Knight Initiative News

A conversation about microbes, memory, and our internal senses with Wu Tsai Neuro gut–brain expert Christoph Thaiss

We speak with Wu Tsai Neuro postdocs Claire Bedbrook and Ravi Nath about their new study that found that an animal's lifespan can be predicted surprisingly early by just looking at their behavior

We speak with neuroscientist Nirao Shah and endocrinologist Katrin Svensson about the Stanford Neuro-Pregnancy Initiative, part of Wu Tsai Neuro's Big Ideas in Neuroscience program

We speak with cognitive scientist Vinod Menon about the brain networks behind day dreaming, rumination, and our sense of self

We speak with neurologist Katrin Andreasson about new links between inflammation, metabolism and new hopes for treating neurodegeneration

We speak with cognitive scientist and MBCT director Jay McClelland about his new book and the relationship between the neural networks powering our brains and our AI systems

Join us as we talk with Erin Kunz about building brain-computer interfaces to restore speech to people with paralysis, and recent research testing whether this technology could accidentally read out private thoughts

Join us as we talk with Brian Knutson, a professor of psychology in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences about the frontiers of neuroeconomics, bridging psychology, economics, and neuroscience

In which we discuss how bad social isolation is for our brains with neuroscientist and author Ben Rein

In which we discuss the neuroscience of sketching ideas with Stanford psychologist Judy Fan

In which we discuss the neuroscience and lived experience of psychosis and schizophrenia with Stanford psychiatrist Jacob Ballon and peer advocate Shannon Pagdon.

In this episode, we talk with neuroscientist, musician and author Daniel Levitin about his new book on the neuroscience of music and how it is being used to help heal disorders from Parkinson's to chronic pain

In this episode, we explore the fascinating neuroscience behind how children learn to read with Bruce McCandliss, director of the Stanford Educational Neuroscience Initiative.

In which neuroscientist Dan Abrams shares the quest to understand how our brains are tuned for voices, and why this instinct fails to develop in children with autism.

Crossover episode in which Nicholas Weiler & Michael Osborne discuss the life of cosmologist Stephen Hawking

In which addiction expert Keith Humphreys explains how neuroscience is reshaping our understanding of substance abuse—and why policy still hasn’t caught up.

In which physician-scientist Marion Buckwalter shares the remarkable advances we've seen in stroke care in recent decades, thanks to long-standing national support for curiosity-driven research

In which anesthesiologist Martin Angst shares how studying the biology of recovery may reveal why some aging brains withstand stress while others quietly unravel.

In a favorite 2024 episode, we spoke with Jaimie Henderson, a Stanford neurosurgeon leading groundbreaking research in brain-machine interfaces.

In which Anthony Wagner and Beth Mormino share what they are learning from the Stanford Aging and Memory Study about the nature of healthy brain aging.