Vision Science podcasts

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

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

Alex Maier discusses consciousness through the lens of visual neurophysiology and integrated information theory. The conversation examines the appeal of a formal mathematical account, how it relates to experiments on perception and cortical organisation, and the challenges of developing laws for subjective experience.

Kenneth Harris discusses what simultaneous recordings from many cells reveal about visual information encoded by neuronal populations.

Anton Arkhipov discusses the Allen Institute's detailed mouse visual-cortex models and the experimental measurements supporting them.

Thomas Reh and Juliette Wohlschlegel discuss their research on converting human Müller glia into retinal neurons with host Martin Pera. The conversation traces how regeneration in fish and frogs motivated experiments in mammals, then examines genetic reprogramming of cells derived from human fetal tissue or retinal organoids. Their study of ASCL1-induced neurogenesis provides a basis for discussing the remaining biological and translational challenges of retinal regeneration. The work concerns experimental cellular models and does not establish a treatment for vision loss.

Robert J Johnston joins Jonathan McCrea to explain retinal organoids and how researchers grow these laboratory models of the retina. Drawing on his work at Johns Hopkins University, Johnston discusses what the models can offer basic and translational research, how industry views their use, and whether they could become a standard approach for studying retinal disease. The conversation examines the research potential of lab-grown retinas rather than presenting them as an established treatment.

Li Zhaoping discusses how cortical activity supports visual perception and the role of saliency in directing attention and gaze.

Anjan Chatterjee discusses how neuroscience can investigate beauty and aesthetic experience, including what neurological changes and responses to faces reveal about perception and judgement. Shankar Vedantam then speaks with physicist Frank Wilczek about the role of beauty in scientific discovery. The episode connects empirical questions about the human response to beauty with the use of aesthetic intuitions in developing physical theories.

Hosted by Shankar Vedantam