Models of the Mind: How physics, engineering, and mathematics have shaped our understanding of the brain
Unsupervised Thinking
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3y ago
Grace wrote a book! And she talked to Brain Inspired host Paul Middlebrooks about it.   The book is about the many different ways mathematical methods have influenced neuroscience, from models of single cells all the way up to equations to explain behavior. You can learn more about the book and how to get it in e-book, audiobook, and hard cover worldwide here!  On this cross-posting of Brain Inspired, Grace talks about the book and the field of computational neuroscience more generally. Give it a listen and go check out other episodes of Brain Inspired for more great conversations.&n ..read more
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Unsupervised Thinking is on hiatus!
Unsupervised Thinking
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4y ago
As some listeners may know, UST co-host Grace Lindsay is writing a book. That book---a popular science take on the science, history, and philosophy of many different topics in computational neuroscience---is very nearly due to the publisher. As a result, time for podcasting (or really anything other than book writing...) is rapidly disappearing! So until further notice, there will be no new episodes of Unsupervised Thinking :( But please enjoy our catalogue of over 50 episodes covering neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and science more broadly ..read more
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Episode 51: Motor Control
Unsupervised Thinking
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4y ago
To some neuroscientists, the brain exists to produce movement and everything else it does should be understood in light of this goal. On this episode, we talk about these "motor chauvinists" and the broader topic of how motor control is studied in neuroscience and artificial intelligence. First we briefly discuss the tangled anatomy of motor control in animals. Then we get into how artificial motor control is done, including optimal feedback control, reinforcement learning, and the six core principles of hierarchical motor control. Finally we relate these principles back to the biology and tal ..read more
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Episode 50: Brain Organoids
Unsupervised Thinking
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4y ago
Most neuroscience research takes place in a full, live animal. But brain organoids are different. Brain organoids are three-dimensional blobs of brain grown from human stem cells and they offer novel access to the study of human brain development. On this episode we go beyond our computational comfort zone to talk about the history of stem cells, the potion of chemicals needed to get these little blobs to grow, and the extent to which they mimic features of the human brain when they do. We also discuss the promise of studying and treating disease through personalized organoids, and how this ge ..read more
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Episode 49: How Important is Learning?
Unsupervised Thinking
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4y ago
The age-old debate of nature versus nurture is now being played out between artificial intelligence and neuroscience. The dominant approach in AI, machine learning, puts an emphasis on adapting processing to fit the data at hand. Animals, on the other hand, seem to have a lot of built in structure and tendencies, that mean they function well right out of the womb. So are most of our abilities the result of genetically-encoded instructions, honed over generations of evolution? Or are our interactions with the environment key? We discuss the research that has been done on human brain development ..read more
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Episode 48: Studying the Brain in Light of Evolution
Unsupervised Thinking
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4y ago
The brain is the result of evolution. A lot of evolution. Most neuroscientists don't really think about this fact. Should we? On this episode we talk about two papers---one focused on brains and the other on AI---that argue that following evolution is the path to success. As part of this argument, they make the point that, in evolution, each stage along the way needs to be fully functional, which impacts the shape and role of the brain. As a result, the system is best thought of as a whole---not chunked into perception, cognition and action, as many psychologists and neuroscientists are wont t ..read more
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Episode 46: What We Learn from Model Organisms
Unsupervised Thinking
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5y ago
From worms to flies, and mice to macaques, neuroscientists study a range (but not very large range...) of animals when they study "the brain". On this episode we ask a lot of questions about these model organisms, such as: how are they chosen? should we use more diverse ones? and what is a model organism actually a model of? We also talk about how the development of genetic tools for certain animals, like mice, have made them the dominant lab animal and the difficulty of bringing a new model species onto the scene. We also get into the special role that simple organisms, like C. elegans, play ..read more
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Episode 45: How Working Memory Works
Unsupervised Thinking
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5y ago
Working memory is the ability to keep something in mind several seconds after it's gone. Neurons don't tend to keep firing when their input is removed, so how does the brain hold on to information when it's out of sight? Scientists have been probing this question for decades. On this episode, we talk about how working memory is studied and the traditional view of how it works, which includes elevated persistent firing rates in neurons in the prefrontal cortex. The traditional view, however, is being challenged in many ways at the moment. As evidence of that we read a "dueling" paper on the top ..read more
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Episode 44: Can a Biologist Fix a Radio?
Unsupervised Thinking
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5y ago
In 2002, cancer biologist Yuri Lazebnik raised and addressed the semi-facetious question "Can a biologist fix a radio?" in a short paper. The paper is a critique of current practices in the biological sciences, claiming they are inefficient at getting to truth. We discuss the stages of research progress in biological science Yuri describes, including the "paradoxical" stage where more facts leads to less understanding. We then dive into his view of how a biologist would approach a radio: describing what its parts look like, lesioning some of them, and making claims about what's necessary for t ..read more
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