In this episode, as Scotland prepares to vote in landmark parliamentary elections on May 6, we explore why the question of independence from the UK is dominating the debate. And a team of researchers working with fruit flies, has discovered a biological switch that can turn neuroplasticity on and off in the brain. What might that mean? Welcome to episode 13 of The Conversation Weekly.

It's been seven years since Scotland voted to remain the UK in the 2014 independence referendum. Now, as Scotland prepares to vote in elections for the Scottish Parliament on May 6, all eyes are on first minister Nicola Sturgeon and her pro-independence Scottish National Party. If pro-independence parties win a majority in the Scottish parliament – Sturgeon will ask the UK government in Westminster, led by prime minister, Boris Johnson, for a second referendum on Scottish independence. But he's highly unlikely to agree. To find out more about what’s at stake in these upcoming elections, we speak to three experts, including one high-profile politician turned academic, to explain the situation. 

Kezia Dugdale, is director of the John Smith Centre and a lecturer in public policy at the University of Glasgow, and a former leaders of the Scottish Labour Party. She describes the political landscape going into the elections. Darren Nyatanga, a PhD candidate at the University of Liverpool, talks us through the constitutional questions at the heart of the independence debate. And economist Graeme Roy, dean of external engagement at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, explains Scotland's economic circumstances, and the economic arguments being used by nationalists and unionists.

For our second story, we hear about some new research into neuroplasticity – the brain's ability to change its structure. Sarah Ackerman, postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Oregon, explains what her team has found about what controls these changes.

And Moina Spooner, commissioning editor at The Conversation in Nairobi, Kenya, gives us her recommended reads for the week.

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.

If you'd like to sign up for The Conversation's free daily newsletter, please subscribe here. To get in touch, find us on Twitter @TC_Audio or on Instagram at theconversationdotcom. Or you can email us on [email protected]. Full credits for this episode can be found here. A transcript of this episode is available here.

Further reading

• Scottish independence: could wind power Scotland back into the EU?, by Piotr Marek Jaworski, Edinburgh Napier University and Kenny Crossan, Edinburgh Napier University
• Scottish independence referendum: why the economic issues are quite different to 2014, by Graeme Roy, University of Strathclyde 
• Scottish election: Alex Salmond’s Alba gamble could yet tip scales on second independence referendum, by William McDougall, Glasgow Caledonian University
• Scotland could vote to separate in 2021, testing Canada’s independence formula, by Catherine Frost, McMaster University
• Astrocyte cells in the fruit fly brain are an on-off switch that controls when neurons can change and grow, by Sarah DeGenova Ackerman, University of Oregon
• Somalia: toxic elite politics and the need for cautious external mediation, by Claire Elder, London School of Economics and Political Science
• Why Kenya is on thin ice in its justification for sending Somali refugees back home, by Oscar Gakuo Mwangi, National University of Lesotho