Neuroverse

In today's episode of Wild Minds , our latest mini-series about cognitive ecology, we are joined by Dr Saikat Ray, a neuroscientist who researches how the brain represents space and social interactions under naturalistic conditions. Saikat is one of the pioneering scientists to perform electrophysiological recordings of brain activity in animals freely moving in the wild, specifically freely-f...

In today's episode, we are joined by Dr. James Borell to discuss the efforts of Kew Gardens researchers in collaboration with local communities in Madagascar, Ethiopia and Oman to sustain agrobiodiversity and conservation. We explore sustainable landscape management in Madagascar, incentive mechanisms for agrobiodiversity conservation in Ethiopia, and more. Tune in to learn more about ecologic...

Welcome to the first episode of Wild Minds , our new mini-series exploring cognitive diversity and natural behaviour through conversations with leading researchers working at the intersection of ecology, evolution, and neuroscience. In this episode, we are joined by Nacho Sanguinetti , Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and head of the Cognitive Neuroethology Lab . His research...

Join us for another episode in our Tools for Looking into the Brain series, where we learn about methods used to understand the nervous system from experts in the field. This week we are joined by Dr Paula Pousinha, a neuroscientist and associate professor at Université Côte d’Azur who researches the neurobiological mechanisms that underlie brain ageing and neurodegenerative diseases. Paula tells...

In today's episode we are celebrating women's day by highlighting a condition that primarily affects women- migraines. We are joined by Dr. Anna Andreou, who leads the Headache Research Laboratory at King's College London and focuses on the neurobiology of primary and secondary headaches, and the development of novel therapies. In this episode, we delve into what makes migraines different to heada...

Today we celebrate Neuroverse being 4! In this episode Carolina and Clara asked each other random questions ranging from neuroscience to personal. Tune in for a more uncut episode and learn more about your hosts! We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel free to share with your friends and family, it means a lot to us🤍 Neuroverse Website ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://neuroversepod.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

Welcome to the first episode of 2026! In usual Neuroverse tradition the first episode is a "Philosophy of..." - touch! Touch provides a very interesting array of information to the body that is at times completely novel but can also overlap with the other senses. Physical touch has an interesting bidirectionally to it, enabling both autonomy and an intricate link to our sense of self, so...

Enjoy our last episode of 2025! In Neuroverse fashion, the last episode of the year is "Off the Record". In this episode we chat and reminisce about our favourite episodes from the past year, what inspired us, what episodes left a lasting impression and our plans for 2026. --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel free to share with your friends and family, it means a lot to us🤍 Ne...

In today's episode, we are joined by Dr. Matthew Harvey, a medical doctor turned neuroscientist, currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Francis Crick Institute who studies cortical dynamics during behaviour. Matt tells us about his doctoral research on cortical flexibility in a neurodevelopmental disorder mouse model (a neurexin 1-alpha knockout), and how he applied wide-field calcium imaging...

In today's episode Clara and Carolina are joined by Professor Dave McLean for another episode on Tools for Looking into the Brain. Dave is a Group Leader at the University of Edinburgh and researches the neural circuitry behind locomotion. He talks to us about the use of zebrafish as a model organism for understanding the neural circuits in charge of locomotion and movement, and how motor behaviou...

What is pain—and why is it so hard to understand, treat, or even describe? In our latest Tools for Looking into the Brain episode, we sit down with Dr. Sascha Alles , Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesia at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, to unpack the fascinating and often misunderstood world of chronic pain. Dr. Alles takes us deep into the science behind how pain works, the elect...

In today's episode, we are joined by Dr Mateusz Kostecki to discuss the importance of ideas as a theoretical and conceptual basis for generating and motivating neuroscience research. Mateusz is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Heidelberg studying patterns of behaviour in placozoa, blob-like marine invertebrates. Prior to this, Mateusz completed a PhD on the social transmiss...

In today’s episode we are joined by Dr Francesca Greenstreet to discuss how habits are made and novel research on how habit-forming may not require reward-based learning. We also talk about making the switch from being an experimental neuroscientist to a computational neuroscientist, and Francesca's latest research on how the brain executes reinforcement learning when there is a large action space...

Welcome to our special summer rerelease series! Carolina and Clara take a trip down memory lane with a special series dedicated to their older episodes, including ones you may have missed! This week Carolina and Clara discuss enzymes and enzyme-directed evolution. Enzymes are these incredible biological catalysts present in the natural world. However, with recent research carried out by Frances Ar...

This week we bring to you another episode of Tools for Looking into the Brain, our mini series in collaboration with Scientifica, where we discuss all sorts of neuroscience methods and the reality of academia. In this episode, we are joined by Dr Silvana Valtcheva, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, who researches the neural basis of maternal bahevaiour. We talk about her resea...

This week we're revisiting our episode on the entropic brain, where we discuss entropy, chaos, and disorder in the context of brain activity. In an attempt to reduce the amount of disorder, our brains may stick to a structured framework of activity, limiting its capacity to be creative and generate new ideas or connections. How does this influence our perception of reality? And how can we over...

In today's episode Carolina and Clara probe at what causality means, both in a philosophical sense and a scientific one. We talk about how neuroscience can probe at causality, the fine line between correlation and causation, how hypotheses are and should be derived, validation and falsification, and more! --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel free to share with your friends and family...

Welcome to our special summer rerelease series! Carolina and Clara take a trip down memory lane with a special series dedicated to their older episodes, including ones you may have missed! Have you ever wondered how the breath and the mind are connected? In this episode, Carolina and Clara explore the neuroscience of breathing: how the rhythm of breathing influences brain-wide activity, providing...

In this episode (our 100th!) we talk to Dr Raffaele Sarnataro, a postdoctoral researcher in Gero Miesenböck's group at the Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour in Oxford University, who is investigating the neurobiological basis of sleep using fruit flies (Drosophila Melanogaster) as a model organism. Raffaele shares with us his latest research on a novel role for mitochondria, in a small...

In today's episode Carolina and Clara are joined by Dr Jennifer Wills Lamacq to discuss how adolescents and children are socialised, affected by social media, and how governmental policies affect the landscape of children's social development. This episode was inspired by the Netflix series "Adolescents" which brought to light crucial issues to be discussed regarding the impact schools and social...

In this episode, Carolina and Clara dive into the question of cognitive ontology. From philosophers like Plato, to psychologists like Thomas Reid, and phrenologists like Franz Gall, many have set out to define how we think and how we should categorise the functions that make up human cognition. While some functions such as sensory processing or memory are intuitively well-defined, others such as e...

In today's episode Clara and Carolina are joined by Professor Iain Couzin, the director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and the German Research Foundation (DFG) Excellence Cluster. His work aims to reveal the principles that underlie evolved collective behavior, using a wide range of biological systems, from insect swarms to schooling fish, primate groups and humans. In this epi...

This week we bring to you another episode of Tools for Looking into the Brain, our mini series in collaboration with Scientifica, where we discuss all sorts of neuroscience methods and the reality of academia. In this episode we are joined by Dr Ana Dorrego-Rivas, a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology (King's College London). Ana shares with...

In today's episode we delve into auto-immune disorders. What are they and how can they be treated? We also discuss why auto-immune disorders are so much more prevalent in women than men, with 80% of cases affecting women, and how lifestyle factors can trigger their onset. We also cover some of the amazing new research carried out to treat the dysregulated immune system. Today’s episode was mad...

In this newest episode of our Tools for Looking into the Brain series, we are joined by Dr Elisa Galliano, a neuroscientist, lecturer, and principal investigator at the University of Cambridge, to discuss the process of starting your own lab, with all of its trials and tribulations. We talk about how Elisa landed a PI position, how she managed to start up her lab amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, what...