TWiN answers listener questions about Alzheimer’s disease, glaucoma and the microbiota, Dravet’s Syndrome, schizophrenia, brain development, and chips implanted in the human brain.
Jason and Tim review the use of an implanted chronic deep brain sensing and stimulation device to carry out biomarker-driven closed-loop therapy that resulted in a rapid and sustained improvement in depression.
Michael Nitabach joins TWiN to discuss the finding that the nematode C. elegans, which do not have eyes, can discriminate between colors to guide foraging decisions and move them away from harmful bacteria that produce a blue-pigment toxin.
Stefano joins TWiN to discuss his work on understanding genomic decoding of neuronal depolarization by stimulus-specific transcriptional regulators.
The TWiN team reveals how the nervous system controls hair graying in mice subjected to stress, and adaptive immune responses.
Bob Datta joins TWiN to reveal the findings of his laboratory on expression of SARS-CoV-2 entry genes in the olfactory epithelium and the implications for anosmia associated with COVID-19.
Erin and the TWiN team explain how dopamine neurons encode reward probability and uncertainty, and their roles in attention-based learning and risk-taking such as gambling and addiction.
The TWiN team explain the basic principles of synaptic transmission, and review a classic paper demonstrating that recycling endosomes are important for modifying synaptic strength, which is involved in information storage and processing.