Today we are re-releasing an episode we did last year with Stanford neurobiologist Lisa Giocomo exploring the intersection of memory, navigation and the boundaries we create between ourselves and the world around us.

This episode was inspired by the idea of memory palaces. The idea is simple: Take a place you're very familiar with, say the house you grew up in, and place information you want to remember in different locations within that space. When it's time to remember those things, you can mentally walk through that space and retrieve those items.

This ancient technique reveals something very fundamental about how our brains work. It turns out that the same parts of the brain are responsible both for memory and for navigating through the world.

Scientists are learning more and more about these systems and the connections between them, and it's revealing surprising insights about how we build the narrative of our lives, how we turn our environments into an internal model of who we are, and where we fit into the world.

Join us to learn more about the neuroscience of space and memory.

Before we get into this week’s episode, we have a favor to ask. We're working to make this show even better, and we want to hear from you. We're in the process of gathering listener input and feedback. If you'd be willing to help out, send us a short note and we'll be in touch. As always, we are at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu

Learn more:

• About Lisa Giocomo’s research
• About the story of Henry Molaison (patient H. M.), who lost the ability to form new memories after epilepsy treatment removed his hippocampus.
• About the 2014 Nobel Prize in medicine, awarded to John O’Keefe and to May-Britt and Edvard Moser (Giocomo’s mentors) for their discovery of the GPS system of the brain.
• About Memory Palaces, a technique used since ancient times to enhance memory using mental maps.

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne at 14th Street Studios, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker. Our logo is by Aimee Garza. The show is hosted by Nicholas Weiler at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In the past few years, Big Pharma has released not one, but three new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

Aducanemab (2021), Lecanemab (2023), and Donanemab (2024), are the first treatments to effectively clear the brain of amyloid plaques — the sticky protein clumps whose build-up in the brain has defined the disease for decades. The problem? They may not help patients at all.

Today’s guest, Stanford neurologist Mike Greicius, considers the new amyloid-clearing drugs a major disappointment — and worse, says they likely do more harm than good for patients.

Despite this critique, Greicius, thinks that the next few years will be an exciting time for novel Alzheimer’s therapies, as growing biological understanding of Alzheimer’s risk and resilience bear fruit with promising new approaches to treatment.

Learn More:

Greicius is the Iqbal Farrukh and Asad Jamal Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford Medicine, and a member of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience and Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Stanford University.

Amyloid Drug Skepticism:

• Substantial Doubt Remains about the Efficacy of Anti-Amyloid Antibodies
  (Commentary, Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, 2024)
• New Drug Approved for Early Alzheimer’s (New York Times, 2024)
• Alzheimer's drug adoption in US slowed by doctors' skepticism (Reuters, 2024)
• One step back: Why the new Alzheimer’s plaque-attack drugs don’t work (Stanford Medicine Scope Blog, 2024)

Alzheimer's Genetics Research:

• Knight-funded research uncovers gene mutations that may prevent Alzheimer’s Disease (Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, 2024)
• Why is a common gene variant bad for your brain? (Stanford Medicine Magazine, 2024)
• Scientists find genetic Alzheimer’s risk factor tied to African ancestry (Stanford Medicine, 2023)

Episode Credits

This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Getting help for depression can be like purgatory. Setting aside for a moment the stigma and other barriers to seeking treatment in the first place, finding the right combination of medication and/or therapy can be a months- or years-long process of trial and error. And for about one third of people, nothing seems to work.

Today we're talking with Dr. Leanne Williams, the founding director of the Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness and Vincent V.C. Woo Professor in the Stanford Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Williams and her team have recently used brain imaging and machine learning techniques to identify six distinct "biotypes" of depression — each of which may require a different approach to treatment. Beyond setting the stage for more targeted therapies, better understanding the biology behind the disease could finally cut through the stigma of one of the world's most common brain disorders.

Learn more

• Williams' Personalized and Translational Neuroscience Lab (PANlab)
• The Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health and Wellness
• NEW: Cognitive behavioral therapy enhances brain circuits to relieve depression (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Six distinct types of depression identified in Stanford Medicine-led study
  (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
  • Personalized brain circuit scores identify clinically distinct biotypes in depression and anxiety (Nature Medicine, 2024)
• Brain scans could help personalize treatment for people who are depressed or suicidal (Science, 2022)
• Williams' scientific publications
  
  

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we're talking with Stanford neuro-oncologist, Michelle Monje. This is actually the third time we've had Michelle on the show, in part because she's been a pioneer of three exciting frontiers in neuroscience — so far!

This week, we're going to talk about cancer neuroscience. Michelle founded this new field with her discovery that deadly brain tumors not only link up physically with the healthy brain tissue surrounding them, but the cancers actually need the brain's electrical activity to grow and spread.

It turns out that many cancers — not only in the brain — depend on nervous system innervation for their survival. Understanding this dependent relationship better may present an exciting new line of attack for oncology.

Join us to learn more!

News coverage

• Brain tumors caused by normal neuron activity in mice predisposed to such tumors
• Brain tumors form synapses with healthy neurons, Stanford-led study finds
• Deadly brain cancers act like 'vampires' by hijacking normal cells to grow
• Engineered immune cells target broad range of pediatric solid tumors in mice

Relevant Publications

• Glioma synapses recruit mechanisms of adaptive plasticity
• Glioblastoma remodelling of human neural circuits decreases survival
• Electrical and synaptic integration of glioma into neural circuits
• Targeting neuronal activity-regulated neuroligin-3 dependency in high-grade glioma
• Neuronal Activity Promotes Glioma Growth through Neuroligin-3 Secretion

Review Articles

• The neuroscience of cancer
• Cancer hallmarks intersect with neuroscience in the tumor microenvironment
• Roadmap for the Emerging Field of Cancer Neuroscience

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week on From Our Neurons to Yours, we're talking about using new techniques for growing human brain tissue in the lab to solve a rare neurological disorder.

Host Nicholas Weiler sits down with Sergiu Pasca an innovative Stanford scientist who has developed groundbreaking technologies to grow human brain tissue in the lab, creating "organoids" and "assembloids" that model brain disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

Pasca describes the process of turning patient skin cells into embryo-like stem cells and then into functional brain cells that can live and develop for over two years, and even be transplanted into rat brains to study their growth and development.

It may sound like science fiction, but these techniques represent a major step toward understanding and treating complex neurological conditions such as Timothy syndrome, a rare genetic disorder whose biology Pasca has spent the past 15 years unraveling.

Join us for fascinating glimpse into the future of developmental neuroscience and potential for new therapies for our remarkable self-assembling brains.

Learn more

• Brain organoids and assembloids are new models for elucidating, treating neurodevelopmental disorders | News Center | Stanford Medicine
• Impact of genes linked to neurodevelopmental diseases found | News Center | Stanford Medicine
• Scientists discover how dozens of genes may contribute to autism - The Washington Post
• Study suggests approach for treating rare disorder | National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• How lab-grown brain cells can now help us understand brain disorders

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Today, we're going to talk about virtual reality and how it could be used to treat depression.

We're talking with psychiatrist Kim Bullock, the founding director of Stanford's Neurobehavioral Clinic and Virtual Reality & Immersive Technologies (VRIT) program.

Dr. Bullock — a physician certified in Neuropsychiatry, Psychiatry, and Lifestyle Medicine — calls herself a "radical behaviorist." Like other practitioners of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), she sees the troublesome thoughts and emotional states of many psychiatric disorders as just another form of behavior, which can be reshaped through self awareness and practice — much like you might work at avoiding junk food or not biting your nails.

Of course, one of the biggest challenges is the practice part. It's no easy task for patients to practice experiencing the world in a more positive, healthy way. This is why Bullock is eager for practitioners of CBT and related forms of psychotherapy to embrace virtual reality technologies — which enable psychiatrists to prescribe precisely calibrated "experiences" to treat cognitive & behavioral disorders.

We started by discussing early results from a clinical trial for a virtual reality-enhanced intervention major depressive disorder, which Dr. Bullock recently launched with support from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute Neuroscience:Translate program.

Join us to learn more about how VR is transforming the world of psychotherapy!

Learn More

• Imagining virtual reality as a simple tool to treat depression (Stanford Medicine, 2024)
• Extended Reality(XR) enhanced behavioral activation for treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (2022 Neuroscience:Translate grant)
• Clinical Trial: Virtual Reality Behavioral Activation: An Intervention for Major Depressive Disorder
• The Stanford Virtual Reality and Immersive Technologies (VR-IT) Program
• Recent VR-IT publications

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

This week, we're diving into recent research that sheds light on a new form of brain plasticity involving changes in the insulation of nerve fibers — called myelin. It turns out that myelin plasticity is implicated in a number of serious conditions, from epilepsy to drug abuse and addiction.

We're excited to bring back two previous guests on the show to share their insights on this previously unknown form of plasticity: Stanford psychiatry professor Rob Malenka (S1 E1 - Psychedelics and Empathy), a pioneer in the study of synaptic plasticity and addiction, and neuro-oncologist Michelle Monje (S1 E12 - Brain Fog), who made some of the very first observations of myelin plasticity in the brain, essentially founding this field.

Together, they discuss their recent findings on the role of myelin plasticity in opioid addiction and its implications for understanding addictive behaviors.

Get ready to nerd out as we uncover a new angle on our brain's remarkable capacity for change.

Learn More

Myelination in the brain may be key to ‘learning’ opioid addiction | Stanford Medicine (2024)

Adaptive and maladaptive myelination in health and disease | Nature Reviews Neurology (2022)

Brain plasticity promotes worsening of epileptic seizures, study finds | Stanford Medicine (2022)

The Brain Learns in Unexpected Ways | Scientific American (2020)

Brain boosting: It's not just grey matter that matters | New Scientist (2015)

Neural activity promotes brain plasticity through myelin growth, researchers find | News Center | Stanford Medicine (2014)

Episode Credits
This episode was produced by Michael Osborne, with production assistance by Morgan Honaker, and hosted by Nicholas Weiler. Art by Aimee Garza.

Send us a text!

Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends. That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience.

Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.