Brain Ponderings podcast with Dr. Mark Mattson

Bacteria in the gut play essential roles in the metabolism of dietary nutrients. But a recent   explosion of research has revealed influences of microbes in the gut on brain function in health and in anxiety disorders, depression, and possibly Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. Professor John Cryan at University College in Cork Ireland is at the forefront of this research. In this episode I tal...

David Nutt has made major contributions to understanding mechanisms by which psychoactive drugs affect the brain and has conducted numerous clinical trials of a wide range of drugs in patients with various mental disorders.   He has also been an outspoken critic of the disconnect between drug science and government drug policies. For example, alcohol is legal, widely available, and causes tremendo...

Some elderly individuals remain cognitively 'sharp as a tack' despite the accumulation of large amounts of amyloid in their brains, whereas others exhibit profound cognitive impairment with less amyloid pathology.   In this episode Columbia University Professor Yaakov Stern talks about the concepts of 'cognitive reserve' and 'brain maintenance' and how he and others have elucidated factors that ex...

What are the foundational principles by which acquired information is organized and processed in the human brain?   In this episode University of Rome Professor Anna Borghi talks about several prominent working theories of cognition including embodied cognition (interactions with objects and other people), inner speech, and abstract concepts. She talks about how language is a prominent feature of...

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are a major cause of long-term disability and burden on families and health care systems.   University of Cambridge Professor David Menon is a leader in global efforts to better understand and treat TBI.   In this episode Dr. Menon talks about what happens to neurons, glial cells, and blood vessels in the brain after a TBI.   He explains risk factors for TBI, how pat...

Mitochondria are best known as the powerplants within cells. But recent research is revealing that mitochondria play fundamental roles in regulating the structure and function of neuronal networks and the behaviors that those networks control. Martin Picard directs the Mitochondrial Psychobiology Group at Columbia University. In this episode I talk with Dr. Picard about: the biogenesis and movemen...

Approximately 20 percent of people in the USA will experience clinical depression during their lifetime and there has been a recent surge in depression and suicide among teenagers and young adults. The early life environment plays a major role in one's vulnerability to depression with childhood maltreatment greatly increasing the risk. Recent research suggests that use of social media is a risk fa...

Historically, microglia were viewed only as the brain's immune cells that respond to brain injury or infections. While this is true, recent research has shown that microglia play important roles in responding to and regulating neuronal network activity, and adaptations of the brain to physiological challenges such as exercise and intellectual challenges.   Microglia are increasingly recognized for...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive technology that enables stimulation (or inhibition) of specified neuronal networks in the brain.   In this episode Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, talks about the principle and practice of TMS and its use for the treatment of a range of brain disorders including depression, stroke, and cognitive imp...

In 1997 Makoto Kuro-o and his colleagues reported that they had accidentally discovered a gene that encodes a protein that slows aging and extends the lifespan of mice. They named the protein 'Klotho' after the Greek goddess that 'spins the thread of life'. During the past decade University of California San Francisco professor Dena Dubal has shown that Klotho can enhance learning and memory and p...

The brains of males and females are different and it is important to understand how these differences give rise to different behavioral traits of men an women. These sex differences arise during brain development, manifest throughout life and are controlled in part by estrogen and testosterone.   The brains of females and males, and their differential vulnerability to mental and other neurological...

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that causes often dramatic shifts in a person's energy and activity levels, and concentration. It affects approximately 1 in every 50 people worldwide and 6 million Americans. Many people with bipolar disorder exhibit remarkable creativity and productivity. This relationship between creativity and mania was noted by the Greek philosopher Aristotle who wrote: "n...

Ataxia Telangiectasia (AT) is a rare inherited disorder in which young children develop severe ataxia (inability to control body movements) as a result of degenration of 'Purkinje neurons' in the cerebellum. AT children are highly prone to cancers and usually die before the age of 20.   In this episode Professor Tanya Paull talks about research that has revealed a remarkably broad array of functio...

In this episode I talk with Dr. Bondy Lee, a psychiatrist who has devoted her life to advancing an understanding the causes of violence and developing ways to reduce violence. As a psychiatrist she is particularly interested in the behavioral features of people who are a danger to society, particularly those with psychopathic traits and behaviors such as lack of empathy and remorse, egocentricity,...

In this episode I talk with Stanford Professor and Nobel laureate Thomas Sudhof about his work that has advanced an understanding of the molecular machinery for neurotransmitter release, a remarkable process that is compex, occurs rapidly (milliseconds) and is highly localized (1 micrometer or less). We then talk about the even more difficult problem of the molecular mechanisms that control the fo...

Regular exercise improves mood, reduces anxiety, enhances cognition, and protects the brain against depression, Alzheimer's disease and stroke. In this episode Harvard neuroscientist Christiane Wrann and I talk about recent research that has elucidated how exercise affects the structure, functionality, and resilience of the brain. The mechanisms involve brain intrinsic responses to exercise as wel...

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is the most common form of dementia for people under the age of 65. As its name implies FTD involves degeneration of neurons in the frontal and parietal lobes and depending upon which neurons degenerate symptoms may mainly involve changes in personality and social behavior, speech and language (aphasia), or difficulty with body movements. UCSF neurologist Bill Seeley...

Age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and genetic disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa are major causes of blindness. In this episode Professor Russ van Gelder at the University of Washington talks about exciting advances in vision restoration using retinal cell replacement, gene therapy, visual prosthetic devices, and small molecule 'photoswitches'. Several of these...

The molecular and cellular mechanisms by which the human brain develops cannot be directly studied. Stanford professor Sergiu Pasca is at the forefront of using induced human pluripotent stem cells to establish 3D cultures of individual brain regions (organoids) and multiple interacting brain regions (assembloids). His work has shown that functional neuronal connections can be established and the...

Stroke is the leading neurological cause of disability and death throughout the world and is increasing on the African continent where rates of hypertension are high and Westernized dietary habits are on the rise. At the forefront of the global battle against stroke and other age-related neurological disorders is Mayowa Owolabi, Dean of the Faculty of Clinical Sciences and Director of the Center f...

Because neurons are very active cells they consume high amounts of oxygen and produce high amounts of oxygen free radicals (oxyradicals). Because most neurons in the brain exist throughout life and cannot be replaced it is critical that they be able to efficiently remove oxyradicals and repair damage caused to DNA, proteins and membranes caused by oxyradicals. During normal aging and moreso in Alz...

There is currently no effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease. EEG recordings have shown that gamma frequency electrical oscillations are diminished and aberrant excitatory glutamatergic neurotransmission is increased in the brain's of people with Alzheimer's disease.   In this episode MIT Professor Li-Huei Tsai talks about her discovery that gamma frequency (40 Hz) light and sound stimulation...

DNA damage, most often caused by oxygen free radicals, can result in mutations in proliferative cells that transform them into cancer cells. Impaired DNA repair is implicated in aging and neurodegenerative disorders.   In this episode Professor Will Bohr talks about his research on the molecular mechanisms by which cells repair their nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, the involvement of impaired DNA r...

The ends of chromosomes are called telomeres. In dividing cells a reverse transcriptase called telomerase adds a six-base DNA repeat to the telomeres thereby preventing their shortening. Telomere shortening occurs in proliferative tissues during aging and has been associated with a range of diseases. This led to the dogma that the only function of telomerase is to lengthen telomeres. In this episo...

NYU professor Gyorgy Buzsaki has made seminal contributions to understanding how neuronal networks in the brain encode and processes information. He established the synaptic basis of the brain's theta and gamma rhythms, and sharp waves. Based upon extensive amounts of data generated from multielectrode recordings he developed a two-stage model of memory trace consolidation which shows how informat...