BSP Summer Announcements

by Ginger Campbell, MD on June 23, 2010

Last month I announced that the next new episode of the Brain Science Podcast will be posted in the second week of September 2010. Today I am posting a brief update in the feed.

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Show notes:

Some Advice for new listeners: The summer break gives new listeners an excellent chance to listen to past episodes of the Brain Science Podcast, but now that there are 69 episodes available, a little guidance might be helpful. If you are new to neuroscience I suggest that you listen to episodes 1-27 in order. That will give you a solid foundation for enjoying more recent episodes. Naturally I hope you will listen to them all, but the order is not critical. There are a few exceptions, but I think these are clearly labeled.

This week’s podcast also includes a little about how the Brain Science Podcast has evolved since it started back in December 2006. At the end of the announcements I describe the features of updated Brain Science Podcast application for iPhone/iPod Touch.

Announcements:

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Exploring Glial Cells with R. Douglas Fields (BSP 69)

by Ginger Campbell, MD on May 12, 2010

Recent research has discovered that glial cells (the non-neuronal cells that make up about 85% of the cells in the human nervous system) actually do more than just support neurons. In Episode 69 of the Brain Science Podcast I explore some of these recent discoveries with pioneering researcher, R. Douglas Fields, PhD. Dr. Fields is the author of The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science. The Other Brain provides a compelling introduction to this exciting new field. It is aimed at general readers, but it should also be on the must-read list for all students of neuroscience.

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Episode Transcript (Download free PDF)

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References:

  • The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries about the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science by R. Douglas Fields (2010)
  • Glial Neurobiology: A Textbook by Alexei Verkhratsky and Arthur Butt (2007)
  • Bullock, T. H., Bennett, M. V., Johnston, D., Josephson, R., Marder, E., Fields, R. D. “Neuroscience. The neuron doctrine, redux.” Science 310. 5749 (2005): 791-3.
    Perspectives
  • Bullock, T. H. (2004) The Natural History of Neuroglia: an agenda for comparative studies. Neuron Glial Biology 1:97-100.
  • Fields, R. D. (2006) Beyond the Neuron Doctrine. Scientific American Mind June/July 17:20-27.

Links:

  • The Other Brain website
  • R. Douglas Fields: Chief and Senior Researcher of the Section on Nervous System Development and Plasticity at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which is part of NIH.
  • Dr. Ichiji Tasaki; worked at NIH for over 50 years and was a pioneering researcher of nerve conduction. (See the episode transcript for links to the other researchers that were mentioned in this episode.)

Related Episodes of the Brain Science Podcast:

Announcements:

  • The Brain Science Podcast application for iPhone/Touch now contains transcripts for all episodes. Your reviews are greatly appreciated.
  • The next new episode of the Brain Science Podcast will come out in September, 2010.
  • Be sure to check out my other podcast Books and Ideas.
  • For more science podcasts go to http://sciencepodcasters.org.
  • Stay informed by subscribing to the BSP Newsletter.
  • Correction: Barbara Strauch is the author of The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind. (note the correct spelling of STRAUCH)

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Alzheimer’s Disease with Dr. Peter Whitehouse (BSP 68)

by Ginger Campbell, MD on April 14, 2010

Brain Science Podcast 68 is an interview with Dr. Peter Whitehouse, co-author (with Daniel George) of The Myth of Alzheimer’s: What You Aren’t Being Told About Today’s Most Dreaded Diagnosis. Alzheimer’s Disease originally referred to a relatively rare form of premature dementia, but in recent decades the diagnosis has been expanded to include patients of all ages. This change is not based on science and in this interview we talk about why being labeled with with Alzheimer’s may be doing older patients more harm than good.

Dr. Whitehouse is one of the pioneering researchers in this field, but advocates devoting resources to helping elders with with a wide range of age-related brain changes. This interview should be of interest to physicians, scientists, as well as patients and their families. I will be posting a supplemental interview with Daniel George, the co-author of The Myth of Alzheimer’s later this month. (Learn more at http://booksandideas.com.)

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References:

Links:

Announcements:

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Thomas Metzinger explores Consciousness (BSP 67)

by Ginger Campbell, MD on March 9, 2010

The free podcast version of Brain Science Podcast 67 is now available. It is an interview with German philosopher Thomas Metzinger, author of The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self and Being No One. Dr. Metzinger argues that any credible model for how the brain generates the mind must incorporate unusual human experiences, such as so-called out of body experiences (OBE), and psychiatric conditions. In this interview we explore how OBE and virtual reality experiments shed light on how the brain generates the sense of self that characterizes normal human experience.

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Episode Transcript (Download PDF)

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Links:

Related Episodes of the Brain Science Podcast:

References:

Announcements:

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Premium version of interview with Thomas Metzinger

by Ginger Campbell, MD on March 1, 2010

The next episode of the Brain Science Podcast (BSP 67) is an interview with German philosopher Thomas Metzinger, author of The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. The free podcast version will be released  on March 10, but the premium version is available now.

Click here to learn more about premium podcasts.

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BSP now featured on Zune.net

by Ginger Campbell, MD on February 19, 2010

For those of you who listen on the Zune®, its now easier to find the Brain Science Podcast because we finally have our own page at Zune.net. I hope you will go to the page and post a review. Just follow the link below, scroll down, and you will see the post a link button on the bottom Right.

 

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Episode 66 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Randy Gallistel, PhD, Co-Director of the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science and co-author (with Adam Philip King) of Memory and the Computational Brain: Why Cognitive Science will Transform Neuroscience. We discuss why read/write memory is an essential element of computation with an emphasis on the animal experiments that support the claim that brains must possess read/write memory. This is significant because current models, such as neural nets, DO NOT incorporate read/write memory in their assumptions about how brains work. It is not necessary to have any background in information theory or computation to appreciate the experiments that are discussed in this episode. Episode 3 and Episode 12 of the Brain Science Podcast provide  background information for this episode.

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References and Links:

Announcements:

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“SuperSense”: Bruce Hood on Believing the Unbelievable

by Ginger Campbell, MD on January 29, 2010

Episode 34 of Books and Ideas is an interview with Bruce M Hood, author of SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable.Dr. Hood is a developmental psychologist with a long-standing interest in why people believe weird things. In SuperSense he argues that innate cognitive structures (how we think without being taught) give people a natural tendency toward belief in the supernatural. Our intuitive sense of how the world works is often at odds with the findings of modern science.

In this interview we discuss the evidence for these conclusions and their implications.

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Episode Transcript (Download PDF)

If you are subscribed to the Brain Science Podcast you should receive this as an extra episode.

Click here for detailed show notes and to learn more about Books and Ideas.

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Affective Neuroscience with Jaak Panksepp (BSP 65)

by Ginger Campbell, MD on January 13, 2010

Episode 65 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Jaak Panksepp, PhD, author of Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. Dr. Panksepp has done pioneering work on the neural origins of emotions. In this interview we discuss how his work challenges some of the common assumptions about emotions and some of the important implications of his discoveries. New listeners may want to go back and listen to Episode 11 for an introduction to the neuroscience of emotion.

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Episode Transcript (Download PDF)

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Click here for Premium Versions

References:

Scientists Mentioned in this Episode:

Announcements:

  • Reminder: sign-up for the BSP Newsletter to get show notes and other updates via email.
  • I am working on a CD version of this episode. It will be divided into multiple track to make it easier for you to find the parts you want to listen to again, and allow you to find your place if you are interrupted. It will also have most of the announcements and music removed.
  • Don’t forget to check out the BSP iPhone/Touch application.

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BSP Fans are enthusiastic about Newsletter

by Ginger Campbell, MD on December 16, 2009

I have been getting a great response to the BSP Newsletter, but those of you who receive blog posts via email don’t seem to be getting the sign-up form. If you want to sign up just Click Here to go the sign-up page or go to http://docartemis.com/brainsciencepodcast/newsletter/.

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