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Philosopher Patricia Churchland returns to the Brain Science Podcast

Ginger Campbell, MD — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:21:31 +0000

Patricia Churchland (photo by Nines Minequez)BSP 81 marks the return of philosopher Patricia Churchland, who I first interviewed back in Episode 55. Our recent conversation focuses on her latest book, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. We discuss the historical background and contrast Churchland's approach to that of Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape. Then Professor Churchland discusses how recent discoveries in neuroscience are shedding light on the evolutionary origins of morality.

It's a fascinating conversation that you won't want to miss.

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Exploring Alabama with Roger Reid (BI 46)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:39:16 +0000

Roger ReidRoger Reid has a job that every kid and most adults would find fascinating. He works for the Alabama Museum of Natural History and travels all over Alabama as a writer and producer for the Emmy Award winning TV show, Discovering Alabama with Dr. Doug Phillips . He also shares his passion for natural history in a series of novels written for middle school age readers. I decided to interview him for Books and Ideas because I wanted to share these novels with my listeners. They combine mystery and science in an original way, but they also contain compelling characters that readers will care about.

Episode 46 of Books and Ideas is an unusual episode because we don't just talk about Reid's novels. We also explore some of the little known treasures of Alabama's natural history. I guarantee surprises, even for those of you who call Alabama home. But I also hope that listeners around the world will gain a new appreciation for the natural resources of Alabama.

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Books by Roger Reid:

Longleaf (2006): set in the Conecuh National Forest
Space (2008): set at the Swanson Observatory on Monte Sano in Huntsville, Alabama.
Time (2011): set at the Stephen C Menkin Paleozoic Footprint Site, near Jasper, Alabama

See the episode transcript for additional links.

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Brain Science Podcast: 5th Annual Review Episode

Ginger Campbell, MD — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 00:25:00 +0000

Original Logo from 2006I launched the Brain Science Podcast in December 2006, so to celebrate I am posting my Fifth Annual Review Episode (BSP 80). This podcast includes a review of the highlights from this year's episodes along with my reflections on what we have learned about brain health over the last few years. I also take a look ahead to 2012 when I hope to continue to produce a Brain Science Podcast every month.

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Ginger Campbell Celebrates Five Years of Podcasting (BI 45)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:17:55 +0000

Ginger Campbell and GretaIn December 2006 I launched 2 podcasts: Books and Ideas and the Brain Science Podcast. In Episode 45 of Books and Ideas I take a few minutes to look back on my five years in podcasting and to thank some of my many guests.

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Show Notes:

The focus of this episode was to thank each of the 33 people who have been featured on Books and Ideas so far.

Historians: Matthew Cobb, Holly Tucker, and Jennifer Michael Hecht
Scientists: Lee Silver, Pamela Gay, Robert Schleip, Eugenie Scott, Les Johnson, Daniel George, Sheril Kirshenbaum, and Frank Wilczek
Philosophers: Massimo Pigliucci and Tom Clark
Physicians: Paul Offit, Robert Martenson, Neel Varshney, and Steven Novella
Fiction Writers: Mur Lafferty, Christiana Ellis, Scott Sigler, Tabitha Grace Smith, Skyler White, and Karen Traviss
Psychologists: Delany Dean, Eric Maisel, Bruce Hood and Carol Tavris
Other Writers: Dan Ariely, Sue Bailey, and Carmen Flowers
Special Guests: Patrick Pricken, Kirk McElhearn and Kyla Duffy

Click here for a complete list of guests (in alphabetical order).

Click here for a complete list of episodes.

Announcements:

In addition to its Facebook Fan Page, Books and Ideas now has a page on Google+.
The Books and Ideas app is now available for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
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Both of my podcasts are supported by listener donations.
Send me feedback at gincampbell at mac dot com.

Miguel Nicolelis on Brain-Machine Interfaces (BSP 79)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:28:20 +0000

Dr. Miguel NicolelisMiguel Nicolelis at Duke University is pioneering brain-machine interfaces. In his book Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives he puts his groundbreaking work into an historical context. I discussed his book briefly in BSP 78, but I have now posted an in depth interview. The focus of our conversation is on why his work challenges longstanding assumptions about the primacy of the single neuron in brain function.

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Karen Traviss on Writing for Gears of War (BI 44)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:32:26 +0000

Karen TravissThe thing that draws me to novels by Karen Traviss is her characters and her recent series of novels based on the popular Gears of Wars videogame delivers a character-driven story of surprising depth. In fact, even though the recently released game Gears of War 3 (also written by Traviss) brings the games to an end, Traviss is still working on the 5th and final Gears of War novel, which is scheduled for release next spring.

I was fortunate to interview Traviss last month, shortly after the release of Gears of War 3. The interview is spoiler free, but even if you don't play video games this interview will give you a new insight the role of writing in this emerging genre.

Listen to Karen Traviss (BI 44)

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References and Links:

KarenTraviss.com
Aspho Fields by Karen Traviss
Dr. Campbell's mini-review of Hard Contact (Star Wars: Republic Commando, Book 1) by Karen Traviss
"Mad World" video from YouTube (embedded below)

More Fiction Authors:

BI 17: Mur Lafferty, podcasting pioneer and author of Playing for Keeps
BI 18: Tabitha Grace Smith lead writer of Buffy Between the Lines
BI 35: Scott Sigler, best-selling author of Contagious and Galactic Football League series
BI 38: Christiana Ellis (Nina Kimberly the Merciless) and Skyler White (and Falling, Fly)

Announcements:

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Send Dr. Campbell email at gincampbell at mac dot com.
Meet Dr. Campbell at SCIENCEONLINE 2012 in January 2012.

Listen to Karen Traviss (BI 44)

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Latest Brain Science Podcast looks at Brain-Machine Interfaces

Ginger Campbell, MD — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:16:47 +0000

In his book Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis puts his recent work with brain machine interfaces into historical context and explains why this work should change the way we understand how brains work. Nicolelis challenges several long-standing assumptions including the primacy of the single neuron and strict localization, which is the idea that each area of the brain has a relatively fixed function.

Episode 78 of the Brain Science Podcast is a brief discussion of the key ideas presented in Beyond Boundaries, including a look at the implications of experiments such as the wide publicized work that culminated in demonstrating that a monkey in Nicolelis' lab at Duke (North Carolina, USA) could control a robot arm in Japan using only its brain.

Listen to Episode 78

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Cognitive Dissonance with Carol Tavris, PhD (Books and Ideas #43)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 09:00:06 +0000

Carol Tavris, PhD Click for audioThe theory of cognitive dissonance is not new but Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson makes cognitive dissonance accessible to everyone, and, more importantly, Tavris and Aronson make it clear why we should care. As Dr. Tavris explained in a recent interview (Books and Ideas #43), "cognitive dissonance is a theory of blind spots." Appreciating how our brains automatically strive to decrease the discomfort we feel when faced with conflicting beliefs, can help us become aware of how these blind spots effect our behavior and attitudes.

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Cognitive dissonance is also revelevant to anyone with an interest in science because as Dr. Tavris noted: "the scientific method is designed to create dissonance—in a way, we could say this. This is one of the reasons science is so unpopular—I should say is so difficult—because scientists are humans, and scientists don’t like it when their predictions are disconfirmed. But, you see, as we now understand, the mind is designed for consistency, for consonance; it’s designed to notice, and remember, and confirm evidence that supports our beliefs, and to forget and ignore information that is dissonant with our beliefs.

It’s such an interesting thing for those of us interested in skepticism and science, because the scientific method is designed to create dissonance—in a way, we could say this. This is one of the reasons science is so unpopular—I should say is so difficult—because scientists are humans, and scientists don’t like it when their predictions are disconfirmed. But, you see, as we now understand, the mind is designed for consistency, for consonance; it’s designed to notice, and remember, and confirm evidence that supports our beliefs, and to forget and ignore information that is dissonant with our beliefs."

Links and References

Carol Tavris, PhD: social psychologist, author, and public speaker.
Leon Festinger, PhD (1957) A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford Univeristy Press.
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson.
The Social Animal by Elliot Aronson. This is a classic text in social psychology.
50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior by Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, John Ruscio, Barry L. Beyerstein (Dr. Lilienfeld was interviewed in Brain Science Podcast #70.)
The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation by Drew Westen.
McCabe, D.P., & Castel, A.D. (2008). Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107, 343-352.
See episode transcript for additional references.

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Announcements

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Post comments about this episode in our Goodreads thread or on the Books and Ideas Fan Page on Facebook.
The next episode of Books and Ideas will be an interview with science fiction author Karen Traviss.
This episode will appear in the feed of the Brain Science Podcast in early October.

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Neurobiology of Placebos with Fabrizio Benedetti (BSP 77)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:46:56 +0000

Fabrizio Benedetti, MD (click for audio)Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti is one of the world's leading researchers of the neurobiology of placebos. In a recent interview (BSP 77) he explained to me that he believes that "today we are in a very good position to describe, from a biological and from an evolutionary approach, the doctor-patient relationship, and the placebo effect, itself."

To appreciate Dr. Benedetti's work one must first realize that his approach differs from that of the typical clinical trial. As he observed, "To the clinical trialist, a placebo effect means any improvement which may take place after placebo administration. To the neurobiologist, a placebo response, or placebo effect means only something active in the brain happening after placebo administration: learning, anxiety reduction, activation of reward mechanisms."

In contrast, he explains "The real placebo response, the real placebo effect is a psychobiological phenomenon. It is something active happening in the brain after placebo administration: like learning, like anxiety reduction, and such like." Brain Science Podcast 77 provides an introduction to this complex, but fascinating topic.

Listen to Episode 77

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How to Avoid Choking with Sian Beilock (BSP 76)

Ginger Campbell, MD — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:51:12 +0000

Sian Beilock, PhDIn her book Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock explores the dreaded phenomena of choking (ie. the failure to perform as expected under pressure). More importantly she provides practical suggestions for preventing poor performance.

In the latest episode of the Brain Science Podcast (BSP 76) I talk with her about the different types of choking; it turns out that the failure mechanisms between blowing the big test and missing the key shot in sports are significantly different. Understanding both how they differ and what they have in common is the key to better performance.

Learn more by listening to BSP 76 (right click to download)

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