BJKS Podcast Benjamin James Kuper-Smith

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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtBen (Ehrlich)'s links
Website: http://www.benehrlich.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/benehrlich11Ben (Kuper-Smith)'s links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtEmily's links
Website: https://geni.us/finn-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/finn-scholarTwitter: https://geni.us/finn-twtBen's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtDavid's links
Website: https://geni.us/VanEssen-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/VanEssen-scholarBen's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtNachum's links
Website: https://geni.us/ulanovsky-webBen's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtTom's links
Website: https://geni.us/hardwicke-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/hardwicke-scholarTwitter: https://geni.us/hardwicke-twtBen's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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-podTwitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twtJessica's links
Website: https://geni.us/polka-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/polka-scholarTwitter: https://geni.us/polka-twtBen's links
Website: https://geni.us/bjks-webGoogle Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholarTwitter: 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.