Podcast

Audio research news

Life Sciences, Science

Your latest update from The Transmitter, an essential resource for the neuroscience community, dedicated to helping scientists at all career stages stay current and build connections. Read more: https://www.thetransmitter.org/

Episodes
304
Releases
Twice a week
Typical length
8 min
On air since
2022
Latest episode
1 week ago

Episodes

304 episodes, newest first

  1. Remembering Barbara Finlay, 'maverick' of evolutionary neuroscience

    Show notes

    Finlay, who died on 12 September, championed the idea that developmental constraints dictate how evolution sculpts brains, a concept she used to model the timing of hundreds of events and align them across mammalian species.

    9 min
  2. What to do when traditional mechanistic approaches no longer work

    Show notes

    Many complex behaviors have stubbornly resisted mechanistic explanations. Deciphering them will require new approaches-and perhaps a new concept of "understanding."

    9 min
  3. How new technologies can bring primatologists and systems neuroscientists together

    Show notes

    The two groups study the same behavioral phenomena yet rarely interact or read each other's work-a mutual blind spot that weakens both fields. New technologies offer a chance to bring them together.

    6 min
  4. Creating community through grant support

    Show notes

    Fiona Sanderson, a senior program manager at the Brain Canada Foundation, shares how she got into grant administration and how she helps connect researchers with funding and one another.

    7 min
  5. This paper changed my life: A first glimpse into the 'middle' of brain processing

    Show notes

    Work by Jeffrey Moran and Robert Desimone showed that monkeys could focus their attention on different stimuli in their visual field without shifting their gaze. Their work marked a key milestone in the emergence of cognitive neuroscience.

    3 min
  6. The neural code at 100

    Show notes

    In two 1926 articles, Edgar Douglas Adrian revealed that neurons communicate through trains of spikes.

    8 min
  7. What AI can learn from hunger

    Show notes

    To enhance AI safety, take a lesson from biological brains; a small set of wants maintains durable control over a much larger cognitive system.

    6 min
  8. How the pipa frog hunts prey by touch

    Show notes

    Each of the frog's eight fingers branches into 16 ultra-sensitive tips, which together function as a fovea-potentially the first demonstration of this type of sensory structure outside of mammals.

    6 min
  9. Revisiting the neural correlates of consciousness

    Show notes

    Life happens in real time, but experience may be composed in ragtime-like the music genre, full of offbeat notes and uneven rhythms. The assumption that waking life consists of a "stream" of conscious representations has inadvertently led consciousness science to its current impasse.

    8 min
  10. Grant review needs reform. How about we add an element of chance?

    Show notes

    A process that uses a lottery system saves time, reduces strategic resubmission and accepts that, above a quality threshold, luck has always played a part in science funding.

    6 min
  11. This paper changed my life: Transformative work in addiction neuroscience

    Show notes

    A 2011 Nature study found that loss of a nicotinic receptor subunit leads to increased nicotine intake in mice. The work set the standard for how to functionally validate genetic association study findings in neuroscience.

    7 min
  12. Building brain-computer interfaces at a neurotech company

    Show notes

    At Blackrock Neurotech, Spencer Kellis develops implantable devices that help people with brain and spinal cord conditions communicate, move and more.

    8 min
  13. Infant memories: Lost but not gone?

    Show notes

    Infantile amnesia is not simply a story about forgetting the past. It is an opportunity to understand how memory itself is built.

    7 min
  14. Neuromechanical models deepen our understanding of animal motor control

    Show notes

    Thanks to recent progress in physics-based simulators and robotics, it has never been easier for neuroscientists to use neuromechanical modeling to test hypotheses about animal movement.

    8 min
  15. Dimensionality-neuroscience's red herring?

    Show notes

    Placing too much emphasis on a specific interpretation of dimensionality, or treating it as an end-all quantification of some aspect of neural computation, may hinder progress in understanding the brain.

    9 min
  16. Inside the sea cucumber's regenerative superpowers

    Show notes

    José E. García-Arrarás studies how these marine invertebrates manage to regrow their nervous system, intestines and other internal organs in a matter of months after threats prompt them to literally spill their guts.

    5 min
  17. How FALAN is building a thriving neuroscience community in Latin America

    Show notes

    As the Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neuroscience Societies Congress kicks off next week, its president shares how the organization aims to foster collaborations and provide high-quality training for young neuroscientists in the region.

    8 min
  18. How, when and why to use agentic AI in our neuroscience labs

    Show notes

    With agentic AI's rapid infiltration into science, researchers need to develop AI use policies and practices.

    8 min
  19. Climate neuroscience needs 'integration' and 'guided' research

    Show notes

    Five years after a groundbreaking paper, can a young field move beyond piecemeal studies?

    9 min
  20. Brainstem neurons add new element to 'already complex' anxiety circuitry

    Show notes

    Precise optogenetic modulation of a medullary neuron population reveals their role in anxiety-like behaviors.

    5 min

More in Life Sciences

Placed highest on Apple Podcasts' Life Sciences chart right now

All Life Sciences podcasts