Brain Science with Ginger Campbell, MD: Neuroscience for Everyone

This is an interview with Stanislas Dehaene about his new book How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now .  According to neuroscientist Dehaene neuroscience has revealed that human babies are incredible "learning machines" whose abilities exceed those of the best current artificial intelligence. We explore why this is so and how this information could be used to help lea...

Brain Science 166 features the return of neuroscientist Stephen Macknik. We talk about his recent work that is focused on developing a new visual prosthesis based on recent discoveries and techniques like optogenetics. This episode is more technical than usual but Dr. Macknik makes the material accessible to all listeners. Links and References: http://macknik.neuralcorrelate.com YouTube video: htt...

This episode is an encore presentation of an interview with neuroscientists Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde. We talk about their international bestseller "Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions." Macknik and Martinez-Conde are neuroscientists who study vision, but several years ago they had the innovative idea of collaborating with magic...

I am including the transcript of this episode for free because it is an encore presentation of an interview that originally aired as BSP 72. It features Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde, authors of Sleights of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions .

Brain Science is entering its 14th year and for the first time since 2008 I will be producing two episodes a month. They will come out  on the 2nd and 4th Friday every month. This trailer provides a brief introduction to new listeners and a few announcements. The next full episode will be released on January 10, 2020.

This is our 13th annual review episode. I share a few highlights from episodes 153-163 and include a few extra reflections on the recent 4-part series about the neuroscience of Consciousness. This month's episode transcript is included for FREE. Partial list of Books/Authors featured in 2019: Understanding the Brain: From Cells to Behavior to Cognition by John E. Dowling ( BS 153 ) Better with Age...

This episode of Books and Ideas is an interview with  Susan Schneider , author of a fascinating new book called  Artificial You: AI and the Future of Your Mind . Schneider's book goes beyond the question of whether AI might become conscious to issues that might affect us on a more personal level.   I am cross posting this in the feed for Brain Science because there is an obvious overlap with the i...

Christof Koch returns to Brain Science for the 3rd time and in this episode he shares his new book The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed . He tells us why he doesn't think the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) are enough to explain subjective experience and he gives us a brief overview of the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness. L...

This episode is an interview with Dr. Michael Graziano, author of  Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory of Subjective Experience . We discuss how his Attention Schema Theory compliments several current theories and how it answers the question of how the brain generates subjective experience ("qualia").   Links and References: Please visit  http://brainsciencepodcast.com  for references an...

This is the Premium Episode Transcript for BS 161 with Joseph Ledoux, author of "The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains."   Please scroll down to find the audio.

Respected neuroscientist Dr. Joseph Ledoux's new book is  The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains . In this episode we discuss Dr. Ledoux's ideas about the relationship between emotion and consciousness. His conclusions are controversial, but thought provoking. Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com  for complete show notes with links and epis...

This month's episode is the beginning a four part series about the Neuroscience of Consciousness. This month I am discussing and comparing the ideas from several recent books on the subject in preparation for several upcoming interviews on the subject. Many people consider consciousness to be the biggest mystery of all, but in this episode we explore how progress has been made in unraveling the  u...

BS 159 is an interview with Dr. Kevin Mitchell, author of  Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are . We discuss the fact that our brain-based behavior is actually more innate than is commonly realized. Even identical twins are innately different despite having nearly identical genomes. This is because of events that occur during brain development. Listen now to learn more about what...

This month marks the return of popular Brain Science guest Dr. Patricia Churchland ( BS 55 and BS 81 ). We talk about her new book,  Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition . This book is a great combination of up to date neuroscience and critical thinking. It is recommended for listeners of all backgrounds. Please visit http://brainsciencepodcast.com for detailed show notes and episode transcr...

This episode of Brain Science features Dr. Donald MacKay, author of  Remembering: What 50 Years of Research with Famous Amnesia Patient H.M. Can Teach Us about Memory and How It Works . H.M. may have been the most studied patient in history, but Mackay's work uncovers some surprising discoveries about the role of the hippocampus in language, as well as important implications for the aging brain. P...

This month's episode of Brain Science is an interview with Stanford psychologist, Dr Russell A. Poldrack, author of  The New Mind Readers: What Neuroimaging Can and Cannot Reveal about Our Thoughts .  We discuss a brief history of the use of fMRI brain imaging with an emphasis on how to avoid the mistakes that plagued the field early on. Listeners will come away with an appreciation of both the pr...

BS 155 is an interview with neuroscientist Paul Middlebrooks , host of the Brain-Inspired podcast . We explore the main theme of his show, which is the intersection between neuroscience and artificial intelligence. For complete show notes and episode transcripts please go to http://brainsciencepodcast.com . Announcements: Send email to brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com or post voice feedback at  http:...

BS 154 is an interview with Dr. Alan Castel , author of  Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging . In the past we have discussed how our brain changes as we age, but it turns out successful aging requires more than "good genes." Our attitudes and our behaviors have a huge impact. More importantly, it is never too early to begin preparing for successful aging. For detailed show notes an...

Episode 153 of Brain Science is an interview with Harvard neuroscientist John Dowling. We talk about his latest book  Understanding the Brain: From Cells to Behavior to Cognition with a special focus on Vision. If you listen to this episode in the Free Brain Science mobile app you can also listen to BSP 4 , which featured one of Dowling's earlier books, The Great Brain Debate: Nature Or Nurture? ....

BS 152 is our 12th annual review episode.   In 2018 nine new books were featured and the subjects covered included memory, peri-personal cells, creativity, language, reading, the cerebral mystique, synapses, happiness, emotion and work of Eve Marder.  We had 4 new guests and 4 returning guests along with an encore interview with Dr. Eve Marder.   This episode includes highlights from all 11 episod...

BS 151 is a discussion of  The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis by Ralph Adolphs and David J. Anderson. We talk about key ideas from the book and relate them to several previous episodes about emotion including interviews with Jaak Panksepp , Lisa Feldman Barrett and Luis Pessoa . Details show notes and episode transcripts will be available in a few days. Please visit our sponsors: The Gre...

This the Premium- Ad Free version of BS 151, which is a discussion of  The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis by Ralph Adolphs and David J. Anderson. Please visit our sponsors: The Great Courses Plus Babbel promo code ginger The complete show notes and episode transcript will be ready after Thanksgiving. Please scroll up/down for other versions. Send feedback to brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com...

This Premium episode was recorded on Facebook Live on November 1, 2018. It includes a look back at BS 146 , which was an interview with Alan Jasanoff, author of  The Biological Mind: How Brain, Body, and Environment Collaborate to Make Us Who We Are . Our focus was on avoiding the "cerebral mystique," which includes the tendency to over emphasize neuroscience as a means of understanding the world....

BS 150 is my 4th interview with Dr. Seth Grant, the molecular biologist who has discovered surprising things about the evolution of the synapse, including the fact that vertebrates have much more complex synapses than invertebrates. In this interview we talk about his latest paper in Neuron in which his team has developed a method for mapping the synapses across the entire mouse brain. This is cal...

This is the Premium ad-free version of BS 150 with Seth Grant, the molecular biologist who has discovered surprising things about the evolution of the synapse, including the fact that vertebrates have much more complex synapses than invertebrates. In this interview we talk about his latest paper in Neuron in which his team has developed a method for mapping the synapses across the entire mouse bra...