. Nik is also a policy analyst at the think tank Energy Innovation, where he is working on policy avenues to reduce carbon emissions in the industrial sector.

References

• Parks donation FMRI study
• Ecolabeling/energy-efficient purchasing FMRI study
• "Price of your soul" study by Greg Berns
• Dan Kahan science literacy/numeracy and climate change risk study
• Brain stimulation for perspective-taking of future generations

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week we’re doing something a little different. My good friend Michael Osborne, who produces this show also has his own podcast, called Famous & Gravy – Life Lessons from Dead Celebrities.

I recently guest-hosted an episode about one of my all time scientific and writerly heros, Oliver Sacks, which we're releasing for both our audiences. I hope you enjoy!

---

We've concluded Season 3 of From Our Neurons to Yours! Stay tuned for more conversations from the frontiers of neuroscience in Season 4 — from psychedelics to cancer neuroscience to hypnosis — which we’ll share in just a few weeks.

---

Who was Oliver Sacks?

Oliver Sacks, born on July 9, 1933, was a British-American neurologist, author, and professor known for his groundbreaking work in neuroscience and his compelling narratives exploring the human mind. His unique ability to blend science with storytelling made him a beloved figure in both the medical and literary worlds.

Sacks' career in neurology began in the 1960s, where he studied and treated patients with various neurological disorders. His observations and insights into the complexities of the brain led to significant advancements in the field.

As an author, Oliver Sacks gained widespread acclaim for his books, including "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" (1985) and "Awakenings" (1973), which was adapted into a successful film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. His writings, characterized by empathy and curiosity, explored the human condition through the lens of neuroscience.

Throughout his life, Sacks remained committed to understanding and humanizing neurological conditions. He championed the importance of empathy and compassion in medical practice, advocating for a holistic approach to patient care.

In addition to his literary contributions, Oliver Sacks was a revered educator, teaching at prestigious institutions such as Columbia University and the New York University School of Medicine. His lectures and writings inspired countless students and professionals in the field of neurology.

Oliver Sacks' legacy continues to resonate, shaping our understanding of the brain and its complexities. His work transcends disciplines, reminding us of the profound connections between science, humanity, and storytelling.

Episode Credits

Famous and Gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Evan Sherer with production assistance from Claire McInerney. Original theme music by Kevin Strang.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today: the clocks in your body.

We're talking again this week with Tony Wyss-Coray, the director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience here at Wu Tsai Neuro. 

Last year, we spoke with Tony about the biological nature of the aging process. Scientists can now measure signs of aging in the blood, and can in some cases slow or reverse the aging process in the lab. We discussed how this biological age can be quite different from your chronological age, and why understanding why people age at different rates has become a hot topic for researchers who study aging. 

Since we last spoke, Professor Wyss-Coray and his lab have published some exciting new work that takes this idea from the level of the whole body down to the level of specific organs and tissues. We can now ask: are your brain, your heart, or your liver aging faster than the rest of you? The implications of this idea could be profound for both neuroscience and medicine more broadly.

Listen to the episode to learn more!

Further reading
Wyss-Coray lab
Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience

Organ aging study in Nature:

• Organ aging signatures in the plasma proteome track health and disease (Nature, 2023)

Study coverage:

• Stanford Medicine-led study finds way to predict which of our organs will fail first (Stanford Medicine)
• Your Organs Might Be Aging at Different Rates (Scientific American)
• Tony Wyss-Coray: The Science of Aging (Ground Truths with Eric Topol)

Related reading:

• You can order a test to find out your biological age. Is it worth it? (NPR)
• What’s Your ‘Biological Age’? (New York Times)
  
  

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. 

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friend

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today on the show, a new understanding of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders — right after Alzheimer's disease. It's familiar to many as a movement disorder: people with the disease develop difficulties with voluntary control of their bodies. But the real story is much more complicated.

This week, we speak with Kathleen Poston, a Stanford neurologist who is at the forefront of efforts to redefine Parkinson's disease and related disorders based on their underlying biology — not just their symptoms. As Poston says: "The biology is the disease." 

Join us to learn about exciting advances in our ability to detect the brain pathology driving these disorders much earlier, even before symptoms arise, and how this is opening doors for early intervention and — hopefully — prevention.

Learn More

• Poston Lab at Stanford Medicine
• Lewy Body Dementia Research Center of Excellence at Stanford
• Understanding Parkinson's Disease: Stanford's Dr. Kathleen Poston on latest advances (CBS News Bay Area - Video)
• A biological definition of neuronal α-synuclein disease: towards an integrated staging system for research (The Lancet - Neurology, 2024)
• International Working Group Proposes New Framework for Defining Parkinson Disease Based on Biology, Not Symptoms (Neurology Live article)

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we sit down with Stanford neurobiologist Lisa Giocomo to explore the intersection of memory and navigation.

This episode was inspired by the idea of memory palaces. The idea is simple: Take a place you're very familiar with, say the house you grew up in, and place information you want to remember in different locations within that space. When it's time to remember those things, you can mentally walk through that space and retrieve those items.

This ancient technique reveals something very fundamental about how our brains work. It turns out that the same parts of the brain are responsible both for memory and for navigating through the world.

Scientists are learning more and more about these systems and the connections between them, and it's revealing surprising insights about how we build the narrative of our lives, how we turn our environments into an internal model of who we are, and where we fit into the world.

Join us to learn more about the neuroscience of space and memory.

Learn more:

• About Lisa Giocomo’s research
• About the story of Henry Molaison (patient H. M.), who lost the ability to form new memories after epilepsy treatment removed his hippocampus.
• About the 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine, awarded to John O’Keefe and to May-Britt and Edvard Moser (Giocomo’s mentors) for their discovery of the GPS system of the brain.
• About Memory Palaces, a technique used since ancient times to enhance memory using mental maps.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In this episode of "From Our Neurons to Yours," we're taking a deep dive into the neuroscience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and the recent discovery that the anesthetic ketamine can give patients a week-long "vacation" from the disorder after just one dose.

Join us as we chat with Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, a leading expert in the field, who led the first clinical trial of Ketamine for patients with OCD. She sheds light on what OCD truly is, breaking down the misconceptions and revealing the reality of this serious condition.

Dr. Rodriguez, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford Medicine, discusses her research on ketamine for OCD, current hypotheses about how it works in the brain, and her approach to developing safer treatments. Listeners are encouraged to seek help if they or a loved one are struggling with OCD.

Learn more:

Rodriguez's OCD Research Lab (website)
Rodriguez at the World Economic Forum (video - WEF)
International OCD Foundation (IOCDF) (website)
Rodriguez pioneers VR therapy for patients with hoarding disorder (video - Stanford Medicine)
The rebirth of psychedelic medicine (article - Wu Tsai Neuro)
Researcher investigates hallucinogen as potential OCD treatment (article - Stanford Medicine)

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Welcome to "From Our Neurons to Yours," from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University. Each week, we bring you to the frontiers of brain science — to meet the scientists unlocking the mysteries of the mind and building the tools that will let us communicate better with our brains.

This week, we're tackling a BIG question in neuroscience: why do we do what we do?

Specifically, we're talking about dopamine, and why the common understanding of this  molecule as a "pleasure chemical" in the brain may be missing something fundamental.

Join us as we explore the distinction between 'liking' and 'wanting', between reward and motivation, and how this could help us more deeply understand how dopamine shapes our behavior.  Tune in to gain insights into addiction, Parkinson's disease, depression and more.

Don't miss out on this thought-provoking discussion with Neir Eshel, a psychiatrist and leading Stanford expert on dopamine and behavior. (Including a conversation about a recent paper published with Rob Malenka, who we spoke with back in our very first episode!)

Learn More

Eshel Lab website

Stanford Medicine study reveals why we value things more when they cost us more (Stanford Medicine, 2023)

Striatal dopamine integrates cost, benefit, and motivation (Eshel et al., Neuron, 2024)

The Economics of Dopamine Release (Stanford BioX Undergraduate Summer Research Program lecture)

Youtube video of classic James Olds rat brain stimulation study


Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler, at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Imagine being trapped in your own body, unable to move or communicate effectively. This may seem like a nightmare, but it is a reality for many people living with brain or spinal cord injuries.

Join us as we talk with Jaimie Henderson, a Stanford neurosurgeon leading groundbreaking research in brain-machine interfaces. Henderson shares how multiple types of brain implants are currently being developed to treat neurological disorders and restore communication for those who have lost the ability to speak. 

We also discuss the legacy of the late Krishna Shenoy and his transformative work in this field.

Learn more
Henderson's Neural Prosthetics Translational Lab

BrainGate Consortium – "Turning thought into action"

Commentary on Neuralink's brain-interfacing technology by Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Faculty Scholar Paul Nuyujukian (WIRED, 2023; NBC Bay Area, 2024)

Brain Implants Helped 5 People Recover From Traumatic Injuries (New York Times, 2023)

• Related publication: Nature Medicine, 2023

Brain to text technology is about more than Musk (Washington Post, 2023)

• Related publication: Nature, 2023

The man who controls computers with his mind (New York Times Magazine, 2022)

Software turns ‘mental handwriting’ into on-screen words, sentences (Stanford Medicine, 2021)

• Related video: Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2021
• Related publication: Nature, 2021

Learn about the work of the late Krishna Shenoy

Krishna V. Shenoy (1968–2023) (Nature Neuroscience, 2023)

Krishna Shenoy, engineer who reimagined how the bra

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we're talking about using new techniques for growing human brain tissue in the lab to solve a rare neurological disorder.

Host Nicholas Weiler sits down with Sergiu Pasca an innovative Stanford scientist who has developed groundbreaking technologies to grow human brain tissue in the lab, creating "organoids" and "assembloids" that model brain disorders like autism and schizophrenia. 

Pasca describes the process of turning patient skin cells into embryo-like stem cells and then into functional brain cells that can live and develop for over two years, and even be transplanted into rat brains to study their growth and development.

It may sound like science fiction, but these techniques represent a major step toward understanding and treating complex neurological conditions such as Timothy syndrome, a rare genetic disorder whose biology Pasca has spent the past 15 years unraveling. 

Join us for fascinating glimpse into the future of developmental neuroscience and  potential for new therapies for our remarkable self-assembling brains.

Learn more

• Brain organoids and assembloids are new models for elucidating, treating neurodevelopmental disorders | News Center | Stanford Medicine
• Impact of genes linked to neurodevelopmental diseases found | News Center | Stanford Medicine
• Scientists discover how dozens of genes may contribute to autism - The Washington Post
• Study suggests approach for treating rare disorder | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• How lab-grown brain cells can now help us understand brain disorders

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Imagine an electrical storm in your brain, a power surge that passes through delicately wired neural circuits, making thousands of cells all activate at once. Depending on where it starts and where it travels in the brain, it could make your muscles seize up. It could create hallucinatory visions or imaginary sounds. It could evoke deep anxiety or a sense of holiness, or it could even make you lose consciousness.

This kind of electrical storm is what we call a seizure. If your brain is prone to seizures, we call it epilepsy.

This week we're joined by Fiona Baumer, a Stanford pediatric neurologist and researcher, to dive into this misunderstood and often stigmatized disorder. In addition to treating children with seizure disorders, Dr. Baumer conducts research at the Koret Human Neurosciences Community Laboratory at Wu Tsai Neuro.  There she uses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) paired with EEG, to stimulate and read out patterns of activity moving across the brain in children with epilepsy.

In our conversation, we discuss what neuroscience has taught us about where seizures come from and how new technologies are giving us insights not only into potential treatments for the disorder, but also providing a window into some of the brain's hidden patterns of activity.

We're taking a break over the next few weeks. We'll return with new episodes in the new year.

In the meantime, if you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Links
Baumer's Pediatric Neurostimulation Laboratory
Northern California Epilepsy Foundation

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Imagine Thursday. Does Thursday have a color? What about the sound of rain — does that sound taste like chocolate? Or does the sound of a saxophone feel triangular to you? 

For about 3% of the population, the sharp lines between our senses blend together. Textures may have tastes, sounds, shapes, numbers may have colors. This sensory crosstalk is called synesthesia, and it's not a disorder, just a different way of experiencing the world. 

To learn about the neuroscience behind this fascinating phenomenon and what it tells us about how our brains perceive the world, we were fortunate enough to speak with David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur here at Stanford. Eagleman has long been fascinated by synesthesia and what it means about how our perceptions shape our reality.

We also discuss Eagleman's work with Neosensory, a company that develops technology to help individuals with hearing loss by translating sound into vibrations on the skin. The episode highlights the adaptability and plasticity of the brain, offering a deeper understanding of how our perceptions shape our reality.

In addition to his research, Eagleman is a prolific communicator of science — the author of several books including Livewired and Incognito and host of the PBS series "The Brain with David Eagleman" and the new podcast series "Inner Cosmos".

Enjoy!

Links

• Livewired (book)
• Incognito (book)
• Wednesday Is Indigo Blue (book)
• Neosensory (website)
• Synesthete.org (website)
• Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman (podcast)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Welcome back, neuron lovers! In this week's episode of From Our Neurons to Yours, we're talking about the neuroscience of sleep. Why is slumber so important for our health that we spend a third of our lives unconscious? Why does it get harder to get a good night's sleep as we age? And  could improving our beauty rest really be a key to rejuvenating our bodies and our minds?

To learn more, I spoke with Luis de Lecea, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford, who has been at the forefront of sleep science since  leading the discovery of the sleep-regulating hormone hypocretin 25 years ago.

De Lecea's research aims to understand the mechanisms behind sleep regulation and develop interventions to improve sleep quality and efficiency. With support from the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Wu Tsai Neuro, De Lecea is collaborating with Stanford psychiatry professor Julie Kauer and colleagues to understand the role of sleep centers in neurodegeneration.

In our conversation, de Lecea explains  the role of the hypothalamus and the sleep hormone hypocretin in regulating sleep and we discuss how lack of sleep can cause damage to cells and organ systems, leading to effects similar to premature aging.

As usual, Shakespeare put it best:

“Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.”

—Macbeth

Links

• Learn more about the de Lecea laboratory
• Why Does My Sleep Become Worse as I Age? (New York Times, 2022)
• Losing sleep in adolescence makes mice less outgoing as adults (Stanford Scope Blog, 2022)
• Sleep and the Hypothalamus (Science, 2023)
• Hyperexcitable arousal circuits drive sleep instability during aging (Science, 2022)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Welcome back to "From Our Neurons to Yours," a podcast from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University.

In this episode, we explore the collective intelligence of ant colonies with Deborah Gordon, a professor of biology at Stanford, an expert on ant behavior, and author of a new book, The Ecology of Collective Behavior.

We discuss how ant colonies operate without centralized control, relying on simple local interactions, such as antennal contact, to coordinate their behavior. Gordon explains how studying ant colonies can provide insights into the workings of the human brain, highlighting parallels between different types of collective behavior in ants and the modular functions of the brain.

Listen to the episode to learn more about the intelligence of ant colonies and the implications for neuroscience.

Links
Dr. Gordon's research website
What ants teach us about the brain, cancer and the Internet (TED talk)
An ant colony has memories that its individual members don’t have (Aeon)
The Queen does not rule (Aeon)
Local links run the world (Aeon)
The collective wisdom of ants (Scientific American)
Deborah Gordon: Why Don't Ants Need A Leader? (NPR)
What Do Ants Know That We Don't? (WIRED)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Welcome back to "From Our Neurons to Yours," a podcast where we criss-cross scientific disciplines to take you to the frontiers of brain science. This week, we explore the science of dizziness with Stanford Medicine neurologist Kristen Steenerson, MD, who treats patients experiencing vertigo and balance disorders.

In our conversation, we'll see that dizziness is not a singular experience but rather a broad term encompassing a variety of different sensations of disorientation. We learn about the vestibular system, a set of biological "accelerometers" located deep within the inner ear that detect linear and angular acceleration, helping us perceive motion, orientation, and our connection to the world around us.

We also discuss a wearable medical device Dr. Steenerson and colleagues at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute are developing a wearable device to measure the activity of the vestibular system by tracking a patient's eye movements. With the ability to study  this mysterious system in unprecedented detail, we're on the verge of learning more than ever about this misunderstood "sixth sense."

Learn More

Dr. Steenerson's Stanford academic profile

Dr. Steenerson's Stanford Healthcare profile (Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Otolaryngology)

The wearable ENG, a dizzy attack event monitor (DizzyDx)

References

Popkirov, Stoyan, Jeffrey P. Staab, and Jon Stone. "Persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD): a common, characteristic and treatable cause of chronic dizziness." Practical neurology 18.1 (2018): 5-13.

Harun, Aisha, et al. "Vestibular impairment in dementia." Otology & Neurotology: Official Publication of the American Otological Society, American Neurotology Society [and] European Academy of Otology and Neurotology 37.8 (2016): 1137.

Brandt T, Dieterich M. The dizzy patient: don't forget disorders of the central vestibular system. Nat Rev Neurol. 2017 Jun;13(6):352-362. doi: 10.1038/nrneurol.2017.58. Epub 2017 Apr 21. PMID: 28429801.

Allison S. Young, Corinna Lechner, Andrew P. Bradshaw, Hamish G. MacDougall, Deborah A. Black, G. Michael Halmagyi, Miriam S. Welgampola Neurology Jun 2019, 92 (24) e2743-e2753; DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000007644

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Welcome back to our second season of "From Our Neurons to Yours," a podcast where we criss-cross scientific disciplines to take you to the cutting edge of brain science. In this episode, we explore how sound becomes information in the human brain, specifically focusing on how speech is transformed into meaning.

Our guest this week is Neuro-linguist Laura Gwilliams, a faculty scholar at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Stanford Data Science based in the Stanford Department of Psychology.

In our conversation, she breaks down the intricate steps involved in transforming speech sounds into meaning. From the vibrations of the eardrum to the activation of specific neurons in the auditory cortex, Gwilliams reveals the remarkable complexity and precision of the brain's language processing abilities. Gwilliams also delves into the higher-level representations of meaning and sentence structure, discussing how our brains effortlessly navigate interruptions, non sequiturs, and the passage of time during conversations.

Join us as we unravel the mysteries of speech comprehension and gain a deeper understanding of how our minds process language.

Learn more
Laura Gwilliams' research website and Stanford faculty profile

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

We all know exercise has all sorts of benefits beyond just making us stronger and fitter. It lowers and inflammation. It buffers stress and anxiety. It clarifies our thinking. In fact, regular exercise is one of the few things we know with reasonable confidence can help extend our healthy lifespan.

But for all the evidence of the benefits of exercise, it's a bit surprising that we don't know more about how exercise does all these great things for our bodies and our brains.

Today's guest, Jonathan Long, recently discovered a new molecule produced when we exercise a compound called Lac-Phe. Lac-Phe appears to be linked to a number of health benefits from regulating appetite to boosting learning and memory.

Long is a chemist by training — and an institute scholar of Sarafan ChEM-H, the Institute for Chemistry Engineering and Medicine for Human Health, our sister institute here at Stanford. So I started our conversation by asking him how his background as a chemist informs how he thinks about studying exercise and human health.

NOTE: Thanks to everyone who's tuned in to our first season! We're going to take a break for the summer to get ready for next season, but we'll have more tales from the frontiers of brain science for you in the fall. 

Learn More

Organism-wide, cell-type-specific secretome mapping of exercise training in mice (Cell Metabolism, 2023)

• Understanding how different cell types respond to exercise could be key step toward exercise as medicine  (Wu Tsai Human performance Alliance, 2023)

An exercise-inducible metabolite that suppresses feeding and obesity (Nature, 2022)

• ‘Anti-hunger’ molecule forms after exercise, scientists discover (Stanford Medicine)
  
  
• Why Does a Hard Workout Make You Less Hungry? (New York Times)
  
  
• An exercise molecule? (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology blog)

Mechanistic dissection and therapeutic capture of an exercise-inducible metabolite signaling pathway for brain resilience (Innovation Award from the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute)

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

When we're kids, our brains are amazing at learning. We absorb information from the outside world with ease, and we can adapt to anything. But as we age, our brains become a little more fixed. Our brain circuits become a little less flexible.

You may have heard of a concept called neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to change or rewire itself. This is of course central to learning and memory, but it's also important for understanding a surprisingly wide array of medical conditions, including things like epilepsy, depression, even Alzheimer's disease.

Today's guest, Carla Shatz, is a pioneer in understanding how our brains are sculpted by our experiences. She's credited with coining the phrase neurons that fire together, wire together. Her work over the past 40 years is foundational to how we understand the brain today.

So I was excited to talk to Shatz about our brain's capacity for change, and I started off by asking about this sort of simple question, why exactly do we have this learning superpower as kids to do things like pick up languages and why does it go away?

Shatz is Sapp Family Provostial Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology and the Catherine Holman Johnson director of Stanford Bio-X.

Learn More

• In conversation with Carla Shatz (Nature Neuroscience)
• Carla Shatz, her breakthrough discovery in vision and the developing brain (Stanford Medicine Magazine)
• Making an Old Brain Young | Carla Shatz (TEDxStanford)
• Carla Shatz Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture
• Stanford scientists discover a protein in nerves that determines which brain connections stay and which go (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Webby award-winning producer Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technology that uses magnetic fields to stimulate or suppress electrical activity in brain circuits. It's part of a transformation in how psychiatrists are thinking about mental health disorders that today's guest calls psychiatry 3.0.

Nolan Williams has recently pioneered a new form of TMS therapy that has just been approved by the FDA to treat patients with treatment-resistant depression. That actually describes a lot of people with serious depression — somewhere between a third to a half. At some point talk therapy doesn't work, drugs don't work, and for most people, there's not much else to try.

TMS has been used for depression before, but Williams' team has taken a new, more targeted approach. It's called SAINT, which stands for Stanford Accelerated Intelligent Neuromodulation Therapy. Basically, it uses MRI brain imaging to precisely target intensive TMS stimulation to tweak the function of specific circuits in each patient's brain.

Remarkably, after just one week in Williams' SAINT trial, 80% of patients went into full remission. The stories these patients tell about the impact this has had on their lives are incredible.

We talked to Williams, who is a faculty director of the Koret Human Neurosciences Community Laboratory at Wu Tsai Neuro, about what makes this approach unique and what it means for the future of psychiatry.

Additional Reading

• Researchers treat depression by reversing brain signals traveling the wrong way (Stanford Medicine)
• FDA Clears Accelerated TMS Protocol for Depression (Psychiatric News)
• Experimental depression treatment is nearly 80% effective in controlled study (Stanford Medicine)
• An experimental depression treatment uses electric currents to bring relief (NPR) 
• Jolting the brain's circuits with electricity is moving from radical to almost mainstream therapy. Some crucial hurdles remain (STAT News)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

One of the strangest and most disconcerting things about the COVID 19 pandemic has been the story of long COVID.

Many COVID long-haulers  have continued experiencing cognitive symptoms long after their initial COVID infection — loss of attention, concentration, memory, and mental sharpness — what scientists are calling "brain fog".  For some patients, the condition is so serious that it can be impossible to go back to their pre-COVID lives.

Today’s guest, actually had an early intuition that COVID-19 could trigger a neurological health crisis.

Michelle Monje is a pediatric neuro-oncologist here at Stanford who treats kids with serious brain cancers. She also runs a neuroscience research lab that studies how the brain develops during early life. For the past decade, she has been focused on how chemotherapy triggers a cascade of inflammation in the brain that leads to so called “chemo-fog” — a very similar set of symptoms that we now see in many people with long covid.

In this episode, Monje helps us understand what brain fog is, what seems to be causing it, and how her team and others are trying to develop treatments that could help with other conditions linked to inflammation in the brain, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

References

• Fernández-Castañeda A, Lu P, Geraghty AC, et al. (Iwasaki A, Monje M) Mild respiratory COVID can cause multi-lineage neural cell and myelin dysregulation. Cell. 2022;185(14):2452-2468.e16. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.06.008
• Monje M, Iwasaki A. The neurobiology of long COVID. Neuron. 2022;110(21):3484-3496. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2022.10.006

Read more about Monje's work

• One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood (The Atlantic)
• Brain fog after COVID-19 has similarities to ‘chemo brain,’ Stanford-led study finds (Stanford Medicine)
• In ‘chemo brain,’ researchers see clues to unravel long Covid’s brain fog (STAT News)
• Even Mild Covid-19 Can Cause Brain Dysfunction And Cognitive Issues (Forbes)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we're going to talk about virtual reality and how it could be used to treat depression.

We're talking with psychiatrist Kim Bullock, the founding director of Stanford's Neurobehavioral Clinic and Virtual Reality & Immersive Technologies (VRIT) program. 

Dr. Bullock — a physician certified in Neuropsychiatry, Psychiatry, and Lifestyle Medicine — calls herself a "radical behaviorist." Like other practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), she sees the troublesome thoughts and emotional states of many psychiatric disorders as just another form of behavior, which can be reshaped through self awareness and practice — much like you might work at avoiding junk food or not biting your nails.

Of course, one of the biggest challenges is the practice part. It's no easy task for patients to practice experiencing the world in a more positive, healthy way. This is why Bullock is eager for practitioners of CBT and related forms of psychotherapy to embrace virtual reality technologies — which enable psychiatrists to prescribe precisely calibrated "experiences" to treat cognitive & behavioral disorders.

We started by discussing early results from a clinical trial for a virtual reality-enhanced intervention major depressive disorder, which Dr. Bullock recently launched with support from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Neuroscience:Translate program. 

Join us to learn more about how VR is transforming the world of psychotherapy!

Learn More

• Imagining virtual reality as a simple tool to treat depression  (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Extended Reality(XR) enhanced behavioral activation for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (2022 Neuroscience:Translate grant)
• Clinical Trial: Virtual Reality Behavioral Activation: An Intervention for Major Depressive Disorder
• The Stanford Virtual Reality and Immersive Technologies (VR-IT) Program
• Recent VR-IT publications

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Nearly one in five Americans lives with a mental illness. Unfortunately there’s a limited set of options for treating psychiatric disorders. One reason for that is that these disorders are still defined based on people’s behavior or invisible internal states — things like depressed mood or hallucinations.

But of course, all our thoughts and behaviors are governed by our brains.  And there’s a lot of research that makes it clear that many disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, and probably depression, may have their origin during early-stage brain development. The problem is that we still don’t know which brain circuits specifically are responsible for these disorders — or how they got that way.

Studying human brain circuits as they develop is — obviously — challenging. But what if we could rewind the clock and follow the development of neurological circuits in real time? Believe it or not, new technologies may soon make  this  possible.

Today's guest is Sergiu Pasca, Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Pasca and his team have developed techniques to create tiny models of a patient's brain tissue in the lab — models called brain organoids and assembloids. They can watch these models grow in lab dishes from a few cells into complex circuits. And they can even transplant them into rats to see how they integrate into a working brain.

While all this may sound like science fiction, these techniques are fueling a revolution in scientists' ability to observe human brain development in real time, trace the origins of psychiatric disorders and — hopefully — develop new treatments.

Further Reading

• Reverse engineering human brain by growing neural circuits in the lab | Wu Tsai Neuro
• Human brain cells transplanted into rat brains hold promise for neuropsychiatric research | News Center | Stanford Medicine
• Sergiu P. Pasca: How we're reverse engineering the human brain in the lab | TED Talk
• Assembloid models usher in a new era of brain science | Stanford Medicine
• Human Brains Are Hard to Study. Sergiu Paşca Grows Useful Substitutes. | Quanta Magazine

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today we’re going to talk about frogs — and spiders — as parents. 

What today’s show is really about is “pair bonding” — that’s the scientific term for the collaborative bonds that form between two parents — as well as the bonds between parents and their offspring.

It turns out that if you look across the animal kingdom, strong family bonds are way more widespread than you might imagine. Frogs have them. Spiders have them. Fish have them.

We wanted to learn more about the neuroscience behind these familial bonds across the animal kingdom — and what this could teach us about our own experience as partners and parents.

Plus, I just wanted to talk about frogs this week!

Stanford biologist Lauren O’Connell and her lab travel around the world, studying poison frogs, wolf spiders, butterfly fish and other animals that — it turns out — are pretty amazing parents.

Learn more
O'Connell's research group, the Laboratory of Organismal Biology

Further reading
Frogs in Space (Stanford News, 2022)
Meet a Great Dad From the Animal World: The Poison Frog (KQED, 2022)
Stanford researchers study motherly poison frogs to understand maternal brain (Stanford News, 2019)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Recently on the show, we had a conversation about the possibility of creating artificial vision with a bionic eye. Today we're going to talk about technology to enhance another sense, one that often goes underappreciated, our sense of touch.

We humans actually have one of the most sensitive senses of touch on the planet. Just in the tip of your fingers, there are thousands of tiny sensors, which scientists call mechanoreceptors that sense texture, vibration, pressure, even pain. Our sense of touch also lets us track how our bodies are moving in space. In fact, our refined sense of touch may be part of our success as a species. We humans use touch for everything. Building tools, writing, playing music, you name it. And on an emotional level, touch is fundamental to our social lives. Touch lets us connect with each other and the world around us.

But of course, we increasingly live in a technological world where we're often separated from the physical connections that are so important to us. Think about having a conversation on Zoom where you can't put your hand on a friend's arm to emphasize a point. Some scientists and engineers now think we should be building technology that reconnects us with the physical world rather than separating us from it. This is a growing area of research in robotics and virtual reality, a field called haptics.

That brings us to today's guest. Allison Okamura is Richard W. Weiland Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford, and a deputy director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Her lab — the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics for Medicine (CHaRM) Lab — is dedicated to extending or augmenting the amazing human sense of touch through technology.

Learn more

• Okamura leads the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics for Medicine (CHaRM) Lab  at Stanford
• Check out videos at the CHaRM Lab YouTube channel 

Further Reading

• Researchers create a device that imitates social touch, but from afar (Stanford Engineering)
• Medical 'mixed reality' applications take center stage (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute)
• Researchers building glove to treat symptoms of stroke (Stanford Medicine)
• Stanford’s Robot Makers: Allison Okamura (Stanford News)

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Hi listeners, we're shifting to a biweekly release schedule after this episode. See you in a couple weeks!
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Most of us probably know someone who developed Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia as they got older. But you probably also know someone who stayed sharp as a tack well into their 80s or 90s. Even if it’s a favorite TV actor, like Betty White. 

The fact that people age so differently makes you wonder: is there some switch that could be flipped in our biology to let us all live to 100 with our mental faculties intact.

Scientists now believe we can learn something from people whose minds stay sharp — whose brains stay youthful into old age that could lead to treatments to slow down aging for the rest of us.

That brings us to today’s guest.  Tony Wyss-Coray is the Director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Wyss-Coray's lab is renowned for experiments showing that young blood can rejuvenate old brains, at least in laboratory animals. We talked with him about this work and the prospect of achieving more youthful brains into what we now consider old age.

Links
Wyss-Coray lab website
Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience

Further Reading

• Q&A: Can we rejuvenate aging brains? (Scope Blog, 2022)
• Gift from Phil and Penny Knight launches scientific endeavor to combat neurodegeneration (Stanford News, 2022)
• Young cerebrospinal fluid may hold keys to healthy brain aging (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2022)
• Blocking protein’s activity restores cognition in old mice (Stanford Medicine, 2019)
• Clinical trial finds blood-plasma infusions for Alzheimer’s safe, promising (Stanford Medicine, 2017)
• Infusion of young blood recharges brains of old mice, study finds (Stanford Medicine, 2014)
• Scientists disco

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

We take this for granted, but our eyes are amazing.

They're incredible. We process the visual world so automatically and so instantaneously, we forget how much work our eyes and our brains are doing behind the scenes, taking in light through the eyeball, transforming light into electrical signals in the retina, packaging up all that information, and sending it on to the brain, and then making sense of what it is we're seeing and responding to it.

In fact, new science is showing that the eye itself, meaning the retina, is actually doing quite a bit of the fancy image processing that scientists used to think was happening deeper in the brain. 

Of course, our eyes are not perfect. Millions of people suffer vision loss or even blindness. Often, this is because the tiny cells in the retina that process light die off for one reason or another, but here's something that may surprise you. While it sounds like science fiction, the possibility of engineering and artificial retina, a bionic eye, is closer than you might think, and that brings us to today's guest 

EJ Chichilnisky is the John R Adler professor of neurosurgery and a professor of opthalmology here at Stanford, where he leads the Stanford Artificial Retina Project. His team is engineering an electronic implant to restore vision to people blinded by incurable retinal disease. In other words, they are prototyping a bionic eye.

Links

• Stanford Artificial Retina Project
• Chichilnisky Lab

Further Reading

• Using machine learning to identify individual variations in the primate retina (Stanford Neurosurgery)
• New ways to prevent — or even reverse — dementia, paralysis and blindness (Stanford Medicine)
• An artificial retina that could help restore sight to the blind (Stanford Engineering)
• Researchers want to heal the brain. Should they enhance it as well? (Stanford News)
• Another retinal implant project at Stanford: Implanted chip, natural eyesight coordinate vision in study of macular degeneration patients

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

We've probably all heard of circadian rhythms, the idea that our bodies have biological clocks that keep track of the daily cycle, sunrise to sunset. Maybe we've even heard that it's these biological rhythms that get thrown off when we travel across time zones or after daylight savings.

So on one hand, it's cool that our body keeps track of what time it is, but today our question is just how important are our circadian rhythms to our health and wellbeing? Do we need to be paying attention to these daily rhythms and what happens if we don't?

So we asked Stanford circadian biology expert, Erin Gibson. 

Links

• Gibson Lab
• Stanford Center for Sleep and Circadian Science
• Stanford Division of Sleep Medicine

References

• Rhythms of life: circadian disruption and brain disorders across the lifespan
• Circadian disruption and human health: A bidirectional relationship
• The arrival of circadian medicine

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

What makes addiction a disease?

I think we all know at this point that addiction is another major epidemic that is sweeping our country and the world, but there are few topics that are more misunderstood than addiction. In fact, some people question whether addiction is even truly a disease.

To  delve into this question of why neuroscientists and health policy experts do think of addiction as a disease, I spoke to  Keith Humphreys, the Esther Ting Memorial Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, who is a leading expert on the addiction epidemic.

Humphreys chairs the Stanford Lancet Commission on the North American Opioid Crisis, and has served as Senior Policy Advisor, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy among other prominent policy roles.

Humphreys is also  leader of the NeuroChoice Initiative, a project of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Initiative dedicated to understanding decision making — from brain circuits to individual choice to group tendencies — with a particular focus on the science of addiction and how neuroscience can contribute to addiction policy.

Links
Stanford Network on Addiction Policy
Stanford Lancet Commission on the North American Opioid Crisis
The NeuroChoice Initiative

Further Reading
Social aversion during opioid withdrawal reflects blocked serotonin cues, mouse study finds
Brain imaging links stimulant-use relapse to distinct nerve pathway
Stanford-Lancet report calls for sweeping reforms to mitigate opioid crisis

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

You may have heard the idea that the gut is the second brain, but what does that really mean?

Maybe it has to do with the fact that there are something like 100 to 600 million neurons in your gut. That's a lot of neurons. That's about as many as you'd find in the brain of say, a fruit bat, or an ostrich, or a Yorkshire Terrier. 

And it turns out, this network of intestinal neurons, termed by scientists the "enteric nervous system," can actually have a lot of impact on our daily lives – not just in controlling things like our appetite, but may contribute to our mental well-being — and potentially event to disorders ranging from anxiety to Parkinson's disease.

To learn more about this fascinating "second brain", we spoke with Julia Kaltschmidt, a Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute faculty scholar and an associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine.

Links
Kaltschmidt Lab website

Regional cytoarchitecture of the adult and developing mouse enteric nervous system.
Hamnett R, Dershowitz LB, Sampathkumar V, Wang Z, De Andrade V, Kasthuri N, Druckmann S, Kaltschmidt JA. Curr Biol. 2022 Aug 31:S0960-9822(22)01307-0. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.030. Online ahead of print. PMID: 36070775

Other recent publications

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

What can octopus and squid brains teach us about intelligence?

One of the incredible things about octopus's is that not only do they have an advanced intelligence that lets them camouflage themselves, use tools and manipulate their environments and act as really clever hunters in their ecosystems, they do this with a brain that evolved essentially from something like a slug in the oceans hundreds of millions of years ago.

Our brains share virtually nothing in common with theirs. The question for scientists is what can studying a creature with a completely different brain from our own, teach us about the common principles of what makes a brain, what makes intelligence? What does it mean for this creature to have an intelligence that is something like our own?

To learn more, we spoke this week with Ernie Hwaun and Matt McCoy, two interdisciplinary postdoctoral scholars at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford who study cephalopod intelligence from completely different angles.

Links
Q&A: Evolution of octopus and squid brains could shed light on origins of intelligence

Stretchy, conductive electrodes that can keep up with an octopus

Andrew Fire lab (Stanford Medicine)

Ivan Soltesz lab (Stanford Medicine)

Marine Biological Laboratory Cephalopod Initiative

Acknowledgements

Ernie Hwaun's research has been supported through a Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Scholars Award and ONR MURI grant N0014-19-1-2373.

Matt McCoy's research has been supported through a Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Scholars Award, the Stanford Genomics Training Program, and several programs at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, including a Grass Fellowship in Neuroscience, a Whitman Early Career Fellowship, and the Cephalopod Initiative.

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

If you've ever had a migraine, you know that the symptoms — splitting headache, nausea, sensitivity to light — mean you're going to want to spend some time in bed, in a dark room.

Migraines are flat out debilitating, and the statistics back this up.

Migraines are the third most common neurological disorder. They affect as many as a billion people around the world, making them one of the world's 10 most disabling diseases according to the World Health Organization. But for all the misery for those who suffer from migraines, it's been a long haul for scientists to figure out what actually causes these episodes, and more importantly, how to provide relief.

We spoke this week with  Gabriella Muwanga, a Stanford graduate student who studies what's actually going on in the brain during a migraine. And for good reason —  Muwanga has suffered from regular migraines herself since childhood and hopes to contribute to finding better treatments for them in the future.

Links

Muwanga's research profile

The Tawfik lab at Stanford Medicine

The Airan lab at Stanford Medicine

Stanford headache specialist demystifies migraine auras (Stanford Scope Blog, 2017)

Migraine Treatment Has Come a Long Way (New York Times Well Blog, 2022)

References

Ahn, A.H. and Basbaum, A.I. Where do triptans act in the treatment of migraine? Pain. 2005 May; 115(1-2): 1–4.

Charles, A., Baca, S. Cortical spreading depression and migraine. Nat Rev Neurol 9, 637–644 (2013).

Weatherall, M.W. The diagnosis and treatment of chronic migraine. Ther Adv Chronic Dis. 2015 May; 6(3): 115–123.

Hoffmann, J.,  Baca, S. M., and  Akerman, S. Neurovascular mechanisms of migraine and cluster headache. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab. 2019 Apr; 39(4): 573–594.

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The skin is full of contradictions. It’s soft and sensitive, but also tough and resilient, even self-healing. It’s both the barrier that protects us from infections and our most intimate connection with the outside world. 

Today’s guest, Zhenan Bao, has spent the last two decades reverse engineering the skin’s many remarkable properties in order to create wearable electronics that are just as soft, flexible, and versatile as the skin itself.

Bao envisions a world where stick-on devices could help heal injuries, manage anxiety, and even enhance our perceptions, and soft, implanted devices could give neurosciences new insights into the workings of the body and brain.

In today’s episode, we talk about what makes the skin such an intriguing problem for an engineer like Bao; some of the many applications of her technology for medicine, neuroscience, and mental health; and its potential to enhance or extend our perceptions.

Bao is K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering at Stanford and founding director of eWEAR — the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative.

Learn More

Bao Lab website

Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR)

Advancing toward wearable, stretchable electronics | Stanford News (2024)

Soft ‘e-skin’ that talks to the brain | Stanford News (2023)

The Science of Skin | STANFORD magazine (2023)

Skin Inspired Electronics: Changing the Future of Electronics with Zhenan Bao (2023)

Dr. Zhenan Bao Keynote - Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health & Wellness Symposium (2022)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Why are psychiatrists taking a fresh look at MDMA? Recently, there's been growing excitement in the scientific community about revisiting the potential medical benefits of psychedelic drugs that have been off limits for decades. Scientists are discovering or rediscovering applications of psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and other compounds for treating people with depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute has several leading experts paving the way in this field, including today's guest, Robert Malenka. Beginning in the 1980s, Malenka pioneered neuroscientists' understanding of how our brain circuits to change with experience by uncovering fundamental mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. More recently, his laboratory at Stanford has explored the brain's so-called "reward circuitry," including its role in social behavior and empathy and its response to  drugs such as MDMA.

Malenka is Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and a Deputy Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute where he co-directs the NeuroChoice Initiative, which takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human decision making and the science of addiction.

Links

Heifets & Malenka, "MDMA as a Probe and Treatment for Social Behaviors." Cell (2016)

Heifets, et al., "Distinct neural mechanisms for the prosocial and rewarding properties of MDMA." Science Translational Medicine (2019)

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute NeuroChoice Initiative

More on Malenka's work

"5 Questions: Robert Malenka on Ecstasy research" (Stanford Medicine, 2016)

"Being a Neuroscientist: A conversation with veteran Stanford brain researcher Rob Malenka" (Stanford Medicine Scope Blog, 2018)

"Social aversion during opioid withdrawal reflects blocked serotonin cues, mouse study finds" (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2022)

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and Christian Haigis, and hosted by Nic

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Announcing:  From our Neurons to Yours, the new podcast from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University.

On this show, we criss-cross scientific disciplines to bring you to the frontiers of brain science, one simple question at a time. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week, we're diving into recent research that sheds light on a new form of brain plasticity involving changes in the insulation of nerve fibers — called myelin.  It turns out that myelin plasticity is implicated in a number of serious conditions, from epilepsy to drug abuse and addiction.

We're excited to bring back two previous guests on the show to share their insights on this previously unknown form of plasticity:  Stanford psychiatry professor Rob Malenka (S1 E1 - Psychedelics and Empathy),  a pioneer in the study of synaptic plasticity and addiction, and neuro-oncologist Michelle Monje (S1 E12 - Brain Fog), who made some of the very first observations of myelin plasticity in the brain, essentially founding this field.

Together, they discuss their recent findings on the role of myelin plasticity in opioid addiction and its implications for understanding addictive behaviors.

Get ready to nerd out as we uncover a new angle on our brain's remarkable capacity for change.

Learn More

Myelination in the brain may be key to ‘learning’ opioid addiction | Stanford Medicine (2024)

Adaptive and maladaptive myelination in health and disease | Nature Reviews Neurology (2022)

Brain plasticity promotes worsening of epileptic seizures, study finds | Stanford Medicine (2022)

The Brain Learns in Unexpected Ways | Scientific American (2020)

Brain boosting: It's not just grey matter that matters | New Scientist (2015)

Neural activity promotes brain plasticity through myelin growth, researchers find | News Center | Stanford Medicine (2014)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

-- We're re-releasing our conversation with Carla Shatz, one of our favorites from the archive, which comes up all the time on the show in the context of brain plasticity and aging. Enjoy, and see you next time! -NW --
 
When we're kids, our brains are amazing at learning. We absorb information from the outside world with ease, and we can adapt to anything. But as we age, our brains become a little more fixed. Our brain circuits become a little less flexible.

You may have heard of a concept called neuroplasticity, our brain's ability to change or rewire itself. This is of course central to learning and memory, but it's also important for understanding a surprisingly wide array of medical conditions, including things like epilepsy, depression, even Alzheimer's disease.

Today's guest, Carla Shatz, is a pioneer in understanding how our brains are sculpted by our experiences. She's credited with coining the phrase neurons that fire together, wire together. Her work over the past 40 years is foundational to how we understand the brain today.

So I was excited to talk to Shatz about our brain's capacity for change, and I started off by asking about this sort of simple question, why exactly do we have this learning superpower as kids to do things like pick up languages and why does it go away?

Shatz is Sapp Family Provostial Professor of Biology and of Neurobiology and the Catherine Holman Johnson director of Stanford Bio-X.

Learn More

• In conversation with Carla Shatz (Nature Neuroscience)
• Carla Shatz, her breakthrough discovery in vision and the developing brain (Stanford Medicine Magazine)
• Making an Old Brain Young | Carla Shatz (TEDxStanford)
• Carla Shatz Kavli Prize Laureate Lecture
• Stanford scientists discover a protein in nerves that determines which brain connections stay and which go (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Webby award-winning producer Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Hi everyone — quick programming announcement. As we head into summer, we'll be moving to an every-other-week cadence as we prepare more conversations from the frontiers of neuroscience. I'm very excited about what we're working on for you, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you! Email us at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu with your thoughts, praise, critiques, or just to say hello. 

That's all for now. See you next time!

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

The powerful new generation of AI tools that has come out over the past few years —  DALL-E, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the rest — have blown away our old ideas about what AI can do and raised questions about what it means for computers to start acting... intelligent?

This week, we ask what the rise of these systems might teach us about our own biological intelligence — and vice versa. What does modern neuroscience have to say about how AI could become as flexible, efficient, and resilient as the human brain.

Few people are better positioned to speak to the intersection of neuroscience and AI than today's guest: Surya Ganguli. 

Ganguli's lab produced some of the first diffusion models — which are at the foundation of today's AI revolution — and is now working to understand how complex emergent properties arise from biological and artificial neural networks.

Ganguli is a member of the Neuroscience Theory Center at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), and an associate professor in Stanford's Department of Applied Physics. 

Further Reading

• Interpreting the retinal neural code for natural scenes: From computations to neurons (Neuron, 2023)
• Beyond neural scaling laws: beating power law scaling via data pruning (arXiv, 2023)
• Cortical layer-specific critical dynamics triggering perception (Science, 2019)
  • Stanford team stimulates neurons to induce particular perceptions in mice's minds (Stanford Medicine, 2019)
• What DALL-E reveals about human creativity (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2023)

Visit us!
Want to learn more about AI and Neuroscience? Join us at Wu Tsai Neuro's annual symposium on October 17, 2024, which will showcase the frontiers of biological and artificial intelligence research. (More details coming soon!)

Episode credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

At some point in our lives, we all struggle with memory — learning a new name, remembering that book you were reading just yesterday or that word on the tip of your tongue.

So what can neuroscience teach us about why we remember, why we forget, and how we might even improve our memories?

To answer this question, I spoke with neuroscientist Anthony Wagner, a memory expert in Stanford's Department of Psychology.

Learn More
Wagner lab website

• Recent lab publications
• Anthony's new book: Brain Sciences for Lawyers, Judges, and Policymakers (2024). Jones, O. D., Schall, J. D., Shen, F. X., Hoffman, M. B., & Wagner, A. D. Oxford University Press. Order

Stress thwarts our ability to plan ahead by disrupting how we use memory, Stanford study finds (Stanford News 2020)

Stanford researchers link poor memory to attention lapses and media multitasking (Stanford News, 2020)

Episode credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In the past few years, Big Pharma has released not one, but three new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

Aducanemab (2021), Lecanemab (2023), and Donanemab (2024), are the first treatments to effectively clear the brain of amyloid plaques — the sticky protein clumps whose build-up in the brain has defined the disease for decades. The problem? They may not help patients at all.

Today’s guest, Stanford neurologist Mike Greicius, considers the new amyloid-clearing drugs a major disappointment — and worse, says they likely do more harm than good for patients.

Despite this critique, Greicius, thinks that the next few years will be an exciting time for novel Alzheimer’s therapies, as growing biological understanding of Alzheimer’s risk and resilience bear fruit with promising new approaches to treatment.

Learn More:

Greicius is the Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford Medicine, and a member of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience and Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Stanford University.

Amyloid Drug Skepticism:

• Substantial Doubt Remains about the Efficacy of Anti-Amyloid Antibodies
  (Commentary, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 2024)
• New Drug Approved for Early Alzheimer’s (New York Times, 2024)
• Alzheimer's drug adoption in US slowed by doctors' skepticism (Reuters, 2024)
• One step back: Why the new Alzheimer’s plaque-attack drugs don’t work (Stanford Medicine Scope Blog, 2024)

Alzheimer's Genetics Research:

• Knight-funded research uncovers gene mutations that may prevent Alzheimer’s Disease (Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, 2024)
• Why is a common gene variant bad for your brain? (Stanford Medicine Magazine, 2024)
• Scientists find genetic Alzheimer’s risk factor tied to African ancestry (Stanford Medicine, 2023)

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today we are re-releasing an episode we did last year with Stanford neurobiologist Lisa Giocomo exploring the intersection of memory, navigation and the boundaries we create between ourselves and the world around us.

This episode was inspired by the idea of memory palaces. The idea is simple: Take a place you're very familiar with, say the house you grew up in, and place information you want to remember in different locations within that space. When it's time to remember those things, you can mentally walk through that space and retrieve those items.

This ancient technique reveals something very fundamental about how our brains work. It turns out that the same parts of the brain are responsible both for memory and for navigating through the world.

Scientists are learning more and more about these systems and the connections between them, and it's revealing surprising insights about how we build the narrative of our lives, how we turn our environments into an internal model of who we are, and where we fit into the world.

Join us to learn more about the neuroscience of space and memory.

Before we get into this week’s episode, we have a favor to ask. We're working to make this show even better, and we want to hear from you. We're in the process of gathering listener input and feedback. If you'd be willing to help out, send us a short note and we'll be in touch. As always, we are at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more:

• About Lisa Giocomo’s research
• About the story of Henry Molaison (patient H. M.), who lost the ability to form new memories after epilepsy treatment removed his hippocampus.
• About the 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine, awarded to John O’Keefe and to May-Britt and Edvard Moser (Giocomo’s mentors) for their discovery of the GPS system of the brain.
• About Memory Palaces, a technique used since ancient times to enhance memory using mental maps.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Given the widespread legalization of cannabis for medical and recreational uses, you'd think we'd have a better understanding of how it works. But ask a neuroscientist exactly how cannabinoid compounds like THC and CBD alter our perceptions or lead to potential medical benefits, and you'll soon learn just how little we know.

We know that these molecules hijack an ancient signaling system in the brain called the "endocannabinoid" system (translation: the "cannabinoids within"). These somewhat exotic signaling molecules (made of fatty lipids and traveling "backwards" compared to other transmitters) have been deeply mysterious until recently, when new tools made it possible to visualize their activity directly in the brain.

So what is the "day job" of the endocannabinoid system — and how does it connect to the dramatic highs that come with taking THC or the medical benefits of CBD? 

To unpack all this, we're talking this week with neuroscientist Ivan Soltesz, the James Doty Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience at Stanford, and a leading expert on the endocannabinoid system.

Learn More

• The Soltesz Lab
• "Weeding out bad waves: towards selective cannabinoid circuit control in epilepsy" (Soltesz et al, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2015) 
• "Keep off the grass? Cannabis, cognition and addiction" (Parsons et al, Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2016)
• "Marijuana-like brain substance calms seizures but increases aftereffects, study finds" (Goldman, Stanford Medicine News, 2021)
• "Retrograde endocannabinoid signaling at inhibitory synapses in vivo" (Dudok et al, Science, 2024)

Vote for us!
We are a finalist for a prestigious Signal Award for Best Science Podcast of 2024! Share your love for the show by voting for us in the Listener's Choice category by October 17. Thanks in advance!

Get in touch:
We're doing some listener research and we want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Earlier this year, President Obama's signature BRAIN Initiative, which has powered advances in neuroscience for the past 10 years, had its budget slashed by 40%. 

Over the past decade, the BRAIN Initiative made roughly $4 billion in targeted investments in more than 1500 research projects across the country and has dramatically accelerated progress tackling fundamental challenges in neuroscience. As we head into the next federal budget cycle, the future of the initiative remains uncertain. 

Today we take stock of how the BRAIN Initiative transformed neuroscience over the past 10 years, and what the outlook is for the future of the field.

To give us an unparalleled behind the scenes view, we are fortunate to have Bill Newsome with us on the show. A world renowned expert in the brain mechanisms of visual perception and decision-making, Bill co-chaired the original BRAIN Initiative planning committee in 2013 (the same year he became the founding director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute here at Stanford). Don't miss this conversation!

Learn More

• About the BRAIN Initiative 
  • NIH BRAIN Initiative website
  • A Leader of Obama's New Brain Initiative Explains Why We Need It (WIRED, April 2013)
  • BRAIN @ 10: A decade of innovation (Neuron, Sept 2024)
  • Reflecting on a decade of BRAIN—10 Institutes and Centers, one mission (NIH BRAIN Blog, Aug 2024)
    
    
• About last year's funding cuts: 
  • Understanding the BRAIN Initiative budget (NIH BRAIN Initiative)
  • $278 million cut in BRAIN Initiative funding leaves neuroscientists in limbo (The Transmitter, April 2024)
  • The Future of BRAIN Initiative Funding Remains Unclear (The Transmitter, July 2024)

Get in touch
We're doing some listener research and we want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we are going back into the archives for one of my favorite episodes: We are talking to neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author, David Eagleman. We're talking about synaesthesia — and if you don't know what that is, you're about to find out.

Special Note
We are beyond thrilled that From Our Neurons to Yours has won a 2024 Signal Award in the Science Podcast category. It's a big honor — thanks to everyone who voted!

---

Imagine Thursday. Does Thursday have a color? What about the sound of rain — does that sound taste like chocolate? Or does the sound of a saxophone feel triangular to you? 

For about 3% of the population, the sharp lines between our senses blend together. Textures may have tastes, sounds, shapes, numbers may have colors. This sensory crosstalk is called synesthesia, and it's not a disorder, just a different way of experiencing the world. 

To learn about the neuroscience behind this fascinating phenomenon and what it tells us about how our brains perceive the world, we were fortunate enough to speak with David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, author, and entrepreneur here at Stanford who has long been fascinated by synesthesia and what it means about how our perceptions shape our reality.

Links

• Livewired (book)
• Incognito (book)
• Wednesday Is Indigo Blue (book)
• Neosensory (website)
• Synesthete.org (website)
• Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman (podcast)

Get in touch
We're doing some listener research and we want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Join us as we dive back into the world of psychedelic medicine with anesthesiologists Boris Heifets and Theresa Lii, who share intriguing new data that sheds light on how ketamine and placebo effects may interact in treating depression.

We explore provocative questions like: How much of ketamine's antidepressant effect comes from the drug itself versus the excitement of being in a psychedelics trial? What do we know about how placebo actually works in the brain? And should we view the placebo effect as a feature rather than a bug in psychiatric treatment?

Join us as we examine the complex interplay between psychoactive drugs, the brain's own opioid system, and the healing power of hope in mental health care.

Related research

• Preprint: Opioids Diminish the Placebo Antidepressant Response: A Post Hoc Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Ketamine Trial (medRxiv, 2024)
• Randomized trial of ketamine masked by surgical anesthesia in patients with depression (Nature Mental Health, 2023)
  
  

Related episodes

• Psychedelics, placebo, and anesthetic dreams | Boris Heifets (Part 1) 
• Psychedelics Inside Out: How do LSD and psilocybin alter perception? | Boris Heifets (Part 2)
• OCD and Ketamine | Carolyn Rodriguez
• Psychedelics and Empathy: Why are psychiatrists taking a fresh look at MDMA? | Rob Malenka

Related news

• Researchers find response to ketamine depends on opioid pathways, but varies by sex (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• The rebirth of psychedelic medicine (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2023)
• Can Psychedelic Drugs Treat Physical Pain? (Scientific American, 2022)
• Scientists Say A Mind-Bending Rhythm In The Brain Can Act Like Ketamine (NPR, 2020)

Get in touch
We're doing some listener research and we want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production as

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we are speaking with the one and only Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neurobiologist, a MacArthur "Genius", and best-selling author of books exploring the nature of stress, social behavior, and — as he puts it — "the biology of the human predicament."

In his latest book, Determined, Sapolsky assertively lays out his vision of a world without free will — a world where as much as we feel like we're making decisions, the reality is that our choices are completely determined by biological and environmental factors outside of our control.

Before we get into it, it's worth saying that where this is heading, the reason to care about this question is that Sapolsky's argument has profound moral implications for our understanding of justice, personal responsibility, and whether any of us deserve to be judged or praised for our actions.

Mentioned on the Show

• Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will (Sapolsky, 2023)
• Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (Sapolsky, 2018 )
• A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons (Sapolsky, 2002)
• Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will (Mitchell, 2023) 
• Sapolsky / Mitchell Debates – Part 1 (2023), Part 2 (2024)

Related Episodes

• Is addiction a disease? | Keith Humphreys
• Brain stimulation & "psychiatry 3.0" | Nolan Williams
• How we understand each other | Laura Gwilliams

Get in touch
We're doing some listener research and we want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. 

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

We're kicking off our new season with a deep dive into one of neuroscience's most fascinating mysteries: sleep. This unconscious third of our lives isn't just about rest – it's absolutely critical for brain health, memory consolidation, and overall well-being. But here's where it gets intriguing: recent research suggests that increased napping as we age might be an early warning sign of Alzheimer's disease.

To unpack this complex relationship, we're thrilled to welcome back Erin Gibson, assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford School of Medicine and Wu Tsai Neuro affiliate. 

We'll explore whether age-related sleep changes are potential contributors to brain degeneration or valuable early indicators of otherwise invisible brain disorders, possibly opening doors for early intervention.

We'll also learn about Gibson's research, supported by the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Wu Tsai Neuro, which investigates how myelin—the insulation of our nerve cells—could be a key missing link in understanding the relationship between sleep and brain health.

Join us for an enlightening discussion that might just change how you think about your nightly slumber and its profound impact on long-term cognitive function. 

Mentioned on the Show

• Dopamine and serotonin work in opposition to shape learning
• Gibson Lab at Stanford University School of Medicine
• Surprising finding links sleep, brain insulation, and neurodegeneration | Knight Initiative
• Extended napping in seniors may signal dementia | UCSF

Related Episodes

• Respect your Biological Clock | Erin Gibson
• Why sleep keeps us young | Luis de Lecea
• Why new Alzheimer's drugs don't work | Mike Greicius

Get in touch
We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu if you'd be willing to help out with some listener research, and we'll be in touch with some follow-up questions.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker and research assistance by G Kumar. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Ts

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.