Neuroscience pioneer, Dr. Brenda Milner gave a memorable lecture on the history of memory research yesterday afternoon at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Before her talk she was greeted by old colleagues, including Nobel Laureate, Dr. Eric Kandel. (I was able to talk with Dr. Kandel briefly and he has agreed to come on the Brain Science Podcast in 2009!) After her talk Dr. Milner was swamped by young admirers who were eager to have their pictures taken with this amazing pioneer.

Dr. Milner’s talk included a discussion of her work with the famous patient HM, but she was very meticulous about crediting the work of others including Dr. Sue Corkin of MIT, who was also in the audience. Readers who missed the lecture can get a feel for the story Dr. Milner shared by listening to her recent interviews on Futures in Biotech and the Brain Science Podcast.

Since I recently interviewed Dr. Milner for Episode 49 of the Brain Science Podcast, I was grateful to have the chance to meet her in person and to give her a Brain Science Podcast t-shirt.

Listen to Dr. Milner on the Brain Science Podcast

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Mary Petrosko from Dominican University was one of several students honored last night at a reception for winners of the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) Travel Awards, held as a part of this year’s Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, which is being held through tomorrow in Washington, DC. Mary was one of several students who received travel awards from the Grass Foundation.

The event included a poster session where undergraduate neuroscience students presented their research. Mary Petrosko’s research involved exposing Aplysia to gingko and measuring its effects on learning.  (Apylsia has been a key experimental animal for unraveling learning at a fundamental level.) Petosko’s work showed that gingko had no measurable effect on Aplysia learning. While this does not prove that it is also ineffective in humans, it does support the findings of other researchers who have found no effect in normal human learning. Also, it raises the question of what the mechanism of gingko’s action would be, since we know that the fundamental elements of learning, such as LTP (long term potentiation), are shared across species.

Mary told me that when she first started to work in her lab she listened to the Brain Science Podcast to “get up to speed.” I want to congratulate Mary on her award and also thank all the students who have written to me in the last 2 years. Your feedback helps keep me going.

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30,000 scientists are attending the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Washington DC. To a neophyte attendee (like me) there seem to be at least that many lectures and posters to choose from. Yesterday I focused on attending several press events and I also enjoyed a featured lecture by Dr. Michael Bate, from Cambridge University (UK).

At the press events several themes emerged. As I mentioned in a previous post the leadership of the Society for Neuroscience is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of public awareness of neuroscience. Yesterday they announced Neuroscience Core Concepts, which they described as a “practical resource” about how the brain works. Click here to learn more.

Besides emphasizing the importance of public education, during the press briefing with various leaders from NIH, the importance of basic research was highlighted. A recent politician’s attack on fruit fly research has made scientists painfully aware that even people in leadership positions remain dangerously unaware that seemingly esoteric research can lead to important advances. The fruit’s fly’s essential role in genetic research is taken for granted by most scientists, but it is also important in neuroscience research that is not explicitly genetic in nature.

Later today I will try to post a brief description of Michael Bate’s lecture. It is a perfect example of this principle since it involves using fruit fly larvae to study motor development. Even thought the fruit fly lacks a true brain it has a surprisingly complex nervous system.

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At Saturday’s Brain Awareness Campaign Event at Neuroscience 2008, Tom Carew, President-Elect of the Society for Neuroscience described his commitment to public outreach. The emphasis of the Brain Awareness Week campaign is on K-12 educational outreach. Dr. Carew and the other speakers noted that today’s youngsters are tomorrow’s neuroscientists. Also, public education is essential to on-going support of science research. It is also becoming increasingly important in helping citizens make decisions about their own health.

Barbara Gill from the Dana Alliance announced that they will be updating their website for the 2009 campaign, and Dr. Carew outlined his plans to increase collaboration among scientists and educators.

Since the Society for Neuroscience is the most important international organization of neuroscientists, I think it is very important that they are becoming more active in public outreach. As the public becomes more aware of neuroscience there is an important need for accurate sources of information.

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I am in Washington, DC to cover Neuroscience 2008, the anual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. But yesterday, thanks to Katheen Burke, PhD of USC, I also had opportunity to visit a poster session at the International Society of Developmental Psychobiology (ISDP), which is celebrating it 40th year. The focus of the ISDP is on the relationship between brain developmental and behavior. This is an area of research that has many practical applications.

For example, it is well-know that excessive alchohol consumption in pregnancy can cause the devastating condition known as fetal alchohol syndrome. Researchers are trying to uncover the mechanisms of this damage. They are also trying to determine whether there are any countermeasures, such as iron-supplementation, that really help prevent the damage.

The research topics are quite diverse. They range from questions about how babbling relatates to language devolopment to questions about adolescent brain.

Dr. Jack  Turman, PhD arranged for me to talk to numerous researchers and I hope to have some of them on a future episode of the Brain Science Podcast. You can learn more about ISDP at http://www.isdp.org/.

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Brain Science Podcast #49 is an interview with pioneering neuroscientist, Brenda Milner, PhD. Dr. Milner is known for her contributions to understanding memory and her work with split-brain patients. Her work as an experimental psychologist has been fundamental to the emergence of the field of cognitive neuroscience.

This interview is a follow-up of Dr. Milner’s recent interview with Dr. Marc Pelletier on Futures in Biotech. I highly recommend listening to both interviews.

Listen to Episode 49 of the Brain Science Podcast

Listen to Dr. Milner on Futures in Biotech (Episode33)

Additional Links:

• Brenda Milner, PhD: Montreal Neurological Institute (Read her MNI biography)
• Wilder Penfield, MD: neurosurgeon and found of the Montreal Neurological Institute
• Roger Sperry, PhD: received the Nobel Prize for his work with split-brain patients

Announcements:

• New options for contributing to the Brain Science Podcast
• Dr. Campbell will be attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, DC, November 14-19. Scientists wishing to share their work can contact her at docartemis at gmail.com
• Please help build the new Neuroscience News Network at SocialMedian.com.

Listen to Episode 49 of the Brain Science Podcast

Fill out survey before August 31, 2008 to be eligible to win an iPod Touch!

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Subscribe to Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell by Email

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Gary Lynch

Episode 48 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Gary Lynch, PhD, co-author (with Richard Granger) of Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence. Dr. Lynch has spent decades studying memory at the level of the synapse. His work with computer simulations based on how the brain really works led him to a fascination with the question of how our brains got so large. Are humans smart because we have big brains or because are brains are different? Dr. Lynch argues that the unique features of the human brain are a natural result of increased brain size. He also argues against the conventional view that increasing brain size resulted from selection pressures during the millions of years of primate evolution that proceeded the emergence of homo sapiens. We talk about the evidence supporting this radical position during the interview.

We also talk about another radical theory that Dr. Lynch has proposed, which is the idea that the olfactory cortex formed the template for the evolution of the cortex in mammals and primates. This intriguing theory brings a new perspective to the fact that the olfactory system has unique access to important brain systems including the frontal lobes, the amygdala (which is involve in emotion), and the hippocampus (which is essential to long-term memory.

In addition to discussing the evidence that led him to his controversial theories, Dr. Lynch discusses the challenges facing scientists interested in pursuing research questions about brain evolution.

Listen to Episode 48 of the Brain Science Podcast

Download Episode Transcript as PDF

References and Links:

Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence by Gary Lynch and Richard Granger

Gary Lynch, PhD: Department of Psychiatry, University of California-Irvine

Principles of Brain Evolution by Georg F. Striedter: was discussed in Episode 47.

The figure below is used with the permission of the author and the artist (Cheryl Cotman).

Listen to Episode 48 of the Brain Science Podcast

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Fill out survey before August 31, 2008 to be eligible to win an iPod Touch!

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Episode 47 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of Principles of Brain Evolution by Georg F. Striedter. My goal is to highlight the main ideas of this complicated, and often controversial subject. Understanding the principles of brain evolution is an important element in our multidisciplinary attempt to understand how our brains make us who we are.

Listen to Episode 47 of the Brain Science Podcast

Download Episode Transcript

Show Notes and Links:

Important terms:

• homologues: characteristics with shared ancestry
• neurocladistics: a rigorous method for classifying neural structures based on their ancestry
• small-world network: a mathematical graph where most nodes connect to nearby nodes but almost any two can be connect in relatively small number of steps (the famous six-degrees of separation)
• Boskop man: an extinct hominid that is thought to have had a larger brain than modern humans

People and Scientists Discussed:

• Carl Sagan: author of The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
• Richard Owen: contemporary of Darwin who introduced the term homologue
• Ludwig Edinger: the founder of modern neuroanatomy, he thought that the forebrain of vertebrates had evolved by the addition of novel structures
• Paul D. Maclean: the Triune Brain Theory
• Willi Hennig: introduced cladistics in 1950
• Glen Northcutt: application of cladistics to neural connections (neurocladistics)
• Johnston, J. B. 1923. “Further Contributions of the sudy of the evolution of the forebrain.” Journal of Comparative Neurology 36: 143-192. He challenged the idea that brains evolve by the successive adition of novel parts.
• Michael Arbib: Mirror Neuron Hypothesis of Language Evolution (Interviewed in Episode 39)

Announcements:

• Episode 48 will be a follow-up interview with Dr. Gary Lynch, co-author of Big Brain: The Origins and Future of Human Intelligence.
• Please help get the word out about our video contest. The deadline for entering is December 15, 2008
• Check out Episode 22 of Books and Ideas to hear more about my adventures at this year’s Dragon*Con. Click to find links to audio and video from Dragon*Con 2008.

Listen to Episode 47 of the Brain Science Podcast

Download Episode Transcript

Fill out survey before August 31, 2008 to be eligible to win an iPod Touch!

Subscribe via iTunes™

Subscribe in a reader or podcatcher

Subscribe to Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell by Email

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Send email feedback to Ginger Campbell, MD at docartemis at gmail.com

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Recently Natasha Mitchell did an excellent two-part All in the Mind podcast about brain plasticity. In part 1 she interviewed Jeffrey Schwartz, MD and Norman Doidge, MD. Dr. Schwartz is the author of The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force and Dr. Doidge wrote the recent bestseller The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science.

In part 2 Mitchell interviews Dr. Doidge further. One of the topics they explore is the “dark side” of plasticity. Since neuroplasticity is a dynamic, competitive process it is actually a factor in how we form our habits, both good and bad. This interview is an excellent follow-up to the interview Dr. Doidge did for the Brain Science Podcast back in Episode 26.

You can listen to the podcasts and get transcripts at the All in the Mind website.

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I am mystified by the polls that show how popular Sarah Palin with women voters, but today I got an email from a fan of the Brain Science Podcast who pointed me to a piece by Sam Harris that may shed some light on the phenomena. Harris is a neuroscientist and he observes that when people listen to politicians like Palin what they say may bypass the frontal lobes (where logical thinking occurs) and go straight to the limbic (emotional) brain.

Harris started with this chilling observation:

Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin’s performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin’s speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones “God and country.” If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could. (Click here to read more.)

However, what is probably even more disturbing is that modern neuroscience also suggests that once people choose a candidate (even if the choice is emotional) they seldom change their minds, even when confronted with negative facts about the candidate. Does that mean that women don’t care about global warming or the fact that Palin is less competent to be president than I am? (At least I have a passport and have actually visited Europe!)

Robert Burton,MD who was interviewed in Episode 43 of the Brain Science Podcast has excellent blog post in Salon reviewing the neuroscience of voter behavior: http://www.salon.com/env/mind_reader/2008/09/22/voter_choice/index.html.

There are at least two excellent books available on this topic:

• The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen
• The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain by George Lakoff

One point that Lakoff makes that I think resonates with Dr. Burton’s book On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not is that Democrats need to let go of the Enlightenment myth of the rational mind. People vote with their hearts (emotions and unconscious parts of the brain) not with their heads, which ironically can even lead them to vote against their own ideals.

As for me, when I think about Sarah Palin, my amygdala fills me with fear, disgust and dread!

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