Convergent Science Network Podcast

Murray Shanahan (Cognitive Robotics, Imperial College London) discusses his work on the dynamics of cortical networks and their non-linear properties. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Jon Kaas (Vanderbilt University, Nashville) discusses his view on the evolution of brains from early mammals to humans. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Henry Kennedy (Stem-Cell and Brain Research Institute, Lyon) discusses his work on the anatomical structure of the primate cortex. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Etienne Koechlin (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris) discusses with Paul Verschure the functional organization of the human prefrontal-cortex function underpinning reasoning, learning and exploration in the service of decision-making and adaptive behavior.

David Redish (Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, ) discusses his work on the neuronal substrate of spatial navigation, memory and regret. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Gary Marcus (NYU Center for Language and Music, New York) discusses his criticism of the current views of cortical organization and his proposal on an alternative perspective. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Dorothy Fragaszy (Primate Behavior Laboratory, University of Georgia) discusses her work on tool use in non-human primates. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Danielle Stolzenberg (University of California, Davis) discusses her work on innate behaviors and their genetic and neuronal regulation in the hypothalamus. Interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott.

Germund Hesslow (Lund University) discusses with Paul Verschure the role of the cerebellum in the animal brain. Behavioral learning, prediction and the neural substrate underlying these functions are discussed with a focus on Classical Conditioning.

Eberhard Fetz (University of Washington, Seattle) discusses with Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott the neural substrate of action coding in the light of the experimental results obtained from an autonomous implantable recurrent brain-computer interface.

Tim Pierce (University of Leicester), discusses with Paul Verschure the topic of animal olfaction and the its neural substrate in order to develop computational approaches able to validate empirical findings and to lead to a tangible technological outcome

Cyriel Pennartz (University of Amsterdam), interviewed by Paul Verschure, focuses on the role of pre-frontal cortex in associative learning and reward prediction coding and its possible interactions with other brain areas like hippocampus and striatum.

Paul Verschure (Pompeu Fabra University), interviewed by Tony Prescott and Tim Pierce, presents his theory of consciousness and its evolution, suggesting how it could be computationally explained within a biologically grounded cognitive architecture.

Alex Kacelnik (Oxford University) together with Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott elaborates on animal cognition addressing tool use habits of birds from an evolutionary perspective and discussing topics like learning and problem solving.

Marc Toussaint (University of Stuttgart), interviewed by Paul Verschure, presents his computational approach to planning and optimal control introducing an hypothesis on how neural systems might solve stochastic optimal control and RL problems.

Sten Grillner (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm), interviewed by Paul Verschure and Tony Prescott, discusses the adaptable networks that generate different motor patterns in animals, both from a neuro-scientific and a computational point of view.

Aldo Genovesio (Università Sapienza di Roma), discusses with Paul Verschure, the role of primates pre-frontal cortex in decision making and action planning, encoding error, past-action outcome and goal directed behavior.

Friedemann Pulvermuller (Free University of Berlin) is With Paul Verschure he discusses language, semantics and the building of meaning through action, and a grounding of this in the brain science.

Peter Gärdenfors (Lund University) discusses with Paul Verschure how the mind can represent knowledge. He introduces a cognitive theory of conceptual spaces, built from dimensions derived from perception, action, and social grounding in society.

Peter Mombaerts (Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Frankfurt) discusses with Paul Verschure the genetics underlying the mammalian olfactory system as a model system for studying the formation of neural circuits during development.