Elsa Fouragnan is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Plymouth. We talk mainly about her work on focussed transcranial ultrasound stimulation, a new non-invasive way other stimulating (human) brains, including deep areas that can't be reached with TMS. We also discuss her childhood in French Polynesia, how she started doing research, what it's like seeing a brain during surgery, and much more.

This was the first episode I recorded in-person. The audio quality is really good, with the minor exception that I made a really silly error during editing, such that quiet parts are sometimes not entirely audible. A few words are not audible, but this shouldn't affect comprehension.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Elsa's childhood in French Polynesia and in mainland France

0:10:25: Why Elsa studied engineering and started doing research

0:19:04: How Elsa started working on Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation

0:23:08: What is Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation?

0:28:20: Is it safe?

0:36:12: What can you do with it/what kind of stimulations is it?

0:53:41: The practicalities of using TUS

1:04:42: What it's like to see brain surgery in the operating theatre

1:10:11: Back to the skull being a problem and which brains regions can be reached with TUS?

1:18:49: The future of TUS

1:27:59: A book or paper more people should read

1:30:13: Something Elsa wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:34:51: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Elsa's links

• Website: https://geni.us/fouragnan-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fouragnan-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/fouragnan-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

Ua Pou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_Pou

Folloni, Verhagen, Mars, Fouragnan, ... & Sallet (2019). Manipulation of subcortical and deep cortical activity in the primate brain using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. Neuron.

Liptrot (2015). The Outrun.

Murphy & Fouragnan (2024). The future of transcranial ultrasound as a precision brain interface. PLoS Biology.

Yoo, Mittelstein, Hurt, Lacroix & Shapiro (2022). Focused ultrasound excites cortical neurons via mechanosensitive calcium accumulation and ion channel amplification. Nature Communications.

Yaakub, ... & Fouragnan (2024). Non-invasive Ultrasound Deep Neuromodulation of the Human Nucleus Accumbens Increases Win-Stay Behaviour. BioRxiv.

Melinda Baldwin is an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland. We talk about her work studying the history of Nature, scientific journals more broadly, what it means to be a scientist, peer review, the Tyndall project, and much more.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Melinda's chemistry-history double major

0:03:42: Why Melinda did a PhD on the history of Nature

0:07:06: The glorious beginning of Nature and the history of scientific journals

0:17:00: How Nature became a journal for scientists (rather than the educated general public)

0:19:59: When did scientists start calling themselves 'scientists'? The mergence of science as a profession

0:26:26: The history of peer review: How to get into Nature in the 19th century, and the rise of peer review during the Cold War

0:40:53: Establishing causality in historical research

0:48:33: The future of peer review

1:06:16: Tyndall, why?

1:19:02: A book or paper more people should read

1:22:24: Something Melinda wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:29:05: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Melinda's links

• Website: https://geni.us/baldwin-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/baldwin-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/baldwin-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

eLife peer review: https://elifesciences.org/about/peer-review

John Tyndall project: https://tyndallproject.com/

Baldwin (2017). In referees we trust? Physics Today.

Baldwin (2018). Scientific autonomy, public accountability, and the rise of “peer review” in the Cold War United States. Isis.

Baldwin (2019). Making" Nature" The History of a Scientific Journal.

Gordin (2012). The pseudoscience wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the birth of the modern fringe.

Poehler (2014). Yes please.

Zuckerman & Merton (1971). Patterns of evaluation in science: Institutionalisation, structure and functions of the referee system. Minerva.

Steve Fleming is a professor in psychology at University College London. I invited Steve to talk about his work on meta-cognition, but we ended up spending the entire episode talking about lab culture, starting a lab, applying for funding, Steve's background in music, and what drew him to do cognitive neuroscience. There's even a tiny discussion about consciousness research at the end.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Steve ran his lab in London from Croatia for a few years

0:23:57: Lessons as a PI: students and postdocs are adults and will figure it out

0:28:45: Learning more skills as a postdoc vs. starting a lab

0:41:13: Contacting departments to apply for grants

0:52:19: Steve's background in music

1:07:13: What drew Steve to cognitive science? A brief discussion of the future of consciousness research

1:27:23: A book or paper more people should read

1:33:02: Something Steve wishes he'd learnt sooner

1:38:16: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Steve's links

• Website: https://geni.us/sfleming-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fleming-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/fleming-bsky

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

FIL at UCL: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/

ERC Starting Grant: https://erc.europa.eu/apply-grant/starting-grant

Wellcome Trust Early-Career Award (without strict time restrictions): https://wellcome.org/research-funding/schemes/wellcome-early-career-awards

Example paper by Josh Mcdermott on music: McDermott, Schultz, Undurraga & Godoy (2016). Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music perception. Nature.

Carter (2002). Consciousness.

Chalmers (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of consciousness studies.

Dehaene, Al Roumi, Lakretz, Planton & Sablé-Meyer (2022). Symbols and mental programs: a hypothesis about human singularity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Isaacson (2021). The code breaker.

Marr (1982). Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information.

Pinker (1997). How the mind works.

Tononi (2004). An information integration theory of consciousness. BMC neuroscience.