Benjamin Ehrlich is the author of the recent biography of Santiago Ramon y Cajal (The brain in search of itself), and The Dreams of Santiago Ramon y Cajal. We talk about Cajal's life and work, Cajal's unlikely beginnings in a rural Spain, how he discovered that neurons were separate from each other, leading to the neutron doctrine, how Cajal became famous seemingly overnight, Cajal's rivalry with Camillo Golgi, the relationship between art and science, how to write a biography of someone whose autobiographical writings were heavily influenced by picaresque novels, 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: Why Cajal is worth talking about
0:01:42: Cajal's father
0:04:48: Cajal's childhood
0:17:22: Cajal's early work on the brain, and the status of neuroscience in the 1880s
0:23:45: The conference that made Cajal famous
0:29:42: Cajal's years as a famous scientist
0:35:33: Cajal's personality
0:41:14: Cajal & Golgi's rivalry
0:45:48: del Rio and the discovery of glia cells
0:49:13: Picaresque novels and the difficulty of trusting Cajal's stories of himself
1:02:52: A book or paper more people should read
1:04:14: Something Ben wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:04:57: Advice for PhD students/postdocs - people in a transitory period

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Ben (Ehrlich)'s links

• Website: http://www.benehrlich.com/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/benehrlich11

Ben (Kuper-Smith)'s links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References & links

Kölliker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_von_K%C3%B6lliker
Golgi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camillo_Golgi
del Rio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%ADo_del_R%C3%ADo_Hortega

Calvino (1972). Invisible cities.
Ehrlich (2017). The Dreams of Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
Ehrlich (2022). The brain in search of itself: Santiago Ramón y Cajal and the story of the neuron.
Pitlor & Lee (editors). The Best American Short Stories 2023 .

Emily Finn is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. We talk about her research on neural fingerprinting, naturalistic stimuli, how Emily got into science, the year she spent in Peru before her PhD, advice for writing well, and much more.

There are occasional (minor) audio disturbances when Emily's speaking. Sorry about that, still trying to figure out where they came from so that it won't happen again.

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: Supportive peer review
0:03:25: Why study linguistics?
0:11:05: Uncertainties about doing a PhD/taking time off
0:18:05: Emily's year-and-a-half in Peru
0:25:17: Emily's PhD
0:29:34: Neural fingerprints
0:49:25: Naturalistic stimuli in neuroimaging
1:24:01: How to write good scientific articles
1:30:55: A book or paper more people should read
1:34:58: Something Emily wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:39:20: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Emily's links

• Website: https://geni.us/finn-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/finn-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/finn-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References and links

Episode w/ Nachum Ulanovsky: https://geni.us/bjks-ulanovsky

Byrge & Kennedy (2019). High-accuracy individual identification using a “thin slice” of the functional connectome. Network Neuroscience.
Burkeman (2021). Four thousand weeks: Time management for mortals.
Finn, ... & Constable (2014). Disruption of functional networks in dyslexia: a whole-brain, data-driven analysis of connectivity. Biological psychiatry.
Finn, Shen, ... & Constable (2015). Functional connectome fingerprinting: identifying individuals using patterns of brain connectivity. Nature Neuroscience.
Finn, ... & Constable (2018). Trait paranoia shapes inter-subject synchrony in brain activity during an ambiguous social narrative. Nature Communications.
Finn, ... & Bandettini (2020). Idiosynchrony: From shared responses to individual differences during naturalistic neuroimaging. NeuroImage.
Finn & Bandettini (2021). Movie-watching outperforms rest for functional connectivity-based prediction of behavior. NeuroImage.
Finn (2021). Is it time to put rest to rest?. Trends in cognitive sciences.
Finn & Rosenberg (2021). Beyond fingerprinting: Choosing predictive connectomes over reliable connectomes. NeuroImage.
Grall & Finn (2022). Leveraging the power of media to drive cognition: A media-informed approach to naturalistic neuroscience. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Hasson, ... & Malach (2004). Intersubject synchronization of cortical activity during natural vision. Science.
Hedge, Powell & Sumner (2018). The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences. Behavior research methods.
Sava-Segal, ... & Finn (2023). Individual differences in neural event segmentation of continuous experiences. Cerebral Cortex.

David Van Essen is an Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about David's path to becoming a neuroscientist, the Human Connectome project, hierarhical processing in the cerebral cortex, 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: David's childhood: ravens, rockets, and radios
0:05:00: From physics to neuroscience (via chemistry)
0:13:55: Quantitative and qualitative approaches to science
0:19:17: Model species in neuroscience
0:31:35: Hierarchical processing in the cortex
0:46:54: The Human Connectome Project
0:55:00: A book or paper more people should read
0:58:01: Something David wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:00:31: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

David's links

• Website: https://geni.us/VanEssen-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/VanEssen-scholar

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References & links

David's autobiographical sketch for the Society for Neuroscience (in Volume 9): https://www.sfn.org/about/history-of-neuroscience/autobiographical-chapters

Felleman & Van Essen (1991). Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. Cerebral Cortex.
Glasser, Coalson, Robinson, Hacker, Harwell, Yacoub, ... & Van Essen (2016). A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex. Nature.
Hubel & Wiesel (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The Journal of physiology.
Maunsell & Van Essen (1983). The connections of the middle temporal visual area (MT) and their relationship to a cortical hierarchy in the macaque monkey. Journal of Neuroscience.
Sheldrake (2021). Entangled life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures.
Van Essen & Kelly (1973). Morphological identification of simple, complex and hypercomplex cells in the visual cortex of the cat. In Intracellular Staining in Neurobiology (pp. 189-198).
Van Essen & Maunsell (1980). Two‐dimensional maps of the cerebral cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology.
Van Essen (2012). Cortical cartography and Caret software. Neuroimage.
Van Essen, Smith, Barch, Behrens, Yacoub, Ugurbil & WU-Minn HCP Consortium. (2013). The WU-Minn human connectome project: an overview. Neuroimage.
Wooldridge (1963). The machinery of the brain.

Nachum Ulanovsky is a professor at the Weizman Institute. We talk about his research on spatial navigation in bats, how Nachum started working with bats, the importance of natural behaviour, how to build a 700m long tunnel for neuroscience, and much more.

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

Timestamps
0:00:00: How Nachum started working with bats
0:09:29: The technical difficulties of working with bats and in a new species
0:16:03: The Egyptian Fruit Bat
0:19:42: Wild bats vs lab-born bats / spatial navigation in very large spaces
0:26:28: How to build a 700m long tunnel for neuroscience
0:44:30: 2 random questions about bats
0:53:48: The social lives of bats & social place cells
1:05:09: Why are there so many types of cells for spatial navigation?
1:13:01: Natural neuroscience
1:17:33: A book or paper more people should read
1:20:39: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Nachum's links

• Website: https://geni.us/ulanovsky-web

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References & links
Bracken Cave in Texas, with millions of bats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNPioS_roRE
The Onion video on scientist who wasted life studying anteaters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXD9HnrNrvk

Eilam-Altstadter ... (2021). Stereotaxic brain atlas of the Egyptian fruit bat.
Eliav ... (2021). Multiscale representation of very large environments in the hippocampus of flying bats. Science.
Finkelstein ... (2015). Three-dimensional head-direction coding in the bat brain. Nature.
Geva-Sagiv ... (2015). Spatial cognition in bats and rats: from sensory acquisition to multiscale maps and navigation. Nat Rev Neuro.
Geva-Sagiv ... (2016). Hippocampal global remapping for different sensory modalities in flying bats. Nat Neuro.
Hafting ... (2005). Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature.
Hodgkin & Huxley (1952). A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve. The J phys.
Hubel & Wiesel (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The J phys.
Lettvin... (1959). What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain. Proceedings of IRE.
Miller (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two ... Psych Rev.
O'Keefe & Dostrovsky (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map ... Brain research.
Omer ... (2018). Social place-cells in the bat hippocampus. Science.
Sarel ... (2017). Vectorial representation of spatial goals in the hippocampus of bats. Science.
Sarel ... (2022). Natural switches in behaviour rapidly modulate hippocampal coding. Nature.
Tsoar ... (2011). Large-scale navigational map in a mammal. PNAS.
Ulanovsky ... (2003). Processing of low-probability sounds by cortical neurons. Nature neuroscience.
Ulanovsky & Moss (2007). Hippocampal cellular and network activity in freely moving echolocating bats. Nat Neuro.
Yartsev & Ulanovsky (2013). Representation of three-dimensional space in the hippocampus of flying bats. Science.

Tom Hardwicke is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. We talk about meta-science, incuding Tom's work on post-publication critique and registered reports, what his new role as editor at Psychological Science entails, 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: What is meta-science/meta-research?
0:03:15: How Tom got involved in meta-science
0:21:51: Post-publication critique in journals
0:39:30: How Tom's work (registered reports) led to policy changes at journals
0:44:08: Tom is now the STAR (statistics, transparency, and rigor) editor at Psychological Science
0:48:17: How to best share data that can be used by people with different backgrounds
0:54:51: A book or paper more people should read
0:56:36: Something Tom wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:00:13: Jobs in meta-science
1:03:29: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Tom's links

• Website: https://geni.us/hardwicke-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/hardwicke-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/hardwicke-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References & links
Episodes w/ Nosek, Vazire, & Chambers:
https://geni.us/bjks-nosek
https://geni.us/bjks-vazire
https://geni.us/bjks-chambers
Foamhenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foamhenge
METRICS: https://metrics.stanford.edu/
AIMOS: https://www.youtube.com/@aimosinc4164

Chambers & Mellor (2018). Protocol transparency is vital for registered reports. Nature Human Behaviour.
Hardwicke, Jameel, Jones, Walczak & Weinberg (2014). Only human: Scientists, systems, and suspect statistics. Opticon1826.
Hardwicke & Ioannidis (2018). Mapping the universe of registered reports. Nature Human Behaviour.
Hardwicke, Serghiou, Janiaud, Danchev, Crüwell, Goodman & Ioannidis (2020). Calibrating the scientific ecosystem through meta-research. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application.
Hardwicke, Thibault, Kosie, Tzavella, Bendixen, Handcock, ... & Ioannidis (2022). Post-publication critique at top-ranked journals across scientific disciplines: a cross-sectional assessment of policies and practice. Royal Society Open Science.
Hardwicke & Vazire (2023). Transparency Is Now the Default at Psychological Science. Psychological Science.
Kidwell, Lazarević, Baranski, Hardwicke, Piechowski, Falkenberg, ... & Nosek (2016). Badges to acknowledge open practices: A simple, low-cost, effective method for increasing transparency. PLoS biology.
Nosek, Hardwicke, Moshontz, Allard, Corker, Dreber, ... & Vazire (2022). Replicability, robustness, and reproducibility in psychological science. Annual review of psychology.
Ritchie (2020). Science fictions: Exposing fraud, bias, negligence and hype in science.

Jessica Polka is Executive Director of ASAPbio, a non-profit that promotes innovation and transparency in life science publishing. We talk about her work at ASAPbio, how she got into it, preprints, the many functions of peer review, 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: The Jessica-Polka
0:01:25: What is ASAPbio?
0:03:53: Do we still need to convince people to use preprints in 2024? / Different uses for preprints
0:17:53: Are preprints really that beneficial?
0:24:05: Peer review's many functions and audiences
0:36:36: Do we still need journals?
0:41:27: Why should we publish peer review?
0:54:08: What can we do as individual scientists (other than hope for systemic change)?
0:56:55: How Jessica got involved with ASAPbio, and her day-to-day work
1:08:20: A book or paper more people should read
1:11:13: Something Jessica wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:13:18: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Jessica's links

• Website: https://geni.us/polka-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/polka-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/polka-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

Links mentioned

The Jessica-Polka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=lDdnQytp2eY
(there seem to be many versions)
ASAPbio: https://asapbio.org/
Review Commons: https://www.reviewcommons.org/
Jessica's interview with Everything Hertz: https://everythinghertz.com/51
The Ingelfinger rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingelfinger_rule
Crowd preprint review: https://asapbio.org/crowd-preprint-review
Peer Community in Registered Reports: https://rr.peercommunityin.org/
cOAlition S: Towards Responsible Publishing: https://www.coalition-s.org/towards-responsible-publishing/
https://scite.ai
Publish your reviews: https://asapbio.org/publishyourreviews
ASAPbio fellows program: https://asapbio.org/fellows

References
Abbott (1884). Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions.
Cialdini (1984). Influence: The psychology of persuasion.
Eckmann & Bandrowski (2023). PreprintMatch: A tool for preprint to publication detection shows global inequities in scientific publication. Plos One.
Moran & Lennington (2013). The 12 Week Year: Get more Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months.
Penfold & Polka (2020). Technical and social issues influencing the adoption of preprints in the life sciences. PLoS Genetics.
Polka, Kiley, Konforti, Stern & Vale (2018). Publish peer reviews. Nature.

Brian Boyd is a Distinguished Professor in English and Drama at the University of Auckland. We talk mainly about Vladimir Nabokov: Brian wrote the defining biography on Nabokov (in addition to books on more specific aspects about Nabokov), so we discuss Nabokov's life & work, Brian's approachh to writing biographies, with some hints of the new biography Brian is writing about Karl Popper.

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: Why this is a special episode for me
0:07:02: Nabokov's family & childhood
0:15:54: The Russian Revolution, starting in 1917
0:19:52: Nabokov's study years in Cambridge and emigre years in Berlin in the 1920s and 30s
0:30:19: Nabokov's early American years: teaching and butterflies
0:35:56: Nabokov's Russian vs English works, and the problem of translations
0:41:48: Lolita
0:50:13: Pale Fire
1:02:46: Nabokov's writing process
1:07:26: Nabokov's reception
1:10:00: Writing Nabokov's biography: how it started, meeting Nabokov's family, researching and writing, and the responsibility of writing the defining work on someone
1:28:26: Which Nabokov book should new readers read first?
1:30:58: A book or paper more people should read
1:35:03: Something Brian wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:38:47: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Brian's links

• Website: https://geni.us/boyd-web

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References and links

The estate Nabokov inherent and immediately lost in th revolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rozhdestveno_Memorial_Estate

Ada online, Brian's line-by-line annotations to Nabokov's Ada: https://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/

Boyd (1985/2001). Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness.
Boyd (1990). Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years.
Boyd (1991). Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years.
Boyd & Pyle (eds) (2000). Nabokov’s Butterflies .
Boyd (2001). Nabokov's Pale Fire: The Magic of Artistic Discovery.
Grass (1959). Die Blechtrommel.
James (1897). What Maisie Knew.
Machado de Assis (1882). The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. [The 2 new translations are by Thomson-DeVeaux (Penguin Classics), and by Jull Costa & Patterson (Liveright)]
Nabokov (1929). The (Luzhin) Defense.
Nabokov (1936). Invitation to a Beheading.
Nabokov (1947). Bend Sinister.
Nabokov (1955). Lolita.
Nabokov (1957). Pnin.
Nabokov (1962). Pale Fire.
Nabokov (1967). Speak, Memory.
Nabokov (1969). Ada or Ardor.
Tarnowsky (1908). Les femmes homicides. [Nabokov's great-aunt; see also: Huff-Corzine & Toohy (2023). The life and scholarship of Pauline Tarnowsky: Criminology's mother. Journal of Criminal Justice]
Vila, Bell, Macniven, Goldman-Huertas, Ree, Marshall, ... & Pierce (2011). Phylogeny and palaeoecology of Polyommatus blue butterflies show Beringia was a climate-regulated gateway to the New World. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Camillo Padoa-Schioppa is a Professor of Neuroscience at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about Camillo's work on economic values in the brain, whether it is causally involved in choice, Camillo's career, working with different species, 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: The historic background of economic value
0:12:31: How Camillo became a neuroeconomist
0:38:50: What does neuroscience add to our understanding of behaviour?
0:47:52: Value in the brain / discussing Camillo's 2006 Nature paper
1:05:47: Does the brain even need to compute value?
1:11:59: Causality in neuroscience / discussing Camillo's 2020 Nature paper
1:27:19: Trivial decisions
1:31:26: Is it wise to do neuroscience in humans and in animals, or should I focus on one approach?
1:40:15: A book or paper more people should read
1:43:19: Something Camillo wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:45:53: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Camillo's links

• Website: https://geni.us/padoa-schioppa-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/padoa-schioppa-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/padoa-schioppa-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References
Ballesta ... & Padoa-Schioppa (2020). Values encoded in orbitofrontal cortex are causally related to economic choices. Nature.
Bentham (1780). An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation.
Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual review of psychology.
Hayden & Niv (2021). The case against economic values in the orbitofrontal cortex (or anywhere else in the brain). Behavioral Neuroscience.
Homer. Iliad.
Homer. Odyssey.
Padoa-Schioppa (2009). Range-adapting representation of economic value in the orbitofrontal cortex. Journal of Neuroscience.
Padoa-Schioppa (2011). Neurobiology of economic choice: a good-based model. Annual review of neuroscience.
Padoa-Schioppa & Assad (2006). Neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex encode economic value. Nature.
Padoa-Schioppa & Conen (2017). Orbitofrontal cortex: a neural circuit for economic decisions. Neuron.
Padoa-Schioppa ... & Visalberghi (2006). Multi-stage mental process for economic choice in capuchins. Cognition.
Padoa-Schioppa, Li & Bizzi (2002). Neuronal correlates of kinematics-to-dynamics transformation in the supplementary motor area. Neuron.
Smith (1759). The theory of moral sentiments.
Salzman ... & Newsome (1990). Cortical microstimulation influences perceptual judgements of motion direction. Nature.
Salzman ... & Newsome (1992). Microstimulation in visual area MT: effects on direction discrimination performance. Journal of Neuroscience.
Visalberghi & Trinca (1989). Tool use in capuchin monkeys: Distinguishing between performing and understanding. Primates.

Episode w/ Smaldino: https://geni.us/bjks-smaldino_2