As I wrote in my last post, the Janelia workshop I recently attended included a series of debates designed to stimulate discussion of broad topics in neuroscience. These debates were thought-provoking and super fun, especially the part where my side crushed the opposition (kidding). So I wanted to write up a couple of posts about some of the issues we discussed that I found the … Continue reading
Last week I attended a Junior Scientist Workshop at the Janelia Research Campus on “Neural Circuits and Behavior”. When I applied for this workshop I had no idea what it was going to be like, but I assumed it would be basically like a normal conference except that only postdocs and students would be invited. Uhh, nope. It was nothing like any conference I’ve ever … Continue reading
Some people have a great sense of direction. Even after wandering around town all day, stopping for lunch and perusing some stores and taking a few detours to compare which coffee shop looks the best, they still know exactly how to get back. Then there are those of us who get turned around and have to consult Google Maps every time we get out of … Continue reading
Ever wondered why you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? It’s the same reason why you can’t pick up a new language nearly as fast as your kid, or why your grandparents suck at typing. (Sorry Grandma.) It’s also the reason why sports stars or piano virtuosos are usually folks who have been practicing since they were barely out of the womb. Young brains … Continue reading
This week is SFN, the crazy annual neuroscience extravaganza attended by over 30,000 people. Last year I wrote about what it’s like to attend SFN, in all its awkward and nerdy glory. Alas, this year I’m not going, unlike almost everyone I know (goodbye husband, friends, and labmates; hello Netflix!). Instead of SFN, I just got back from the fruit fly neuroscience meeting at Cold … Continue reading
All of us can predict the future. No, we’re not psychic. But we can all learn. At its core, learning is predicting the future based on the past. When something good or bad unexpectedly happens, you learn what events or cues predict that outcome. Your brain is full of predictive associations. For example, I predict that eating a Godiva truffle will lead to several moments … Continue reading
Hey guys! As you may have noticed, Brains Explained took a bit of a summer hiatus. But I plan to get back into the swing of things, starting now! Today’s post may shed some light on where most of my summer went… Top 5 Similarities Between Planning a Wedding and Working in a Lab 1. Many opportunities for free food 2(a). Lots of Excel sheets and … Continue reading
Today I’m going to address one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience: how do our brains learn? People often compare the brain to a computer: both are able to process and store tons of information. But computers (generally) don’t learn. Your computer doesn’t mature over time or change its programming based on what worked and what didn’t. That’s why its same annoying habits or bugs will … Continue reading
We all know that Nature likes to publish sexy stories. Well, at least we scientists know. For the rest of you, Nature is one of the premier scientific journals that everyone and their mom tries to get their papers published in. The competition is brutal. Not only do you need to have a flawless story (as I’ve discussed before), it usually needs to be sexy, too. … Continue reading
If you’ve ever done research, then you know about variability. Probably too much about it, in fact. Variability means your results change from day to day, or from cell to cell, or animal to animal. This does not make us scientists happy. Especially for those of us who study animal behavior, which is particularly capricious, variability is the bane of our existence. Even when we … Continue reading