Ask a Neuroscientist: Auditory Hallucinations

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Ask a Neuroscientist: Auditory Hallucinations

Why can we hear music that isn’t really there? Dr. Luke Parkitny discusses how this question gnaws at some fairly complex and incompletely understood neuroscience phenomena. He explains how: "At the core of auditory hallucinations lies a breakdown in how signals from the outside world are translated into experience. ... In a sense, the world of musical hallucinations is one that is dominated by memories and predictions that are untempered by reality."

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Remembering neuroscientist Allison Doupe

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Each week SINTN (the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neuroscience) invites a prominent scientist to come to campus and share their most recent work with the Stanford community. For professors, and a few students each week, this is also an opportunity to chat casually with these scientists one-on-one. Our goal with this program is to open that experience up to the broader neuroscience community. We hope the conversation gives you some insight into the speaker’s personality and provides a platform for the kind of stories of science which are of interest to us but are often are left out of more formal papers or presentations... how did the scientist really get interested in a subject ? what are some of the more unexpected challenges they had to overcome? In essence, it’s a conversation between neuroscientists, for neuroscientists. This week’s speaker is Alison Doupe, a professor of psychiatry and physiology at the W.M. Keck Foundation Center for Integrative Neuroscience at UCSF.

This past Friday, the neuroscience community suffered a great loss with the passing of Allison Doupe, a professor of neuroscience at UCSF. Professor Doupe was our very first guest on the Neurotalk podcast, which I wanted to repost here as a small way of remembering and appreciating her life and contributions to science. You can also find a short write-up about Professor Doupe here: In Memoriam: Allison Doupe. 

 

 

Neurotalk S3E6 Elena Gracheva

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This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Elena Gracheva about working with bats, snakes and squirrels (oh my!), and also how thermoregulation studies might help us with organ transplants. All this and more! Elena Gracheva is an assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine

This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Elena Gracheva about working with bats, snakes and squirrels (oh my!), and also how thermoregulation studies might help us with organ transplants. All this and more!

Elena Gracheva is an assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. 

"Have more fun" : Neurotalk S3E5 Randy Buckner

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This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Randy Bucker about the unsurprising surprising role of the prefrontal cortex in memory, the rapid expansion of association cortex in humans, and what to do with a quarter in an MRI machine. Dr. Buckner is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Harvard University.

This week on Neurotalk, we chat with Randy Buckner about the unsurprising surprising role of the prefrontal cortex in memory, the rapid expansion of association cortex in humans, and what to do with a quarter in an MRI machine, and more. 

Dr. Buckner is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Harvard University.

NeuroTalk S3E4 Highlight Reel

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Join us for this episode as we highlight unforgettable moments from NeuroTalk Seasons 1 and 2. Through short, memorable clips, we will explore the gripping stories of how our guests were inspired to become scientists, adventures studying different animal models, and gossip about different professors. We will also share the greatest moment in all of NeuroTalk (so far!).  Take a listen!

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Brains & Bourbon: Shots! Matt Figley & the Neuro Yeast

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Brains & Bourbon: Shots! is a short form version of our show Brains & Bourbon, where we sit down with a neuroscientist to discuss their work and share their favorite cocktail. In this first episode of Shots!, we chat with graduate student Matt Figley about using yeast to model complex cognitive disorders, plus more!

Brains & Bourbon: Shots! is a short form version of our show Brains & Bourbon, where we sit down with a neuroscientist to discuss their work and share their favorite cocktail.

In this first episode of Shots!, we chat with graduate student Matt Figley about using yeast to model complex neurological disorders, plus more!

 

NIH announces first round of BRAIN Initiative Awards

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NIH announces first round of BRAIN Initiative Awards

Stanford faculty members Mark Schnitzer, associate professor of applied physics and biology, and Michael Lin, assistant professor of pediatrics and bioengineering, were among the first round of BRAIN Initiative awardees announced on September 30. Their project is titled "Protein voltage sensors: kilohertz imaging of neural dynamics in behaving animals".

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Ask a Neuroscientist: The Limits of Handedness

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Ask a Neuroscientist: The Limits of Handedness

Can training over come innate ability? 

Whitney Ellen Heavner answers a question from a competitive video gamer who asks whether his reliance on his non-dominant hand puts him at a biological disadvantage to other players. Whitney discusses how fine grained handedness really is (do you have right/left preference at the level of individual fingers?), and whether all types of motor movements are affected by handedness bias. 

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Ask a Neuroscientist: What is the origin of psychopathology?

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Ask a Neuroscientist: What is the origin of psychopathology?

What is the origin of psychopathology? What do neuroscientists and psychologists today think of early efforts [by classical schools of psychoanalysis]? Why isn’t there a paper out there today entitled “The neural basis of Freudian repression of primitive drives”?

In this Ask a Neuroscientist, Becca Krock discusses Freud's efforts to link fundamental psychological phenomena with his cutting-edge knowledge of the brain, and the modern research that has followed in his footsteps.

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