A Podcast that Explores how neuroscience is unraveling the mystery of how our brain makes us human
Brain Science is a monthly podcast Brain Science, hosted by Ginger Campbell, MD. We explore how recent discoveries in neuroscience are helping unravel the mystery of how our brain makes us human. The content is accessible to people of all backgrounds.
This post is a little overdue!
Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior (2007) by Jill Becker, Karen Berkley, Nori Geary, James Herman, and Elizabeth Young, is a book from Oxford University Press that is attracting quite a bit of attention. It was reviewed in the March 21st issue of Science, but before that my friend Nancy Yanes-Hoffman sent me her review to share with you.
Evan Balaban writing in Science concluded:
All readers will learn something of value from this book, even if they don't agree with the views of particular authors. Information content is high, references are ample, and the continuity between different chapters has been skillfully coordinated. Science 21 March 2008:Vol. 319. no. 5870, pp. 1619 - 1620
Nancy Yanes-Hoffman offers a detailed review on her blog and while she has some criticisms she also concludes:
While scientists and researchers have long needed a book like Sex Differences, its readership should not be limited to academia. The questing student of any age will find answers to many thorny questions—as well as more challenges to his or her perspectives and relationships. Why Can't a Women be More Like a Man? Nancy Yanes-Hoffman, March 19, 2008
She also suggests sources for further reading.
Both reviewers agree that Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior addresses an area that has been underrepresented in the literature.
John J. Ratey, M.D.
Episode 33 of the Brain Science Podcast is an interview with Harvard physician, Dr. John Ratey, about his new book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.
We explore the exciting evidence about how exercise helps the brain. It stimulates the release of a number of different neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, but probably more importantly, it helps keeps these compounds balanced. We consider why exercise is so important in dealing with stress, in treating a wide range of mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder. There is also evidence that exercise improves our ability to learn and our ability to avoid the loss of mental agility associated with aging.
We explore the exciting evidence about how exercise helps the brain. It stimulates the release of a number of different neurotransmitters and neuropeptides, but probably more importantly, it helps keeps these compounds balanced. We consider why exercise is so important in dealing with stress, in treating a wide range of mental illnesses including depression, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder. There is also evidence that exercise improves our ability to learn and our ability to avoid the loss of mental agility associated with aging.
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This episode contains information that everyone can use. I hope you will share it with your friends and family.
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (2008), by John J. Ratey.
Dr. Ratey's website: Go here for more interview of Dr. Ratey and also to find links to the latest research about exercise and the brain.
A recent episode of the Brain Science Podcast was an interview with György Buzsáki author of Rhythms of the Brain. The significance of brain oscillations is a complex and somewhat controversial subject, so it is not surprising that the episode had generated mixed reviews. It is quite challenging to present an area of this sort, and I thought Dr. György Buzsáki did a good job of putting his work into layman's language.
I chose Rhythms of the Brain because several listeners requested it. One of those was Diane Jacobs, who is an energetic contributor to the Brain Science Podcast Discussion Forum. In a recent blog post Jacobs explains why this subject has captured her interest.
Jacobs is currently working on a transcript of the episode (31), which I will post when it is available. I want to publicly thank her for her efforts. You can read her blog post at http://humanantigravitysuit.blogspot.com/2008/03/oscillatory-matters.html.
Episode 32 of the Brain Science Podcast is a whirlwind (55 minute) tour of brain anatomy. It is based on David Bainbridge's new book: Beyond the Zonules of Zinn: A Fantastic Journey Through Your Brain (2008). Click here for some of the key illustrations from the book. I want to thank David for sharing these images, and I encourage everyone to read the book.
Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.
New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE. All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free. See the individual show notes for links the audio files.
György Buzsáki, author of Rhythms of the Brain (OUP 2006), is a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University. His book is a comprehensive review of the current state of research in the field of brain oscillations. It includes the role of these oscillations in sleep and memory. In Episode 31 of the Brain Science Podcast, Dr. Buzáki explains why the rhythms of the brain are important and reflects on why this field has been neglected by some neuroscientists. I think he makes a convincing case for the position that these rhythms are an essential component of brain function.
Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.
New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE. All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free. See the individual show notes for links the audio files.
György Buzsáki, Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers University.
Stephen Strogatz: known for his discovery of "small world" architecture.: His 2003 bestseller Sync: The emerging science of spontaneous order is aimed at a general audience
Nancy Kopell: mathematician: Buzsaki recommends her review of the analytical approaches to neuronal oscillators: We got Rhythm: Dynamical Systems of the Nervous System. N Am Math Soc 47: 6-16 (2000).
Zoltán Néda (Bebes-Bolyai University Romania): the spontaneous synchronization of hand clapping
Hermann Haken: German laser physicist who studies bidirectional causation.
The Science of Structure: Synergetics (1984).
John O'Keefe (University College, London): along with Lynn Nadel he discovered how the hippocampus forms a cognitive map of the world. He has shown how the timing of oscillations in the hippocampus are important.
"Independent rate and temporal coding in hippocampal pyramidal cells," by John Huxter, Neil Burgess, and John O'Keefe. Nature 425, 828-832 (23 October 2003).
David McCormick (Yale University): showed that neurons from the thalamus of a ferret can oscillate spontaneously. He has also studied the oscillations of place cells in the hippocampus.
David Hubel and Thorston Wiesel: along with Vernon Montcastle, they pioneered the use of single neuron recordings in the neocortex of casts and monkeys.
Montcastle, VB (1997), "The Columnar Organization of the Neocortex." Brain 102:01-722.
Claude Shannon: founder of Information Theory.
Jan Born (University of Lübeck, Germany): experiments with how sleep improves both memory and problem solving.
Basics of oscillations and synchrony.
What functions are accomplished by brain rhythms?
The role of hippocampal ripples in memory.
What happens to our brain rhythms while we sleep.
The importance of synchrony in saving energy in the brain.
This episode will appeal to listeners with a background in math or engineering, but Dr. Buzsáki provides numerous everyday examples that make the material accessible to everyone.
"Everyone has a brainstem, but it's tuned differently depending on what sounds are behaviorally relevant to a person; for example, the sounds of his or her mother tongue," Gandour said.
Nancy Yanes-Hoffman sent me this review of an article just published in the Journal of Neuroscience:
That was good!" "Do it again."
This is what the brain says when people use tobacco, as well as ‘hard drugs’ such as heroin. New research published in the February 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience indicates that the effects of nicotine and opiates on the brain's reward system are equally strong in a key pleasure-sensing areas of the brain – the nucleus accumbens.
"Testing rat brain tissue, we found remarkable overlap between the effects of nicotine and opiates on dopamine signaling within the brain’s reward centers," says Daniel McGehee, Associate Professor in Anesthesia & Critical Care at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
McGehee and colleagues are exploring the control of dopamine, a key neurotransmitter in reward and addiction. Dopamine is released in areas such as the nucleus accumbens by naturally rewarding experiences such as food, sex, some drugs, and the neutral stimuli or ‘cues’ that become associated with them.
Nicotine and opiates are very different drugs, but the endpoint, with respect to the control of dopamine signaling, is almost identical. “There is a specific part of the nucleus accumbens where opiates have been shown to affect behavior, and when we tested nicotine in that area, the effects on dopamine are almost identical,” says McGehee.
This research is important to scientists because it demonstrates overlap in the way the two drugs work, complementing previous studies that showed overlapping effects on physiology of the ventral tegmenal area, another key part of the brain’s reward circuitry. The hope is that this study will help identify new methods for treating addiction – and not just for one drug type.
"It also demonstrates the seriousness of tobacco addiction, equating its grip on the individual to that of heroin. It reinforces the fact that these addictions are very physiological in nature and that breaking away from the habit is certainly more than just mind over matter," says McGehee.
This work is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, T32GM07839 and F31DA023340 to JPB, DA015918 and DA019695 to DSM.
Jonathan P. Britt and Daniel S. McGehee, "Presynaptic Opioid and Nicotinic Receptor Modulation of Dopamine Overflow in the Nucleus Accumbens,"The Journal of Neuroscience, February 13, 2008 • 28(7):1672–1681
I get a monthly newsletter from BrainConnection, which is an educational website managed by Scientific Learning, the people who market Dr. Michael Merzenich's FastForward™ method for helping dyslexic children learn to read.
This month they have several language-related articles that might be of interest, including part 1 of a series about how children learn to talk and an article about the evolution of language. The latter article includes a discussion in favor of Chomsky's universal grammar, which many linguists still find to be quite fundamental to their work.
From the Blackwell Publishing website:
"On April 2nd Wiley-Blackwell celebrated the premiere issue of Mind, Brain, and Education with a reception at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
During the celebration, Kurt Fischer (Harvard University), Howard Gardner (Harvard University), Maryanne Wolf (Tufts University), and Stanislas Dehaene (Collège de France) discussed their recent findings regarding how brain science informs educational practice."
Episode 30 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language, by Christine Kenneally. We focus mostly on the first part of the book, which tells the story of how the study of language evolution has grown from almost a banned subject to a new field of inquiry called evolutionary linguistics. We also reflect on how recent findings in neuroscience like the importance of plasticity are influencing the field.
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New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE. All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free. See the individual show notes for links the audio files.
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
Stuart Shanker: Brain Science Podcast #7: Interview about bonobos
see also Brain Science Podcast #6: Discussion of The First Idea
Pinker, Steven, and Paul Bloom, "Natural Language and Natural Selection," Behavioral and Brains Sciences 13 (1990): 707-84.
Marc D. Hauser, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch (2002). "The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?" Science 298:1569-1579.
Christine Kenneally, The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (2007).
Stanley I. Greenspan and Stuart G. Shanker, The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, and Intelligence Evolved from our Primate Ancestors to Modern Humans (2004).
*Additional references can be found in Kenneally's book and at the websites of the scientists listed above. Also, be sure to check out Kenneally's blog for follow-up information.
I just listened to the February 6, episode of Science Talk, the podcast from Scientific American. Steve Mirsky talks with linguist Alice Gaby, from the University of California-Berkeley, about the relationship between language, culture, cognition and perception. This is very relevant to Episode 30 of the Brain Science Podcast (due out on February 8), which is about the evolution of language.
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