This Week in Neuroscience

TWiN explains the science behind the 2026 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

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Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine 2026 (Nobel)
• Driving fast-spiking cells (Nature)
• Manipulating synthetic optogenetic odors (Science)
• Microbial rhodopsin in mammalian neurons (Nat Methods)
• Deisseroth lectures on optogenetics (iBiology)
• Cardiogenic control of affective behavioral state (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Jason Shepherd joins TWiN to discuss the work in his laboratory showing that Arc protein plays a role in intercellular transmission of tau protein, which becomes hyperphosphorylated and misfolded, a major histopathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

Guest: Melissa Cooper

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Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Arc and Tau intercellular transmission (Cell)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Melissa Cooper joins TWiN to discuss her discovery that astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic networks.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

Guest: Melissa Cooper

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Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Astrocytes form plastic networks (Nature)
• Newly found brain network (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN unpacks a striking paradox, that the very cell divisions that built the human brain's most advanced layers also put them at greatest risk, and how a dedicated DNA repair pathway saves them.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Expansion of outer cortical CUX2 neurons requires adaptations for DNA repair(Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the finding that vaginal microbiota transfer ameliorates cesarean-associated neurodevelopmental deficits in mice via synthesis of a sphingosine derivative on neonatal skin.

.Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Vaginal microbiota transfer ameliorates cesarean-associated neurodevelopmental deficits (Cell Host Microbe)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the finding that activation of intracellular, not plasma membrane, serotonin 2A receptors is responsible for the plasticity-promoting and antidepressant-like properties of psychedelic compounds.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

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Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Psychedelics rewire the brain from within (Science)
• Psychedelics elicit their effects by Gi signaling (Nature)
• History of LSD (Wikipedia)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains the role of a ubiquitin ligase component in regulating the sheathing of multiple axons by Schwann cells.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

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Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Gut microbiome promotes pain in fibromyalgia (Neuron)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains a study which showed that transplanting gut microbiota from women with fibromyalgia into mice induces pain, as well as phenotypes commonly observed in patients, such as immune activation, metabolomic changes, and reduced skin innervation.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Gut microbiome promotes pain in fibromyalgia (Neuron)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explores the use of speech brain-computer interfaces to restore communication to people with paralysis, and reveals strategies for protecting private inner speech.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Keeping private inner speech from brain-computer interfaces (Cell)
• Mind-reading brain implant with password protection (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explores how theta phase shifts mediate contextual perception of facial expressions during everyday social interactions.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Neural computations underlying contextual processing in humans (Cell Rep)
• Previous experience shapes perception (Front Human Neurosci)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN reviews the underlying neurobiological mechanisms of overeating and obesity, the role of the hypothalamus and reward systems in controlling food intake and energy balance, and how dysregulation in these systems leads to overeating.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Neurobiology of overeating (Neuron)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains epidemiological data showing that exposure to air pollution was associated with an increased risk of developing Lewy body dementia, and nasal administration of air pollution in mice led to brain atrophy and impaired cognition and motor function.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Links between air pollution and dementias (Science)
• Letter from Susan Schneider Williams Widow of Robin Williams (Lewy Body Dementia UK)
• Awakenings (Wikipedia)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains how visual neurons show functional flexibility by selectively responding to subsets of inputs representing attended objects while ignoring those conveying information about irrelevant objects.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Gamma-band synchronization in visual cortex (Nat Comm)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN discusses research showing that Lactobacillus acidophilus promotes cognitive function recovery after cerebral ischemia, by regulating microglial peroxisomal function.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Arc is pdb molecule of the month (PDB)
• Probiotics after stroke (Cell Host Microbe)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains research which identifies the regions of the brain that register a long-lasting aversion to potentially poisonous food even with meal to illness delays of several days.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• A neural mechanism for post-ingestion feedback (Nature)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN reveals that proteins travel from the blood to the brain where they are taken up by microglia, revealing a new mode of communication between the brain and the periphery.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Tim Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Circulatory proteins taken up by brain microglia (bioRxiv)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN discusses experiments which show that high-fidelity memories that lose their precision with time depends on reorganization of hippocampal circuitry.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Jason Shepherd, and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Loss of precision memory and the hippocampus (Nature)
• Changes in hippocampi of cab drivers (PNAS)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

Tim explains AI co-scientist, a tool released by Google, which it hopes to help scientists generate hypotheses and research proposals, and to accelerate the speed of scientific and biomedical discoveries.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Tim Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• AI cracks superbug problem (BBC)
• Accelerating scientific breakthroughs (Google Research)
• Towards an AI co-scientist (arXiv)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN explains a study showing that when a mouse is confronted with an unconscious conspecific, it engages in behavior including tongue-dragging to resuscitate the animal via a tongue-brain connection.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Tim Cheung, and Vivianne Morrison

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Tongue-dragging in mice (Sci Adv)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

TWiN discusses a study showing that repetitive injury reactivates HSV-1 in a human brain tissue model and induces phenotypes associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

Links for this episode

• MicrobeTV Discord Server
• Repetitive injury, herpes, and Alzheimers (Sci Signal)
• The tau of herpesvirus (TWiV 1187)
• Fishing for viruses in senile (TWiV 519)
• Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

Music is by Ronald Jenkees

Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv