WaterCooler Neuroscience

Latest Episodes:

Think Fast S2, EP20 – How neuroscientists made deep fakes with Dr Michiel Spape May 19, 2021

Show notes

In this episode, I am interviewing Dr Michael Spape on how his work into making AI that could recognise faces because of the different ways humans process faces lead to deep fakes. Michael walks us through how using EEG caps to process the brain's signals when seeing different types of faces generated data that humans cannot understand, but AI can. He tells us how he built and trained these intelligent programs to understand the neural signals behind faces and then what could be done with these completed but limited AI to start making new faces that haven't existed anywhere else. You will have undoubtedly heard about deep fakes, this episode shows you the labs and research that inspired them.

BTAB S1, EP3 – Can memory control pain May 16, 2021

Show notes

Brains Talking About Brains is approaching the topic of pain this week. Jordana and Wilf are looking at a paper where controlled and manageable pain, a small shock to the leg, is controlled not through medication or meditation but instead a simple memory task. How much can we understand the brain's ability to control pain? In this episode, we also look at how it is not just the brain that can have its pain signals altered by doing a memory task but even the spinal cord.

Think Fast S2, EP19 – Why do smells create such powerful memories with Dr Christina Zelano May 12, 2021

Show notes

Smells generate some of the most powerful memory experiences but we don't know why. This episode explores not only why smells do generate such powerful memories but why are they more powerful than other senses? To understand that we need to not only be able to measure the memory centres of our brain but be able to find a way to compare senses which are in many ways incomparable.

BTAB S1, EP2 – New neurons are running the show May 09, 2021

Show notes

In the second episode of the new Brains Talking About Brains Jordana and Wilf are talking about the topic of how new cells that were grown in an adult (rat) brain were actually the cells that control the rest of the memory centres in the brain. Traditional thinking would say that new neurons are controlled and 'educated' by older neurons so these new neurons fit in with how the brain has worked in the past but this episode talks about how we can see very small populations of newly grown neurons running huge areas of the memory centres of the brain involving millions of neurons. At the end of the show, we also discuss what this means for human research since most human imaging techniques are not capable of studying such small groups of neurons in a lab.

Think Fast S2, EP18 – How to build a brain with Dr Robert Carrillo May 05, 2021

Show notes

Think Fast is a show entirely focused on the brain but it is just taken for granted that brains will grow and form into conscious fully aware people. But how does that happen? This episode brings you Dr. Robert Carrillo and his work in flies to better understand how neurons in the very earliest stages of development learn to link up with each other and why it doesn't really matter what neurons they link up so long as they are of the right class of cell.

BTAB S1, EP1 – Can rats daydream? Apr 30, 2021

Show notes

Introducing Brains Talking About Brains, a series where WaterCooler Neuroscience host Wilf Nelson and psychologist and practitioner Jordana Adler meet you at their virtual conference to talk about psychology old and new to show you what a psychologist sees. The first episode of this new series is talking about rats and if they have a network formally called the Default Mode Network. In humans this network can do introspection, reflection, daydreaming and many of the most complex and deep tasks which many consider 'the most human'. This network however has also been proposed in rats. What does that mean though? Are rats daydreaming and philosophizing or do we need a psychologist perspective to see how the same kind of network may do very different things in human vs rat brains? Tune in to find out and see what a psychologist sees.

Think Fast S2, EP17 – Psychopaths want to live forever with Dr Michael Laakasuo Apr 28, 2021

Show notes

Psychopaths are one of the most dangerous personality disorders that occur in humans and they are famous across the world for both real-life and fictional stories about the dangers of psychopaths. On top of that Machiavellian personality disorder is not quite psychopathy but is a disorder where people will use and hurt others for their own goals. These kind of personality disorders are obviously disorders that we would want to keep away from science-fiction-like technologies of mind uploading and immortality in a virtual world but Michael's work has found out that they are actually the kind of people most interested in getting to live forever in a machine. In this episode, we look at what Psychology can tell us about future technology and where it provides important warnings.

Think Fast S2, EP16 – How to study capillaries smaller than a millimetre in the brain with Andy Shih Apr 21, 2021

Show notes

Like many neuroscientists, my experience with the brain is centred mostly around blood, how blood feeds the neurons. fMRI, while an amazing tool, works to understand changing blood flow which we argue is affected by neurons but our understanding of how blood flow works in the brain is imperfect. To better understand the blood, and then the neurons, we need to study the architecture by which the brain is supplied with new blood. You will have seen photos of the brain's arteries at some point in your life but today we are talking about capillaries that are smaller than a millimetre and neurons are never more than a few microns away from a capillary. The trickest with studying something that small is normal microscopes don't cut it, and the usual techniques of electron microscopy involve killing the animal we study. Today's episode is about 2-photon microscopy, a relatively new technique that doesn't require the animal to die and instead lets us study calm, usually peacefully sleeping rodents to understand how their neurons are supplied with blood at the smallest levels.

Think Fast Academia and Industry, EP5 – Introducing Jordana Adler Apr 18, 2021

Show notes

Jordana Adler is a psychologist and has worked in neurofeedback clinics. In this episode, she brings her expertise to our academia and industry series to discuss what it is like working with neuroscience in the field. Jordana also discusses her choice to not go into academic psychology based on the advice of her parents who are both professors. We are going to talk about her training, the ways she has used neuroscience in her profession and what she is doing now. Look out for more from Jordana in the new series Brains Talking About Brains coming to the WaterCooler Neuroscience network in May.

Think Fast S2, EP15 – The effects of long-term anaesthesia on cognition with Michael Wenzel Apr 14, 2021

Show notes

For most people the concept of anaesthetic is routine, it is just something that doctors give to people undergoing a medical procedure and everything will be normal again in a few hours. For some people though the injuries they sustain are so life-threatening that the body cannot experience any stress during recovery and a medically induced coma is needed to keep the patient safe. This is common practice in intensive care units all around the world and saves the lives of those who otherwise would not be able to cope with almost any stimulus or activity. This episode is talking about what happens to the brain during that time. How does the brain handle being in an environment where nothing is happening, no TV shows to watch, no streets to walk down or friends to talk to? Our brain craves experience so what can we learn about the brain's response to extended periods of no experience?

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