Shows / From Our Neurons to Yours
From Our Neurons to Yours
This award-winning show from Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute is a field manual for anyone who wants to understand their own brain and the new science reshaping how we learn, age, heal, and make sense of ourselves.
Each episode, host Nicholas Weiler sits down with leading scientists to unpack big ideas from the frontiers of the field—brain-computer interfaces and AI language models; new therapies for depression, dementia, and stroke; the mysteries of perception and memory; even the…
Episodes
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Brain development in the clinic and the classroom | Karen Parker & Jason Yeatman (with the Future of Everything podcast)
On today’s show, something special: a conversation we recorded live at our 13th Annual Symposium on “Building the Brain”. The event featured experts at the…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Predicting the brain: the Stanford Digital Brain Project | Dan Yamins & Russ Poldrack
This week, Wu Tsai Neuro launched the Stanford Digital Brain Project, an ambitious effort to build predictive models of the human brain. So today on the show…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
What an immune invasion teaches us about Alzheimer’s disease | Julia Belk
Today we’re going to be talking about a recent study that is rewriting neuroscience textbooks, potentially changing our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
What's on our brains: Behind the scenes of From Our Neurons to Yours
Today on the show we're doing something a little different. Quite different, actually. Nine seasons in, listeners might wonder: Why do we make this show? How…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How do our brains stay healthy as we age? | Tom Clandinin
Today on the show, we explore the complex biology underlying a seemingly straightforward question: How do our brains stay healthy – or not – as we age? There…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Sugar on the brain | Carolyn Bertozzi
Today on the show, we bring you a conversation with Carolyn Bertozzi, the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
After Ozempic: the revolution in peptide science | Jonathan Long
Health influencers and scientists have both gone crazy for peptides. The peptide health craze stems from a lot of online hype — centered on gray-market…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Transcranial magnetic stimulation and the future of psychiatry | Corey Keller
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is one of the most promising new technologies in psychiatry. Essentially, it allows us to reach inside the brain…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How brain imaging is transforming mental health (finally) | Leanne Williams
Back in the 1950s, doctors didn't know a whole lot about the heart. If someone came in with chest pain, clinicians would ask a few questions, then take a stab…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Is chronic fatigue a gut-brain reflex? (Big Ideas in Neuroscience) | Julia Kaltschmidt
Why does being sick make you so exhausted – and why does that exhaustion sometimes outlast the illness itself? Today, neuroscientist Julia Kaltschmidt returns…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Is neurodegeneration a waste-management problem? | Monther Abu-Remaileh
For decades, the field focused on the plaques and tangles of misfolded proteins that show up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
A new precision neuroscience of language (Big Ideas in Neuroscience) | Cory Shain
Right now, as you're reading this sentence, something remarkable is happening in your brain. Light waves from your screen hit your eyes, transform into…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How childhood (and Pokémon) shape how we see the world | Kalanit Grill-Spector
Today's episode is all about how childhood literally shapes the brain. Our most important experiences – from learning to read, to the growing complexity of our…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
The FDA's psychedelic sea-change: what accelerated clinical trials for psilocybin, methylone, and ibogaine mean for mental health and neuroscience research | Boris Heifets
Last month we saw a big shift in the federal government’s approach to psychedelic medicine. Specifically, following an executive order by President Trump, the…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Will work for dopamine: why hard work motivates us | Neir Eshel
Today’s episode is about the neuroscience of hard work—or maybe more specifically, the value we place on hard work. There’s something different about hiking to…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Could Parkinson's start in the gut? | Kathleen Poston
Traditionally, we think of Parkinson's as a movement disorder—defined by slowed movement, stiff muscles, and involuntary shaking. But it turns out there are…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How see-through brains could transform neuroscience (Big Ideas in Neuroscience) | Guosong Hong
What if we could make the brain see-through? It sounds like science fiction, but it could revolutionize how we study the brain. Today on the show, we're…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Could boosting gut–brain communication prevent memory loss? A tale of microbes, memory, and our internal senses | Christophe Thaiss
Our memories and senses are deeply connected—like how a favorite song can recreate a whole glorious teenage summer. It turns out this relationship might extend…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Why do some of us age faster than others? | Claire Bedbrook and Ravi Nath
Today on the show, why do some of us age faster than others? Why do some of us grow old and die before our time while others seem to simply endure? And most of…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
A new neuroscience of pregnancy (Big Ideas in Neuroscience) | Nirao Shah & Katrin Svensson
We know shockingly little about what goes on in a mother’s brain during pregnancy. For example, we know only a handful of the hormones involved—out of hundreds…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Why do our minds wander? What the brain's default mode tells us about our humanity | Vinod Menon
Here’s a question for you that may at first seem trivial, but is actually profound: Why do our minds drift? If you have ever dabbled in mindfulness or…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Is Alzheimer's an energy crisis in the brain? Inflammation, metabolism and a new path in the search for cures | Kati Andreasson
For decades, Alzheimer's research has focused on clearing amyloid plaques from the brain. But new drugs that successfully remove plaques have proven clinically…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
"The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines" | Jay McClelland
The AI revolution of the past few years is built on brain-inspired neural network models originally developed to study our own minds. The question is, what…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Could brain implants read our thoughts? | Erin Kunz
Imagine what it’s like to lose your ability to speak. You know what you want to say, but the connection between your brain and the muscles that form words is…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
NeuroForecasting: how brain activity can predict stock prices or viral videos | Brian Knutson
Neuroscientists have spent the past few decades tracing the network of brain systems—some deep and emotional, and others more analytical and deliberate— that…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
"Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection" | Ben Rein
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
From doodles to Descartes: sketching and the human cognitive toolkit | Judith Fan
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
What is psychosis? Navigating an altered reality | Jacob Ballon & Shannon Pagdon
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
"I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine" | Daniel Levitin
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How we learn to read (and why some struggle): what neuroscience teaches us about a transformative human technology | Bruce McCandliss
In this episode, we explore the fascinating neuroscience behind how children learn to read with Bruce McCandliss, director of the Stanford Educational…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Why voices light us up—but leave the autistic brain in the dark | Dan Abrams
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?…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Famous & Gravy: Cosmic Marketer and the Meaning of Life | Stephen Hawking
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Can brain science save addiction policy? | Keith Humphreys
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How basic science transformed stroke care | Marion Buckwalter
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Surgery as a window into brain resilience | Martin Angst
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Best of: How neural prosthetics could free minds trapped by brain injury | Jaimie Henderson
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
The secrets of resilient aging | Beth Mormino & Anthony Wagner
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Building AI simulations of the human brain | Dan Yamins
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
What ChatGPT understands: Large language models and the neuroscience of meaning | Laura Gwilliams
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
What the other half of the brain does | Brad Zuchero
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Stimulating the brain with sound | Kim Butts Pauly and Raag Airan
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Does good sleep insulate the brain against Alzheimer's? | Erin Gibson
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How to live in a world without free will | Robert Sapolsky
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…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
The power of psychedelics meets the power of placebo: ketamine, opioids, and hope in depression treatment | Boris Heifets & Theresa Lii
Join us as we dive back into the world of psychedelic medicine with anesthesiologists Boris Heifets and Theresa Lii, who share intriguing new data that sheds…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Seeing sounds, tasting colors: the science of synaesthesia with David Eagleman (re-release)
Today, we are going back into the archives for one of my favorite episodes: We are talking to neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and best-selling author, David…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
The BRAIN Initiative: the national vision for the future of neuroscience is now in doubt | Bill Newsome
Earlier this year, President Obama's signature BRAIN Initiative, which has powered advances in neuroscience for the past 10 years, had its budget slashed by…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
The cannabinoids within: how marijuana hijacks an ancient signaling system in the brain | Ivan Soltesz
Given the widespread legalization of cannabis for medical and recreational uses, you'd think we'd have a better understanding of how it works. But ask a…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Memory Palaces: the science of mental time travel and the brain's GPS system | Lisa Giocomo (Re-release)
Today we are re-releasing an episode we did last year with Stanford neurobiologist Lisa Giocomo exploring the intersection of memory, navigation and the…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Why new Alzheimer's drugs don't work | Mike Greicius, Stanford University School of Medicine
In the past few years, Big Pharma has released not one, but three new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Aducanemab (2021), Lecanemab (2023), and Donanemab…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Depression's distinctive fingerprints in the brain | Leanne Williams, Stanford University
Getting help for depression can be like purgatory. Setting aside for a moment the stigma and other barriers to seeking treatment in the first place, finding…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How the brain helps cancers grow | Michelle Monje
Today, we're talking with Stanford neuro-oncologist, Michelle Monje. This is actually the third time we've had Michelle on the show, in part because she's been…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Unraveling Timothy Syndrome: the new science of human brain development | Sergiu Pasca
This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we're talking about using new techniques for growing human brain tissue in the lab to solve a rare neurological…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How VR could help treat depression with "radical behaviorist" Dr. Kim Bullock
Today, we're going to talk about virtual reality and how it could be used to treat depression. We're talking with psychiatrist Kim Bullock, the founding…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Electronic skin and the future of wearable technology | Zhenan Bao
The skin is full of contradictions. It’s soft and sensitive, but also tough and resilient, even self-healing. It’s both the barrier that protects us from…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How a new kind of brain plasticity could help make sense of addiction | Michelle Monje and Rob Malenka
This week, we're diving into recent research that sheds light on a new form of brain plasticity involving changes in the insulation of nerve fibers — called…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Our plastic brains: learning, memory and aging with the one and only Carla Shatz (Rerelease)
-- We're re-releasing our conversation with Carla Shatz, one of our favorites from the archive, which comes up all the time on the show in the context of brain…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Programming Announcement
Hi everyone — quick programming announcement. As we head into summer, we'll be moving to an every-other-week cadence as we prepare more conversations from the…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Neuroscience and AI: What artificial intelligence teaches us about the brain (and vice versa) | Surya Ganguli
The powerful new generation of AI tools that has come out over the past few years — DALL-E, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and the rest — have blown away our old…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
How we remember, why we forget | Anthony Wagner
At some point in our lives, we all struggle with memory — learning a new name, remembering that book you were reading just yesterday or that word on the tip of…
- From Our Neurons to Yours
Psychedelics Part 2: How do drugs alter our perceptions? | Boris Heifets
Today, we're going to talk about how psychedelics alter our perception of reality and what that says about... reality! Welcome to part two of our conversation…