From Our Neurons to Yours

Neuroscientists have spent the past few decades tracing the network of brain systems—some deep and emotional, and others more analytical and deliberate— that work together as we make tough choices like where to invest our money as well as more everyday decisions like which videos to watch online—or, for that matter, which podcast to listen to.

You can imagine that the ability to listen in on the brain systems that guide our choices ...

We are more isolated from one another than ever before — by our technology, by our political divides, and most of all, by our choices. 

This week on the show, we talk with neuroscientist Ben Rein about why this social isolation is terrible for our health — implicated in not only rising rates of mental illness, but also heart disease, dementia and more.

We discuss Ben's new book, "Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of...

Before the written word — and possibly even before speech — humans have communicated through drawing. From crude scratches in the dirt or on cave walls to the arcane symbology of the laboratory whiteboard, our instinct for conveying our thoughts visually is pretty extraordinary. 

We see or understand something in the world, we build an idea in our mind of what we think we see, and then using our hand and the utensil we re-create it ...

Imagine if you couldn't distinguish between dreams and reality. If you couldn't tell whether what you were seeing or hearing was really there in front of you. What if you discovered you couldn't trust your own perceptions? 

Psychosis is something three out of every a hundred people will experience at some point in their lifetimes. But what exactly is it, and is it something people can learn to live with?

Today we'...

Most of us can agree: music is awesome. Regardless of which songs speak to you, music probably plays an important role in your life. The question is, what makes music so powerful? Why does a particular combination of sounds and rhythms grab us and affect us in the way that it does? And is it true that music can help heal patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, PTSD, chronic pain, and more? 

To help us understand what we&ap...

In this episode, we explore the fascinating neuroscience behind how children learn to read with Bruce McCandliss, director of the Stanford Educational Neuroscience Initiative.

Key topics include:
• How our brains "recycle" visual and language circuits to create reading expertise
• The crucial threshold when reading shifts from effortful to automatic
• Why some children struggle more than others to develop readi...

Recognizing a familiar voice is one of the brain’s earliest social feats. But what are the brain circuits that let a newborn pick out mom in a crowded nursery? How do they change as kids turn toward friends and the wider world? And what are we learning about why this instinct fails to develop in the autistic brain?

This week, host Nicholas Weiler joins Stanford neuroscientist Dan Abrams on the quest to understand the neural “hub” th...

In this special crossover episode, we’re doing something a little different. From Our Neurons to Yours host Nicholas joins producer Michael Osborne to co-host his podcast Famous and Gravy for a lively conversation about the extraordinary life and mind of Stephen Hawking.

Hawking, one of the most renowned scientists of our time, lived with ALS for more than 50 years—defying medical expectations while also reshaping how we understand ...

If addiction is a disease of the brain, what does that mean for how we treat people—and how we write policy? In this wide-ranging conversation, Stanford addiction expert and policy advisor Keith Humphreys returns to the show to walk us through what neuroscience has taught us about substance use disorders and how that science intersects with law, public health, and politics.

From the biology of craving to the limits of autonomy, we e...

A generation ago, a big clot in the brain meant paralysis or worse. Today, doctors can diagnose clots on AI-enabled brain scans; provide life-saving, targeted medications; or snake a catheter from a patient’s groin into the brain to vacuum out the clot. If they intervene in time, they can watch speech and movement return before the sedatives wear off. How did that happen—and what’s still missing?

In this episode of From Our Neurons ...

We've all heard stories about someone who went in for surgery and came out...different. A grandmother who struggled with names after hip replacement, or an uncle who seemed foggy for months following cardiac bypass. But why does this happen to some people while others bounce right back?

This week, we explore this question with Dr. Martin Angst, a professor of anesthesiology at Stanford who's studying the biological factors...

Imagine being trapped in your own body, unable to move or communicate effectively. This may seem like a nightmare, but it is a reality for many people living with brain or spinal cord injuries.

We're re-releasing one of our favorite episodes from the archives: our 2024 conversation with Jaimie Henderson, a Stanford neurosurgeon leading groundbreaking research in brain-machine interfaces. Henderson shares how multiple ...

This week on the show, we're have our sights set on healthy aging. What would it mean to be able to live to 80, 90 or 100 with our cognitive abilities intact and able to maintain an independent lifestyle right to the end of our days? 

We're joined by Beth Mormino and Anthony Wagner who lead the Stanford Aging and Memory Study, which recruits cognitively healthy older adults to understand what makes their brains particularl...

This week on the show: Are we ready to create digital models of the human brain? 

Last month, Stanford researcher Andreas Tolias and colleagues created a "digital twin" of the mouse visual cortex. The researchers used the same foundation model approach that powers ChatGPT, but instead of training the model on text, the team trained in on brain activity recorded while mice watched action movies. The result? A digital model ...

If you spend any time chatting with a modern AI chatbot, you've probably been amazed at just how human it sounds, how much it feels like you're talking to a real person. Much ink has been spilled explaining how these systems are not actually conversing, not actually understanding — they're statistical algorithms trained to predict the next likely word. 

But today on the show, let's flip our perspective on this. W...

We've talked about glia and sleep. We've talked about glia and neuroinflammation. We've talked about glia in the brain fog that can accompany COVID or chemotherapy. We've talked about the brain's quiet majority of non–neuronal cells in so many different contexts that it felt like it was high time for us to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. After all, glia science was founded here at Stanford ...

As we gain a better understanding of how misfiring brain circuits lead to mental health conditions, we'd like to be able to go in and nudge those circuits back into balance. But this is hard — literally — because the brain is encased in this thick bony skull. Plus, often the problem you want to target is buried deep in the middle of a maze of delicate brain tissue you need to preserve.

Today we're going to be talking with ...

We're kicking off our new season with a deep dive into one of neuroscience's most fascinating mysteries: sleep. This unconscious third of our lives isn't just about rest – it's absolutely critical for brain health, memory consolidation, and overall well-being. But here's where it gets intriguing: recent research suggests that increased napping as we age might be an early warning sign of Alzheimer's dis...

Today, we are speaking with the one and only Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford neurobiologist, a MacArthur "Genius", and best-selling author of books exploring the nature of stress, social behavior, and — as he puts it — "the biology of the human predicament."

In his latest book, Determined, Sapolsky assertively lays out his vision of a world without free will — a world where as much as we feel like we'...