Mind & Matter

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Ev Fedorenko is a neuroscientist at MIT. Her lab studies the neural basis of language, speech, and thought in the human brain. *Full episode available free on Substack & YouTube . Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Fedorenko discuss: the relationship between language and thought; the extent to which language is for thinking vs. communication; Noam Chomsky’s Univers...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Nir Lipsman, MD, PhD is a neurosurgeon and neuroscientist at the University of Toronto. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Lipsman discuss: neurosurgery; the blood-brain barrier and how it works; using focused ultrasound technology to non-invasively treat patients; regulatory impediments to clinical research; costs, constraints, and future applications of ultrasound te...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Marcelo Dietrich, MD, PhD is an associate professor in Comparative Medicine & Neuroscience at Yale University, where his lab studies the neural basis of behavior in mammals. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Dietrich discuss: maternal care behavior, mother-infant bonding, and feeding in infant mammals; neural circuits regulating hunger & satiety; brain develop...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Maxime Aubert, PhD is a geochemist & archeologist at Griffiths University in Australia. He specializes in the application of advanced analytical techniques to date the age of ancient rock art and hominin fossils. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Aubert discuss: the oldest known cave art and what it depicts; human evolution & interbreeding with different human...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Nick Jikomes, PhD is the creator and host of the podcast. You can read more about him here . Episode summary: Nick answers questions from listeners on topics such as: his scientific background & interests; staying up-to-date on research & selecting guests; thoughts on psychedelic science & drug use; questions related to diet, metabolic health & fat...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: June Round, PhD is a microbiologist whose lab at the University of Utah studies microbiome-host interactions, gut microbiota, immunity, metabolism, obesity, and other disorders. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Round discuss: how the immune system and gut microbiome interact; dietary fiber & short-chain fatty acid production by gut microbes; nutrient absorption;...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Gregory Scherrer, PharmD, PhD is a neuroscientist whose lab at the University of North Carolina studies the neural basis of pain, including its sensory, emotional, and cognitive components.  Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Scherrer discuss: the neural basis of pain sensation & pain perception; opioids & the opioid system; cognitive modulation of painful expe...

Send us Fan Mail Episode summary: Nick and Steven discuss ancestral vs. modern foods; seed oils & polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs); inflammation, allergies, and immunity; PUFAs, free radicals, and oxidative stress; the corrupting influence of private industry on food science; the history of seed oils; animal vs. plant fats; Steven’s food startup; and more.  About the guest: Steven Rofrano b...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Gary Taubes is a researcher, science historian, and science journalist. He has written several books, including “Rethinking Diabetes.” Episode summary: Nick and Gary Taubes discuss: the field of nutrition epidemiology and why it’s filled with so much junk science; social factors influencing scientific research; the history of obesity & diabetes research; the e...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Austin Argentieri, PhD is a researcher in the Analytic & Translational Genetics Unit at the Massachusetts General Hospital with academic appointments at Harvard & the Broad Institute. His research focuses on large-scale analyses to to understand human aging. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Argentieri discuss: chronological vs. biological age; DNA methylation...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Sean Hartig, PhD is an associate professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, where is lab studies adipose (fat) tissue, metabolic regulation, and obesity & energy balance disorders. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Hartig discuss: visceral vs. subcutaneous fat; white, brown, and beige adipose tissue; physiology of fat cells; obesity, insulin resistance, and lept...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Robin Carhart-Harris, PhD is a neuroscientist & psychopharmacologist. His lab at the University of California-San Francisco studies the effects of psychedelics and other drugs on the human brain, using neuroimaging and other approaches. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Carhart-Harris discuss: psychedelics & the human brain; functional connectivity & entro...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Caetano Reis e Sousa, DPhil is an immunologist and Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London. His lab studies immune system function, including its ability to fight infection and cancer. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Reis e Sousa discuss: dendritic cells & innate immunity; how the immune system recognizes pathogens, damaged cells, and can...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Robert Barton, PhD is an evolutionary anthropologist and Professor at Durham University. He studies the evolution of the brain and behavior across species, including humans. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Barton discuss: mammalian brain evolution; how brain and body size scale across mammals; how metabolism relates to brain size and function; the evolution of the n...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Melissa Herman, PhD is a neuroscientist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina. Her lab studies the effects of drugs on the brain and behavior in rodents. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Herman discuss: sex differences in the brain between males and females; behavioral variability among individuals; the effects of psychedelics like psilocybin on...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Giulia Santoni, PhD is a neuroscientist who obtained her PhD at the EPFL in Switzerland, where she studied epigenetic influences on memory formation. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Santoni discuss: transcription & gene regulation; synaptic plasticity; learning & associative memory; epigenetics, histones, DNA methylation, and mechanisms of gene regulation; c...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Luis de Lecea, PhD is a neurobiologist whose lab at Stanford University studies the neural basis of sleep & wakefulness in animals. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. de Lecea discuss: the neural basis of sleep; sleep architecture & sleep phases (NREM vs. REM sleep); orexin/hypocretin neurons & the lateral hypothalamus; cortisol & stress; circadian rhyt...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Iain Oswald, PhD is an organic chemist and Director of Research & Development at Abstrax Tech. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Oswald discuss: plant chemistry; marijuana strains and their aroma; the chemical basis of cannabis aroma; terpenes vs. non-terpene volatile organic compounds; and more. Related episodes: Marijuana, Plant Chemistry, Terpenes, Volatile Sul...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Rudyard Lynch is a history and anthropology scholar and host of the popular YouTube channel, whatifalthist. Episode summary: Nick and Rudyard discuss: history of agriculture, diet & food; population density, social structure, and social behavior; the rise and fall of civilizations; history and future of religion & spirituality; and more. Episodes in this p...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Michael Lynch, PhD is an evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University who studies the origins of genomic and cellular complexity. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Lynch discuss: natural selection vs. genetic drift; genetic mutations & the speed of evolution; origin of life; the evolution of cellular complexity; epigenetics & the inheritance of acquired...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Richard Bazinet, PhD is neurochemist and nutritional scientist at the University of Toronto. His lab studies brain lipid metabolism in health and disease. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Bazinet discuss: lipid metabolism in the liver and brain; dietary fatty acids (saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated); fatty acids in brain health & disease; endocannabino...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Tucker Goodrich is an independent researcher and self-described “seed oil zealot” who credits many of his own health improvements with minimizing his consumption of industrial seed oils. He runs a Substack page, and provides interesting commentary about scientific research on seed oils, metabolic health, and related topics. Episode summary: Nick and Tucker discuss...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Melissa Sharpe, PhD is a neuroscientist. Her lab at the University of Sydney studies reinforcement and reward learning in rodents. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Sharpe discuss: dopamine and its association with reward learning and motivation; reinforcement learning & the brain; the lateral hypothalamus and feeding behavior; and more. Related episodes: Drugs, A...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Boris Heifets, MD, PhD is an anesthesiologist and researcher at Stanford University. His lab studies non-ordinary states of consciousness and psychoactive drugs like MDMA, ketamine, and psychedelics. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Heifets discuss: anesthesia and how anesthetics work; placebo effects & expectations in clinical research; ketamine as an antidepres...

Send us Fan Mail About the guest: Robert Malenka, MD, PhD is psychiatrist & neuroscientist. He has spent most of his career at Stanford University, where his lab studies synaptic plasticity, mechanisms of drug action in the brain, and the neural basis of behavior. Episode summary: Nick and Dr. Malenka discuss: mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the brain, such as LTP & LTD; addiction &am...