Neuroverse

In today’s episode we are celebrating women’s day by discussing the current state of women’s reproductive healthcare and research, how much progress has been made and what still needs to be done. We are joined by Professor Sohier Elneil, a UCL Professor and Consultant specialising in Urogynaecology and Uroneurology.   Professor Elneil completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge in the physiol...

Welcome back to Neuroverse, this week we bring to you the second episode in our mini-series "Tools for Looking into the Brain", where we explore the diversity of experimental methods used to study the brain's structure and function. In this episode, we discuss the basic principles of fluorescence microscopy and how it can help us understand the brain. We explore how we can make cells...

Happy Valentines day! We hope today you celebrate love in all its shapes and forms. It is also our Neuroverse 2 year anniversary! What better way to celebrate than to dive deep into Love's effect on the brain, from the neurobiology to the philosophy (Neuroverse style). We discuss how the initial phases of falling in Love activates the same biological pathways as acute stress, causing the class...

In today's episode we've answered some of your questions! Topics ranging from academic advice, lab and research environments, personal life choices and more. Tune in to find out the questions asked! --- 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 Podcast directory ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

In today's episode we are joined by Professor Carlos Ribeiro, who is based at the Champalimaud Research Institute in Lisbon. We discuss research in fruit flies (drosophila melanogaster) in the context of neuroscience and metabolism, the benefits of individual animal models in research, and how interdisciplinary approaches are key for the future of science. We also enquire into creativity and w...

In today's episode, we delve into the complexities of sound . What is sound? Is it defined by what produces it or by what hears it? Is sound purely physical, or is it a construct of our minds? Is the perception of sound comparable to the perception of colour? We discuss these fascinating questions and more, and reflect on what sound means to us! --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel f...

In our final episode of 2023, we chat about another full year of Neuroverse- our highlights, favourite episodes, what we've most enjoyed learning about, what major questions and themes have arisen, and what we're excited for to come in 2024! Thank you so much for all your support in the past year. --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel free to share with your friends and family, it...

In today's episode we are joined by Pierre Glaser to discuss designing generative models. Pierre Glaser is a PhD student in Machine Learning at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit in UCL. He is working with Professor Arthur Gretton on advancing the methodology of flexible generative modelling. We discuss what generative models are (such as ChatGPT, Dall-E), what fitting a probabilistic...

We are launching a new mini-series focusing on experimental methods to study the brain! How do we look at and listen to the activity of neurons, populations of neurons, and the whole brain? In this series, we will be exploring the multitude of techniques and recent advances in technologies to study the brain. To kick of the series, in this episode we discuss patch-clamping, a type of electrophysio...

In this episode, we are joined by a special guest, Dr. Estella Newcombe, to discuss protein dysregulation in neurodegenerative disorders. Estella is currently a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen in the structural biology and NMR laboratory, researching intrinsically disordered proteins in the context of neurodegenerative disorders. Estella holds a Bachelor’s degree in B...

In today’s episode, Carolina and Clara discuss what beautiful science is, and what makes a beautiful experiment? We delve into aesthetics, what is good and beautiful in science, and highlight how these can influence bias in scientific experiments --- 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://neurover...

In this episode, we were joined by a special guest, Sydney Leaman, to discuss cellular identity and reprogramming cells in the brain. Sydney holds a BSc and MSc in human genetics as well as a medical degree and is currently completing his PhD in translational neurodevelopment at the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders in King's College London, where he works on reprogramming neuronal i...

This week, Carolina & Clara discuss the development of a novel technology- storing data in DNA. As the human population is producing an expontentially growing amount of data every day, it is easy to forget that all of this data also needs to be stored in a physical form. Currently, digital data is largely stored in exabyte centres, large warehouses that require millions of dollars and tons of...

In today’s episode Carolina and Clara discuss biomimetic and bioinspired materials and the challenge with understanding the biological structure of natural materials to then create additional intelligent biological materials that allow us to bridge various challenges. But what about not only mimicking nature? What about creating ‘living’ materials that you can have a bi-directional flow of informa...

This week, Carolina & Clara discuss the theory of Morphic Resonance. First proposed by Rupert Sheldrake in 1981, the theory of Morphic Resonance accounts for the laws of nature as being habits and a form of collective memory that accumulates across time, rather than ground truth upon which all of nature is built upon. In this episode, we discuss the validity of the theory, evaluate the empiric...

In today’s episode Carolina and Clara discuss stress, stressors and the impacts of chronic stress. Stress is a physiological response that aids us in situations of danger, however in our modern society we have created more abstract stressors which may lead to a chronic stress state. The cortisol cycle is a big player in this area. They also discuss mindfulness and other practices to help keep stre...

In this episode, Carolina & Clara discuss synapses in the brain. What are they? What is their function and importance? Where did they originate from? How are they different across evolutionarily distinct species? They also discuss how recent research in comb jellies has brought back to life an age-old debate between Santiago Ramon y Cajal and Camillo Golgi about the basis of communication in t...

In today's episode we are thrilled to be joined by Professor Sonja Hofer, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in UCL. The Hofer Lab researches the neural basis of sensory perception and sensory-guided decision-making. We discuss the latest paper released in her lab, preprint lead by Shohei Furutachi on Prediction Errors and how the brain functions as a prediction machine to help us e...

In this week's episode, Carolina and Clara discuss the variety of model organisms that are used in scientific research and the unique advantages of each model. They also touch upon how ethics guides the use of animals in research, including the importance of the NC3Rs. And they explore some of the more unique animal studies that have informed research in unexpected ways, including understandin...

Join us in today's episode where we discuss Challenges with collabroative neuroscience and how generative AI, language models are impacting the world with Jai Bhagat! Jai is from the US and got his Bachelor’s in Neuroscience from Boston University and then worked as a Technical Associate in Matt Wilson’s lab at MIT. Jai also worked with Matteo Carandini and Kenneth Harris as a Software Develop...

In this week's episode, Carolina and Clara discuss intelligence without a nervous system, based on the enigmatic organism "the blob", also known as slime mould or by its latin name, Physarum polycephalum . This fungal-like organism is just a single cell but exhibits some extraordinary behaviours, namely pathfinding and route optimisation, that resembles high-level intelligence. We di...

Join us as we discuss Reality! We cover topics such as ideology and how it affects our perception on reality, philosophy of language and mind with some neuroscientific insights such as predictive coding! Reality seems to be a topic that comes up several times throughout all our episodes and we attempted to make a unifying episode to discuss reality. --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel f...

In this week's episode we are joined by Dr Alice Petty, a neuroscientist researching the neurobiology of schizophrenia in rodent models. We discuss the challenges of uncovering the biological mechanisms that underlie complex psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, and the utility of animal models for this purpose. Schizophrenia is especially complex given the heterogeneity of symptoms th...

Join us today in our discussion of Neuro-Inspired AI with Clémentine Dominé. Clémentine is a PhD student at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit in the University College London, working with Professor Andrew Saxe and Professor Caswell Barry. We discuss the architecture of AI versus the brain, the dynamics of artificial neural networks, what "catastrophic forgetting" is, the exciti...

What is awe and how does it shape us? In this week's episode, Carolina and Clara discuss the science behind awe, a powerful state of being that can benefit the mental health of individuals as well as whole socieites! Join us to find out more about how awe-inspiring experiences can positively impact your life. --- We hope you enjoy the episode! Please feel free to share with your friends and fa...