Neuroscience podcasts

Explore efforts to restore speech, expression and communication for people who cannot move or talk. The episode examines brain-signal decoding, AI and assistive technology, drawing on users’ experiences to ask what should improve next. Casey Harrell discusses living with current communication systems, while Jules Rodriguez’s voice-clone comedy illustrates the personal and social importance of a voice.

In a joint episode with The Future of Everything, Russ Altman interviews Karen Parker and Jason Yeatman about bringing developmental neuroscience into clinical care and education. Parker discusses links between social cognition, oxytocin and vasopressin, and the translation of primate research into studies of autism. Yeatman describes research on reading and dyslexia and large-scale online reading assessments. Their conversation examines collaboration across disciplines and the practical obstacles between basic discoveries and applications.

Hosted by Russ Altman, Nicholas Weiler

Paul Middlebrooks and Rutgers neuroscientist Michael Cole discuss the proposal that flows of activity between brain regions provide fundamental building blocks of cognition. Cole explains activity-flow modelling and contrasts this account with approaches centred on activity within individual areas. They consider how compositional hierarchies of flows might support cognitive control, goals, emotion and creativity, and explore implications for consciousness, mental illness and artificial intelligence.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Nicholas Weiler revisits Dan Yamins’s account of predictive models of the human brain, then interviews Russ Poldrack about the Stanford Digital Brain Project’s new experimental programme. The episode considers how models could test hypotheses and explore potential interventions, and what kinds of brain recordings and behavioural measurements are needed to train them. It combines an earlier Yamins conversation with a new discussion of the project’s data-collection plans.

Hosted by Nicholas Weiler

Gaute Einevoll talks with Michael Reimann about building cortical networks from reconstructed neuronal shapes. The conversation examines how proximity between axons and dendrites constrains possible synapses, how anatomical rules can generate large model circuits, and what these models reveal about the relationship between network wiring and function. Their discussion draws on work spanning microcircuit reconstruction, whole-neocortex connectivity, cell assemblies and the spatial organisation of neural networks.

Hosted by Gaute Einevoll

Nicholas Weiler interviews pathologist and computer scientist Julia Belk about evidence that blood-derived immune cells gradually replace resident microglia in ageing human brains. They discuss how somatic mutations can reveal the origins of these cells, the relationship between clonal hematopoiesis and Alzheimer’s risk, and why findings in humans may differ from common mouse models. The conversation explores possible research directions for brain immunotherapy without treating them as established treatments.

Hosted by Nicholas Weiler

Sarah Crespi and Tim Appenzeller discuss a resurfaced Rosalind Franklin X-ray photograph and its implications for the history of DNA structure. Elah Feder then speaks with Andreas Nieder about experiments comparing the speed of decisions in crows and primates, considering neural mechanisms and evolutionary advantages. Phil Levin and David Hassler discuss collaboration between ecological research and poetry, with a reading by Lara Volski.

Hosted by Sarah Crespi

Paul Middlebrooks talks with Andrea Hiott, a philosopher at Universität Heidelberg with degrees across philosophy and neuroscience, about her book Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind. A theme running through her work is that we need to go beyond dichotomous thinking and learn to hold paradoxes as they are. The navigational approach is her proposal for what should replace the computational metaphor of the mind. In the book she uses the history of research on the hippocampus to illustrate both ideas: the hippocampus has two parallel research histories, one treating it as the seat of memory and the other as a cognitive map for how we move through the world and through our thoughts.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

The episode connects historical evidence and modern biological methods. Meagan Cantwell and Christie Wilcox discuss nuclear history, a gene associated with hair graying and old Swiss cheese. Lizzie Wade explains how radiocarbon evidence is changing the chronology of the Inca empire. Nicholas Bush then describes neuronal recordings and computational approaches to understanding the circuits that generate rhythmic breathing.

Hosted by Sarah Crespi

Nature’s science-prize roundup discusses the research recognised by the 2026 Nobel prizes: light-based control of neurons, detection of cosmic neutrinos and the emergence of handed organic molecules. A further segment examines what gut microbes can reveal about ancient human populations and journeys. Research highlights address young viewers of online sports videos and observations of black-hole jets. The episode connects neuroscience, particle physics and chemistry with evolutionary questions about the human microbiome.

Maxim Raginsky joins Paul Middlebrooks to examine brains, AI and biological autonomy through control theory. They discuss what behaviour reveals about a system's internal organisation, analog and digital descriptions, the relationship between control and cybernetics, active inference and the limits of computational accounts. The publisher offers a public episode and supporter access to its full archive.

Hosted by Paul Middlebrooks

Jérémie Naudé and Albert Moukheiber join Alexandra Delbot to examine popular misconceptions about the brain, including claims about dopamine detoxes. They discuss what neuroscience experiments establish about dopamine and reward prediction, and how simplified biological narratives can distort research and public understanding.

Hosted by Alexandra Delbot

Andrew Huberman joins Patrick O’Shaughnessy to discuss the frontier of neurotechnology and sustained human performance. Their conversation considers the convergence of AI and biotechnology, gene-based methods for changing neural activity and motivation, and the relationships between visual behaviour, arousal and sleep. Huberman is a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University.

Hosted by Patrick O’Shaughnessy

Jennie Erin Smith discusses research on noninvasive brain stimulation in women’s health, including postpartum depression, menstrual pain and fertility-related questions. Liisa Galea reviews the evidence on hormone therapy during perimenopause and associations between menopausal symptoms and later health outcomes, including dementia and cardiovascular disease. The discussion concerns research findings and open questions rather than individual treatment recommendations.

Hosted by Sarah Crespi

Madeleine Finlay interviews Boston University neuroscientist Steve Ramirez about locating, activating and removing rodent memories, and possible applications in humans.

Hosted by Madeleine Finlay

Francesca and Ilaria discuss taste-receptor research, mitochondrial biology and a reported ALS case study involving an antisense oligonucleotide treatment. Giuliana Galati interviews University of Padua physicist Francesco Recchia about nuclear phenomenology. The episode links these discussions to the underlying research papers and distinguishes a clinical case report from established treatment evidence.

Hosted by Francesca Cecilia Lauta, Ilaria Zanardi

Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove and Brianne Barker discuss a newly identified mechanism for RNA-guided DNA recognition and genetic control that may predate CRISPR pathways. They also examine research proposing that features of Alzheimer’s disease neuropathology could have originated as a host response to infection in the brain, including evidence concerning phosphorylated tau and herpesvirus activity. The episode connects ancient molecular recognition mechanisms with questions about antiviral defence.

Hosted by Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove

Neurobiologist Tom Clandinin joins Nicholas Weiler to explore how interacting genetic, cellular and metabolic systems maintain brain health over a lifetime, and how their breakdown contributes to neurodegeneration. The discussion moves beyond single explanations such as inflammation or waste clearance to a systems-level study of brain resilience. Clandinin describes a collaborative programme combining large-scale genetic perturbations in flies and mice with molecular, circuit and behavioural measurements. Computational models will connect these observations across cell types, predict interactions and guide experiments toward potential ways to strengthen the aging brain’s maintenance systems.

Hosted by Nicholas Weiler

Gaute Einevoll and Mihai Petrovici discuss how neuromorphic hardware can support artificial intelligence and efficient brain simulation. They contrast high-frequency arithmetic on conventional silicon with the rich dynamics and millisecond spikes of biological neurons, and explore brain-inspired systems for emulating neural dynamics and studying computation in spiking networks. Petrovici is a senior researcher at the University of Bern. The conversation was recorded on 18 June 2026 and released on 23 September 2026; the publisher’s audio runs 1 hour, 41 minutes and 46 seconds.

Hosted by Gaute Einevoll

Chris Smith presents research on individual differences in fruit flies, colour-linked pupil responses in synaesthesia, and how mating patterns broaden cognitive variation in chickadees. The episode also examines which species succeed in cities and how DNA organisation changes in cancer. The publisher provides a full episode player and individual interview transcripts.

Hosted by Chris Smith