Insatiable Insects

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Insatiable Insects

It is possible to eat until your stomach bursts open, but most people will never come close to this horror. ... The neuronal circuits that control our eating behavior have evolved to keep us well fed, but not overfed. There are triggers that tell you to start eating, such as hunger and the availability of food, and triggers that tell you to stop, such as sensation of dangerous foods or gut distension.

But what if that system was broken? Kristin Scott’s lab at UC Berkeley has discovered a small set of neurons in the fruit fly that chronically inhibit eating. Without them, the animal will eat until it regurgitates, excretes, or explodes.

Image credit: Allan-Hermann Pool, Kristin Scott’s Lab at UC Berkeley.

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Brains & Bourbon Ep12: Daniel Hawes – Personality, Neuroeconomics, and a Whiskey Sour

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This week on Brains and Bourbon, we share whiskey sours with Daniel Hawes, a post-doctoral fellow studying the interplay between personality and decision making in Sam McClure’s lab. We ask Daniel about his journey from agricultural engineering student in Germany to psychologist at Stanford, and how the different perspectives of engineering, economics, psychology and neuroscience interact to influence his approach to understanding how individuals make decisions. Daniel tells us about how psychologists currently think about defining individual differences between people, and how his research is revealing differences in brain activity during decision making that are related to the "big five" dimensions of personality. In the end, we wax philosophical about the importance of understanding personality in developing self-awareness and whether it would be a good idea to tickle people in an fMRI machine. --- In the interview, we mentioned the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. If you haven't heard of this, you should really see the videos of cute kids trying their best to avoid sweet, white, gooey temptation. Check out a recreation of the original experiment here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3S0xS2hdi4.

 

 

This week on Brains and Bourbon, we share whiskey sours with Daniel Hawes, a post-doctoral fellow studying the interplay between personality and decision making in Sam McClure’s lab. We ask Daniel about his journey from agricultural engineering student in Germany to psychologist at Stanford, and how the different perspectives of engineering, economics, psychology and neuroscience interact to influence his approach to understanding how individuals make decisions.

Daniel tells us about how psychologists currently think about defining individual differences between people, and how his research is revealing differences in brain activity during decision making that are related to the "big five" dimensions of personality. In the end, we wax philosophical about the importance of understanding personality in developing self-awareness and whether it would be a good idea to tickle people in an fMRI machine.

---
In the interview, we mentioned the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. If you haven't heard of this, you should really see the videos of cute kids trying their best to avoid sweet, white, gooey temptation. Check out a re-creation of the original experiment here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3S0xS2hdi4.

 

Brains & Bourbon Ep11 Rob Malenka

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This week on Brains & Bourbon, we share a cocktail with Rob Malenka, who describes his journey from party animal to world renowned scientist, and gives a beautiful and in-depth history of one of the most important fields in neuroscience. Plus much more! Dr. Malenka is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science here at Stanford.

This week on Brains & Bourbon, we share a cocktail with Rob Malenka, who describes his journey from party animal to world renowned scientist, and gives a beautiful and in-depth history of one of the most important fields in neuroscience. Plus much more! 

Dr. Malenka is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science here at Stanford. 

Is vaccination for you?

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Is vaccination for you?

This spring, I supervised three students from the California College of Arts (CCA) who were taking a course called Biological Design. This new course aims to give artists insight into biological structures and evolutionary principles, to provide biologists with new ways of looking at their data, and to "explore the synergies between biology, design and art" according to the course curriculum. One issue I discussed with my students was vaccination, and how it can be challenging for people to decide if vaccination is the right thing for them. If you haven’t suffered from flu for the last few years, why should you race to CVS in September and roll up your sleeve for your shot? Watch the video I made using my students' artwork to explore this qustion.

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No memory is alike: The unintended value of amnesics

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No memory is alike: The unintended value of amnesics

Patients suffering from complete anterograde amnesia are (luckily) very scarce, but their condition is very interesting as it helps us understand how memories are formed. As a consequence, these patients tend to become very famous in the scientific world because of the numerous experiments they participate in.

A particularly famous example is Henry Molaison; over the years Henry’s participation in research led to many insights (and new questions) about the processes that underlie the fate of our beloved memories. Because of all the attention Henry receives, in textbooks and classrooms alike, you might think that he was the only amnesiac that affected neuroscientific theories.

This is not true.

The recently deceased Kent Cochrane has meant a lot to memory research as well, because of his own particular amnesia.

Image Source: Medical Art Service, Munich; Wellcome Images

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Brains & Bourbon Ep10 Communication & Stimulation

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This week on Brains and Bourbon, science journalist Greg Miller talks about the psychological cost of drone warfare, DIY brain stimulation, science journalism, and a lot more! Greg Miller spent 11 years as a reporter for Science magazine and is now a senior writer at WIRED magazine.

This week on Brains and Bourbon, science journalist Greg Miller talks about the psychological cost of drone warfare, DIY brain stimulation, science journalism, and a lot more!

Greg Miller spent 11 years as a reporter for Science magazine and is now a senior writer at WIRED magazine.

You can find Greg's article on the psychological impact of drone warfare here: Drone Wars 

You can also find Greg's series on treating mental illness in developing countries here: The Unseen: Mental Illness's Global Toll

And you can read his article about DIY brain stimulation here: Inside the Strange New World of DIY Brain Stimulation. 

PhDs in Press: Winter/Spring 2014

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PhDs in Press: Winter/Spring 2014

The drought that afflicted Calfornia this winter was in no way mirrored in the publications authored by members of the Stanford Neurosciences PhD Program.

This Winter/Spring saw 10 PhD students publishing first-author papers (Lief and Joanna, Egle, Kira, Sergio and Corbett, David K, Poh Hui, Mridu and Nathan). They were joined in authorial success by an additional 13 graduate researchers who were 2nd-nth authors (Aslihan, Logan, Kelly, Ivan, Astra, Greg, Izumi, Georgia, Nick Steinmetz, Jake, Tina, Hannah and Mark; not to mention Kira and Poh Hui who also had 2nd-nth author papers). 

Witness the majestic variety of neuroscience research being done by the Stanford Neurosciences Graduate Community. The Diesseroth lab makes genetically encoded tools that use Boolean logic. The science partnership of Corbett Bennett and Sergio Arroyo continues with a review article on nicotinic modulation of cortical circuits. Paul Buckmaster's lab publishes a study of epileptic sea lions off the California coast. And so much more...

Continue below for a full list of the articles (complete with links and abstracts). 

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Brains & Bourbon Ep9 Pow! Thwacke! Brain!

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This week on Brains and Bourbon, we talk with Maral Tajerian about brains and pain, secret experiments, and putting the "science" back in "scientifically accurate video games." Dr. Tajerian is a postdoc in David Clark’s lab here at Stanford, and the co-founder of Thwacke! science media consulting.

This week on Brains and Bourbon, we talk with Maral Tajerian about brains and pain, secret experiments, and putting the "science" back in "scientifically accurate video games."

Dr. Tajerian is a postdoc in David Clark’s lab here at Stanford, and the co-founder of Thwacke! science media consulting.

Brains and Bourbon airs every Wednesday at 1pm on KZSU 90.1FM.

"We are all born scientists" Neurotalk S2E26 Daniel Colón-Ramos

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This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Daniel Colón-Ramos about how glia directs synapse formation, how synaptic positions are maintained as the body and brain grows, and how his science networking site Ciencia Puerto Rico has changed science education in Puerto Rico. Dr. Colón-Ramos is an associate professor of cell biology at Yale University, and is the founder of Ciencia Puerto Rico: http://www.cienciapr.org/

This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Daniel Colón-Ramos about how glia directs synapse formation, how synaptic positions are maintained as the body and brain grows, and how his science networking site Ciencia Puerto Rico has changed science education in Puerto Rico.

Dr. Colón-Ramos is an associate professor of cell biology at Yale University.

This is the last Neurotalk of the academic year, and we will return at the end of September. Thanks for listening!