Neuroscience

Neuroscience

episodes

Interviews with neuroscientists about their new books

Kenneth Miller, "Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep" (Hachette Books, 2023)

March 8, 2024

Mapping the Darkness

Kenneth Miller
Hosted by Renee Garfinkel

Why do we sleep? How can we improve our sleep? A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn …

Thomas Metzinger, "The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and 500+ Experiential Reports" (MIT Press, 2024)

March 6, 2024

The Elephant and the Blind

Thomas Metzinger
Hosted by Jeff Adler

What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the ess…

Sten Grillner, "The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function" (MIT Press, 2023)

February 23, 2024

The Brain in Motion

Sten Grillner

C. S. Sherrington said “All the brain can do is to move things". The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function (MIT Press, 2023) sh…

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

February 22, 2024

Look Again

Cass R. Sunstein

Today’s book is: Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2024), by Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein, a b…

Joshua Paul Dale, "Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World" (Profile Books, 2023)

February 10, 2024

Irresistible

Joshua Paul Dale
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to D…

Harry van der Hulst, "A Mind for Language: An Introduction to the Innateness Debate" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

January 20, 2024

A Mind for Language

Harry van der Hulst
Hosted by Madhumanti Datta

How does human language arise in the mind? To what extent is it innate, or something that is learned? How do these factors interact? The questions s…

Lawrence Sherman and Dennis Plies, "Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music" (Columbia UP, 2023)

December 16, 2023

Every Brain Needs Music

Lawrence Sherman and Dennis Plies

Whenever a person engages with music--when a piano student practices a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffs on a melody, a teenager sobs to a sad song, or …

Shelly Kagan, "How to Count Animals, More Or Less" (Oxford UP, 2019)

December 6, 2023

How to Count Animals, More Or Less

Shelly Kagan

Most people agree that animals count morally, but how exactly should we take animals into account? A prominent stance in contemporary ethical discussi…

Coleen T. Murphy, "How We Age: The Science of Longevity" (Princeton UP, 2023)

December 1, 2023

How We Age

Coleen T. Murphy
Hosted by Mark Klobas
Listen:

All of us would like to live longer, or to slow the debilitating effects of age. In How We Age: The Science of Longevity (Princeton UP, 2023), Coleen …

The Future of Innovation: A Discussion with Min W. Jung

November 26, 2023

The Future of Innovation

Min W. Jung

Humans have been so dominant on Earth in large part because of their capacity to innovate – but how does that work exactly? Why can they innovate so m…

Gary Tomlinson, "The Machines of Evolution and the Scope of Meaning" (Zone Books, 2023)

November 14, 2023

The Machines of Evolution and the Scope of Meaning

Gary Tomlinson
Hosted by Nathan Smith
Listen:

What is meaning? How does it arise? Where is it found in the world? In recent years, philosophers and scientists have answered these questions in diff…

Neil Cohn, "Who Understands Comics?: Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension" (Bloomsbury, 2020)

October 30, 2023

Who Understands Comics?

Neil Cohn
Hosted by Elizabeth Woock
Listen:

Drawings and sequential images are so pervasive in contemporary society that we may take their understanding for granted. But how transparent are they…

The Future of Paying Attention: A Discussion with Carolyn Dicey Jennings

October 24, 2023

The Future of Paying Attention

Carolyn Dicey Jennings

Is it really harder to pay attention to something than it used to be? No doubt the world is getting faster, and social media platforms are so good at …

Joshua May, "Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)

October 7, 2023

Neuroethics

Joshua May

Is free will an illusion? Is addiction a brain disease? Should we enhance our brains beyond normal? Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science (O…

Kevin J. Mitchell, "Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will" (Princeton UP, 2023)

October 1, 2023

Free Agents

Kevin J. Mitchell
Hosted by Mark Klobas

Scientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As w…

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal, "Time and Space in Video Games: A Cognitive-Formalist Approach" (Transcript, 2020)

September 23, 2023

Time and Space in Video Games

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal

Video games are temporal artifacts: They change with time as players interact with them in accordance with rules. In Time and Space in Video Games: A …

Catherine Coveney et al., "Technosleep: Frontiers, Fictions, Futures" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

September 14, 2023

Technosleep

Catherine Coveney, Michael Greaney, Eric L. Hsu, Robert Meadows, and Simon J. Williams
Hosted by Michael Johnston

Technosleep: Frontiers, Fictions, Futures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) draws on a variety of substantive examples from science, technology, medicine, li…

The Future of Talking: A Discussion with Shane O'Mara

August 26, 2023

The Future of Talking

Shane O'Mara

Talking is a defining part of what makes us human – we are almost constantly in dialogue but what purpose does all this conversation serve? Both for …

Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)

August 6, 2023

Nervous Systems

Andreas Killen
Hosted by Paul Lerner

In this eye-opening chronicle of scientific research on the brain in the early Cold War era, the acclaimed historian Andreas Killen traces the compl…

Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist

July 24, 2023

Consciousness

Christof Koch
Hosted by MIT Press
Listen:

What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysi…