Epistimones

Armin Lak is a neuroscientist and is a Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford, studying the neuronal circuits that govern learning and decision making. In particular, his research focuses on the role of dopaminergic neurons in different types of decision making through a combination of state-of-the-art neuronal circuit tools with novel behavioural methods and computational models.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:35) – Most beautiful aspect about biology

(09:32) – Dopamine

(11:34) – Reward prediction error hypothesis

(22:41) – Decision making

(33:41) – Incentive salience theory

(39:04) – Computing value in the brain

(44:10) – Experimental and computational techniques

(50:42) – What is the right level of explanation

(53:18) – Favourite part about doing science

(55:04) – Wolfram Schultz

(57:49) – Advice for young scientists

Chaitanya Gokhale is a research group leader in theoretical eco-evolutionary dynamics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology. His lab uses theoretical biology to elucidate the associations and interactions that power emergent complexity at multiple scales.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:35) – Natural and synthetic gene drives 

(08:54) – Population dynamics of gene drives 

(14:50) – Mating complexity on gene drive dynamics 

(28:00) Evolutionary game theory 

(41:38) Single games vs multiple games 

(56:44) – Mutualism 

(1:07:00) – Origin of his interest in theoretical biology 

(1:16:13) – Advice for aspiring scientists

Oriel FeldmanHall is the Alfred Manning Associate Professor of Cognitive, Linguistics and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. Her research focuses on studying the neural basis of moral decision making, altruism, and socio-emotional decision making. Specifically, she uses techniques from different fields like behavioural economics, social psychology, imaging and psychophysiology to disentangle the cognitive and neural processes behind the complex choices that shape human social behaviour.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:45) – What is morality

(03:21) – Why do humans have morality

(08:40) – Neurobiology of moral decision making

(19:53) – Studying moral decision making

(32:36) – What is the right level of explanation

(33:58) – Engineering morality

(35:54) – Oriel’s journey in science

(41:08) – Advice for young scientists

Adam Packer is a neuroscientist and a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the University of Oxford. He has helped pioneered all-optical interrogation techniques that allow simultaneous manipulation and recording of neural circuit activity with cellular resolution in vivo, and his research focuses on using these techniques to investigate how complex spatiotemporal activity patterns in neural circuits drive behaviour.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:40) – Most beautiful aspect of biology

(02:26) – What is the right level of explanation

(06:45) – Measuring neural activity

(17:38) – Manipulating neural activity

(21:35) – Optogenetics

(27:10) – Determining causality

(37:44) – Using light to measure and manipulate neural activity

(49:32) – Voltage imaging

(53:24) – New insights

(55:06) – Adam’s journey in science

(1:03:28) – Consciousness

(1:05:18) – Theory in neuroscience

(1:07:19) – Progress in neuroscience

(1:08:14) – Advice for young scientists

Christopher McFarland is an Assistant Professor in Genetics and Genome Science at Case Western Reserve University. His lab integrates evolutionary theory with quantitative experimentation to better understand tumour biology.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:28) – Relevance of evolution to cancer 

(03:00) – Genome instability in cancer development 

(05:14) – Accumulation of deleterious mutations in cancer 

(15:50) – Comparison with older ideas in cancer biology 

(22:17) – Experimental study of tumour evolution 

(35:33) – Cancer therapeutics and treatment 

(47:41) – Main challenges for the cancer biology field 

(54:49) – His career journey and advice for young scientists

Will Ratcliff is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. His lab combines mathematical modelling, synthetic biology and experimental evolution, in particular long term evolution experiments (LTEEs), to study the evolution of multicellularity and the spatial dynamics of microbial social interactions.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:31) – Categorisation of multicellularity

(12:04) – Selection pressure for multicellularity in aggregative organisms

(19:40) – Darwinian definition of individuality

(23:22) – Experimental study of selection for multicellularity and LTEE

(44:50) – Entanglement in biology

(48:57) – Is it easy to evolve multicellular life?

(58:47) – Using phylogenetic trees

(1:07:37) – Microbial social interactions and their spatial dynamics

(1:17:25) – Discussion of the article 'Bacterial species rarely work together'

(1:28:33) – Advice for young scientists

NOTES

Free version of the book on evolution of multicellularity: https://t.co/CDQdyW1lXZ

MuLTEE thread: https://twitter.com/wc_ratcliff/status/1423359901766602755?s=20&t=UrBEBZZMZQCjeHaw-0vCyg

New paper examining clonal development and aggregation directly: https://twitter.com/wc_ratcliff/status/1550585020376649729?s=20&t=UrBEBZZMZQCjeHaw-0vCyg

Guide to public speaking: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j4U4VjoTOK5tQLoLxr4W7qfwa35Yy2Dv/view?usp=sharing

The article we discussed on bacterial social interactions: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn5093

Tristram Wyatt is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford and an emeritus fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford. His research focuses on the evolution of pheromones, these chemical signals transmitted between animals of the same species, influencing social behaviour. Tristram is also an award-winning author, with his Cambridge University Press book on Pheromones and Animal Behaviour winning the Best Postgraduate Textbook Award of the Royal Society of Biology in 2014.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:45) – Odor detection

(13:59) – Pheromones

(37:33) – Human pheromones

(54:47) – Storytelling in science

(1:05:07) – Advice for young scientists

Greg Pask is an insect neurobiologist at Middlebury College studying how insects use smell to communicate with each other. In particular, his research focuses on using a range of techniques in molecular biology, genetics, electrophysiology and animal behaviour to understand the mechanisms by which ants detect social cues and how this is necessary for maintaining successful ant colonies.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:35) – Superorganisms

(17:25) – Division of labour in ant colonies

(22:14) – How ants communicate

(31:47) – Studying ants in the lab

(50:42) – How much we know about ant neurobiology

(53:26) – Automated recording of ant behaviour

(1:02:51) – Other insects

(1:04:53) – Greg’s scientific journey

(1:10:23) – Favourite part about doing science

(1:15:34) – Beauty of evolution

(1:17:47) Advice for young scientists

Lisa Monteggia is the Barlow Family Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute and Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders like depression, uncovering the mechanisms by which traditional antidepressants like SSRIs exert their antidepressant response and uncovering how exactly more recent antidepressants like ketamine are able to produce an antidepressant response so quickly.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:43) – Depression

(02:22) – History of depression

(07:25) – Causes of depression

(15:11) – SSRIs and neurotrophins

(23:33) – Ketamine

(45:30) – Does ketamine fix underlying pathophysiologies?

(59:02) – Experimental challenges

(1:00:36) – Psychopharmacology

(1:02:13) – Advice for young scientists

Elizabeth Bonawitz is the David J. Vitale Associate Professor of Learning Sciences at Harvard University, studying the psychological and computational mechanisms underlying the learning of causal beliefs. In particular, her research combines cognitive development experiments with computational modeling to study the structure of children’s early causal beliefs, how evidence and prior beliefs interact to affect children’s learning and memory, and how this is affected by social factors, with the broader goal of informing educational practice.

TIMESTAMPS

(00:42) – Causal reasoning

(05:16) – How children learn about causality

(28:08) – How is knowledge structured

(33:23) – Levels of explanation

(36:55) – Studying causal beliefs experimentally

(42:13) – Using computational models

(47:57) – Problems in the education system

(56:39) – Advice for young scientists