From Our Neurons to Yours

Latest Episodes:

Building a bionic eye | EJ Chichilnisky Mar 09, 2023

Show notes

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

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.

Respect your Biological Clock | Erin Gibson Mar 02, 2023

Show notes

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

References

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!

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.

Is Addiction a Disease? | Keith Humphreys Feb 23, 2023

Show notes

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!

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.

Your gut - the second brain? | Julia Kaltschmidt Feb 16, 2023

Show notes

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!

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 Octopus Brain | Ernie Hwaun & Matt McCoy Feb 09, 2023

Show notes

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!

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 Mystery of Migraines | Gabriella Muwanga Feb 02, 2023

Show notes

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!

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 and Empathy | Rob Malenka Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

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 Nicholas Weiler. Cover art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

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! Jan 10, 2023

Show notes

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!

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.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected