Neuroscientists Talk Shop

On April 30, 2026, we met with Dr. Courtney Rouse from the Southwest Research Institute. We discussed approaches to designing machine learning methods for neuroscience data analysis. Guest: Courtney Rouse, Senior Research Engineer, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio Participating: Erick Olivares, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio Host: Charle...

On April 23, 2026 I met with Drs. Vanesa Nieto Estévez and Parul Varma to talk about brain organoids made from cells derived from patients with genetic childhood epilepsy. Vanesa and Parul explained how these patient-derived tissue cultures are used to isolate the defects in brain development that underly the brain disorder, and to suggest and test potential treatments. Guests: Vanesa Nieto Estéve...

On April 16, 2026, we met with Dr. Robert Froemke of New York University to discuss his work on parenting and co-parenting in mice. We covered a wide range of topics including his video approach to discovery in behavioral experiments and the role of oxytocin in parental behavior. Guest: Robert Froemke, Professor, Department of Otolaryngology and Department of Neuroscience at at New York University...

On April 9, 2026 I spoke with Dr. Marcelo Marucho, on the electrical properties of actin filaments and microtubules, ubiquitous components of the cytoskeleton of nearly all cells. He explained how the surface charge of these proteins creates a thin charged layer in the adjacent cytoplasm in which electrical signals may be generated and conducted. In the case of microtubules, the interaction betwee...

On April 2, 2026 we met with Dr. Daniel Llano to discuss the organization of the largest subcortical auditory brain structure, the inferior colliculus. He told us about the three major subnuclei within the inferior colliculus, their synaptic connections with other auditory and somatosensory structures, and the problems encountered as we try to identify the cell types and local connectivity within...

On March 26, 2026, we held our annual UTSA Neuroscience Symposium entitled "From Place Cells to Cognition", featuring 5 speakers presenting original research on the cognitive functions of hippocampal place cells. They discussed the firing patterns of place cells during exploration of cognitive maps, anticipating future movements, recall of previously visited locations, and imagining the...

On March 19, 2026 we spoke with Dr. Se-Woong Park about the idea that many of the symptoms of Autism may arise from changes in brain mechanisms that allow us to predict events in the near future from those in the recent past. Topics included internal predictions of postural destabilization produced by our own movements, and prediction of the trajectories of moving objects. We discussed some experi...

On February 26, 2026 we were joined by Dr. Peter Fox to talk about quantitative brain imaging methods and how they can reveal localized changes in brain structure in brain disorders that traditionally have not been associated with specific neuropathology. Guest: Peter Fox, Director, Brain Imaging Institute and Professor of Radiology, Neurology, and Physiology at UT Health San Antonio. Participatin...

On February 19, 2026 we were visited by Dr. Dayu Lin to hear about her work on some of the cell groups that make up the hypothalamus and their function in activating innate social behaviors in mice, including parenting and protection of their young. Guest: Dayu Lin, Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Institute for Translational Neuroscience, Langone Medical Center, New Yo...

On February 5, 2026 we met with Dr. Jonathan Bohmann to learn about the structure and function of acetylcholinesterase, the extracellular enzyme that controls the strength and time course of neurotransmitter at cholinergic synapses. He explained how computational models of molecular structure is be used to understand the functional properties of the enzyme and to design drugs that can modify its a...

On January 30, 2026, Fidel Santamaria returned to the podcast (after 18 years) to talk about the thermodynamics of ion channel activation and deactivation, and the changes in neuronal activity that occur with changes in temperature. Guest: Fidel Santamaria, Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology. Host: Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental...

On December 8, 2025 we spoke with Dr. Matthew Goodwin about the use of wearable biosensor technology and machine learning to improve behavioral evaluation of autism, to provide real time alerts for caregivers and more effective interventions before the onset of potentially dangerous behavioral situations. Guest: Matthew Goodwin, Professor and Associate Chair of Research at the Department of Public...

On December 4, 2025 we talked with Dr. Mike Beckstead about his work on changes in dopaminergic neuron excitability in the ventral tegmental area in an animal model of Alzheimer's disease. Mike explained the molecular mechanism of the excitability change and the change in gene expression at its cause. Guest: Mike Beckstead, Professor and Hille Family Foundation Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease R...

On November 20, 2025 we met with Dr. Cristian Lasagna-Reeves to talk about tau protein, its normal function, and what is known about how it aggregates to form the tangles seen in a variety of neurodegenerative brain conditions. We discussed the problem of determining whether the aggregates were causes or effects of the disease process, and whether reducing expression of tau might be an effective t...

On November 13, 2025, we met with Dr. Maria Diehl, to learn about her experiments on avoidance learning in rats. The conversation focused on learning in a social context, in which one animal benefits from watching another learn the task. We had to relocate this week, because of a noisy construction project in the hallway outside our usual room. Guest: Maria Diehl, Associate Professor in Psychologi...

On November 6, 2025, I spoke with Dr. Jason O'Connor about the behavioral and psychological effects of inflammation, and their similarity to depression. Jason explained how inflammation can produce those symptoms by increasing levels of kynurenine and metabolites in the brain. We discussed the possibility that depression may sometimes result from a rise in those metabolites in the absence of i...

On October 23, 2025 we met with Dr. Peter Crino about how mutations occurring during cell division in the developing cerebral cortex can lead to localized developmental malformations of cortical structure and neurological disorders including focal epilepsy. Guest: Peter Crino, Richard and Kathryn Taylor Professor, Chair, Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine. Participa...

On October 16, 2025 we spoke with Sara Swinford-Jackson about effects of parental drug self-administration on motivated drug taking in offspring in rodents. Sarah discussed the approach taken to remove genetic and environmental contributions to isolate the epigenetic contribution, and to identify the biological mechanism. Guest Sarah Swinford-Jackson, Assistant professor of Behavioral and Cellular...

On October 9, 2025 we met with Maria Geffen to discuss the how three kinds of inhibitory neurons in the auditory cortex each contributes to individual features of auditory experience. Guest: Maria Geffen, Professor of Otorhinolaryngology, Neuroscience, and Neurology, University of Pennsylvania Participating: Alfonso Apicella, Department of Neuroscience, Regenerative and Developmental Biology, UTSA...

On October 2, 2025 Dan Lodge returned to the podcast to talk about the physiological changes in brain circuits associated with schizophrenia. We reviewed the status of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia and the brain circuits responsible for its negative, positive, and cognitive symptoms. Guest: Dan Lodge, Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Long School of Medicine, UT San Anton...

On September 25, 2025 we met with Daniel Dombeck to talk about cognitive maps and place coding by neurons in the hippocampus. Conversation topics included the spatial organization of cells with a map, mappings based on visual versus olfactory cues, changes in spatial scale with the size of the environment, and remapping of the place cells with changes in context. Guest: Daniel Dombeck, Professor,...

On September 18, 2025, and we got to talk with Ricardo Mozzachiodi about what was learned and what we continue to learn about the cellular and molecular basis of memory by studying simple behaviors in a mollusk, Aplysia california, the sea hare. Ricardo filled us in on the original rationale for studying cell biology of learning in this animal, and current findings on the role of neuromodulators i...

On September 4, 2025 we talked with Michael Roberts about exploring complex brainstem circuitry of the auditory system, identifying its characteristic cell types, connections, synaptic features and cellular dynamics. We discussed the challenges encountered in studying brain circuits in general, and the particular difficulties and opportunities that attend this effort in the inferior colliculus. Gu...

On May 8, 2025 we met with Kevin Bieniek to talk about the nature of brain injury seen in chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes and others who experience repeated concussion. Kevin explained the commonalities and unique features of those injuries compared to neurodegenerative diseases. Guest: Kevin Bieniek, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Director of...

On April 17, 2025 we met with Nicholas Priebe to describe developments in the study of neuronal representations of the visual world. We discussed the origin of variability the temporal patterns of responses, and the possibility that responses are influenced by non-visual pathways. Guest: Nicholas Priebe, Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin Participating: Todd Troyer, Departme...