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!

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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, something not seen as clearly with our other senses. Tune in to this episode to hear about what makes touch unique, and how it plays a powerful role in mind-body awareness and shaping our social worlds.

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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.

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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 to explore cortex-wide dynamics during learning and flexible decision-making. We also discuss the complex and shared genetic bases of neurodevelopmental disorders and the future of translational research that is bridging the gap between clinical and preclinical research on neurodevelopmental disorders.

Matthew Harvey trained as a medical doctor before making the jump to academia and carrying out a PhD in neuroscience at King's College London, in the lab of Adil Khan, where he investigated cortex wide neural activity during learning and flexible decision making in mouse models of neurodevelopmental disorders. He is currently researching impulsivity & cognitive control in Flor Iacaruso's lab at the Francis Crick Institute.

This episode is part of our Tools for Looking into the Brain series which is sponsored by Scientifica, leaders in electrophysiological equipment and expertise. This series is dedicated to creating engaging and informative content exploring various techniques used by researchers in neuroscience. Find out more here.

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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 behaviours- both innate and learned- emerge as the nervous system matures. His lab combines advanced imaging, electrophysiology, and behavioural analysis to map the organization and recruitment of specific neuron types, providing fundamental insights into how vertebrate motor control is built and how it adapts with learning.

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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 electrophysiological changes that contribute to pain, and what makes it such a uniquely challenging subject for researchers. We discuss how cutting-edge tools and model systems are reshaping our understanding of the nervous system.

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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 transmission of behaviour in rodents at the Laboratory of Molecular Basis of Behavior at the Nencki Institute in Warsaw, Poland. During his PhD, he also founded Nencki Open Lab, a neuroscience grassroots initiative that organises workshops, symposia, talks, and other events, with the goal of offering a creative environment in which researchers can discuss their ideas with people from different scientific subfields and learn tools that allow them to develop their experimental setups and analyse their data. In the episode, we talk about Mateusz's research journey, the philosophy behind Nencki Open Lab, how to deal with variability and juggling both theory and experimental approaches as a (neuro)scientist, and how to stay motivated in science.

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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.

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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 Arnold, and many others, enzymes have been directed to bind with non-organic matter! 

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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 research journey, from investigating synaptic plasticity to understanding the complexities of postpartum behaviour in living animals, and discuss how to transition across the stages of academia, and where meaning and motivation fit in to science.

Silvana Valtcheva is a principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne Germany. She previously earned a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and a Master’s degree in Neuroscience before pursuing a PhD in activity-dependent synaptic plasticity, the role of astrocytes, and developmental changes in the control of plasticity with Prof. Laurent Venance in Paris. Following this, Silvana joined the lab of Prof. Robert Froemke in New York City as a postdoctoral fellow, where she investigated the neural pathways and synaptic mechanisms important for the detection of offspring vocalisations in maternal mice. Since 2022, the Valtcheva lab has been investigating the neural circuits and plasticity mechanisms shaping sensory perception and hormonal release in the postpartum brain to drive behaviour. 

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