Podcast #8: How Neurons Communicate

by Ginger Campbell, MD on March 22, 2007

The new episode of the Brain Science Podcast has been posted.

Show notes will be up by tomorrow.

{ 2 comments }

José Luís Malaquias April 4, 2007 at 5:04 am: I just heard your podcast #8.
You mentioned several times that it might be too long and boring. Well, actually, I found it the most interesting podcast in the series yet, and I didn’t even find it long, such was the interest with which I listened to it.
A 15 minutes podcast is too long if the subject is dull, but a 30 minutes podcast is short if the subject is as interesting as the way neurons communicate.
My background is as a physicist and an engineer, but I have worked in biophysics, so I was familiar with a few concepts, but you really helped me organize my concepts and ideas.

I would love to hear something about mathematical models of the brain (namely graph theory), but I suspect they are a bit outside the scope you had in mind for the series.

In any case, I look forward to the next episode.
docartemis April 4, 2007 at 10:37 am: José,

Thank you so much for commenting about episode 8.

As far as the relationship of graph theory to mathematical models of the brain, I have to admit that I only recently learned what graph theory is. I am listening to “Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means,” by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi.

I can certainly see how it would be relevant to modeling the brain. Do you know of any books about mathematical modeling that are comprehensible to a non-mathmatician? (I too started in engineering but I haven’t really done any math in over 20 years!)

Have you had a chance to listen to my other podcast Books and Ideas? I would love to hear your opinion of #2, which is a discussion of Lee Smolin’s book The Trouble with Physics. In fact, if you wanted to record some comments and send them to me as an mp3 file, I could play them on a future show.

By the way, where are you writing from?

Thanks again for the feedback.