NeuwriteWest

This week on Neurotalk, we chat with James Surmeier about dopamine in the basal ganglia, the molecular mechanisms underlying Parkinson's disease, and why we shouldn't cling too tightly to our ideas.

Dr. Surmeier is a professor and the Chair of the department of physiology at Northwestern University.

In this episode of Brains & Bourbon, Viola Caretti explains how a small group of scientists and a dedicated community of affected families have come together in their search for a cure for a deadly form of childhood brain cancer.

Viola is a postdoctoral research fellow in Michelle Monje's lab here at Stanford.

Join us for our latest edition of NeuroTalk as we examine the future of scholarly publishing. Nick Weiler interviews John Sack, founding director of High Wire Press, the groundbreaking e-publishing platform created in 1996 and now serving nearly 2,000 journals, ranging from Science to eLife. We go in-depth and discuss Sack's ideas about the future of scholarly journals, including the evolution of the "open access" movement, improvements to the peer review process, and the need for interactive online discussions around published science. Sack, a self-proclaimed futurist, muses about ongoing trends in publishing and whether we would even recognize the journals of the future. This is one episode you don't want to miss!

Producers: Mark Padolina and Nick Weiler

In this exciting new episode of Brains & Bourbon, Zoya Farzampour talks to us about the role of non-neuronal brain cells in epilepsy, why electrophysiology is so dang cool, and much more!

Zoya is a 5th year graduate student in John Huguenard's lab here at Stanford.

This week we sat down with new MCP Assistant Professor Lucy O'Brien over her favorite chocolate recovery shake to talk about studying stem cells in the fly gut and the great adventure of science.

We sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics.

Here's the breakdown:

Part 1 (26:23) Dopamine System (extended)

“Anyone who has ever gotten out of bed at 6 in the morning knows that you need motivation in order to initiate movement”

Part 2 (26:48) Dopamine and Risk-Seeking Behavior in Rats, Rat fMRI, and the Not My Field game show

“Have you been able to make the risk-seeking rats into humdrum rats?”

Part 3- (20:05) Squirrels

“It turns out that they bury walnuts at the distance you would bury walnuts if you were planting a walnut orchard.”

We sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics.

Here's the breakdown:

Part 1 (26:23) Dopamine System (extended)

“Anyone who has ever gotten out of bed at 6 in the morning knows that you need motivation in order to initiate movement”

Part 2 (26:48) Dopamine and Risk-Seeking Behavior in Rats, Rat fMRI, and the Not My Field game show

“Have you been able to make the risk-seeking rats into humdrum rats?”

Part 3- (20:05) Squirrels

“It turns out that they bury walnuts at the distance you would bury walnuts if you were planting a walnut orchard.”

We sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics.

Here's the breakdown:

Part 1 (26:23) Dopamine System (extended)

“Anyone who has ever gotten out of bed at 6 in the morning knows that you need motivation in order to initiate movement”

Part 2 (26:48) Dopamine and Risk-Seeking Behavior in Rats, Rat fMRI, and the Not My Field game show

“Have you been able to make the risk-seeking rats into humdrum rats?”

Part 3- (20:05) Squirrels

“It turns out that they bury walnuts at the distance you would bury walnuts if you were planting a walnut orchard.”

We sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics.

Listen to individual segments from this show here: https://soundcloud.com/neuwritewest/sets/brains-bourbon-episode-15-a-tom-collins-with-kelly-zalocusky

This week on Brains & Bourbon, we chat with Hank Greely about the ethics and laws of neuroscience. Topics include the legal and ethical concerns of personal genomics (such as 23 and Me), using fMRI as a complimentary tool for lie detection, establishing justice in cases of mental or psychiatric instability, bringing back extinct animals, and more!

Hank Greely is a Professor of Law at Stanford University, and serves as the chair of the California Advisory Committee on Human Stem Cell Research, director of the Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences as well as the new Stanford Program In Neuroscience and Society, or “SPINS.”