Brain Science Podcast #22: Interview with Christof Koch

Listen to the Interview Now

Brain Science Podcast #22 is an interview with Dr. Christof Koch of Cal Tech, one of the pioneers in the neurobiological study of consciousness. About two decades ago when Koch and Francis Crick began looking for what they called the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC), such a quest was considered controversial, but now the field is increasing in popularity. In our interview we talked a little about his book, The Quest for Consciousness, as well as his on-going research and his thoughts about what the future might bring.

Show Notes

Here is a list of some of the topics we discussed:

• Why Francis Crick was an outstanding mentor and colleague
• A Working definition of consciousness
• How consciousness relates to awareness
• What are neural correlates of consciousness
• Why vision is the focus of Koch's research
• The search for the "footprints" of consciousness
• The role of functional imaging and the use of monkeys
• Neurons-"the atoms of perception"
• Why we need a theory of consciousness
• The role of the frontal lobes in consciousness
• Is consciousness an emergent property?
• What about zombies?
• Why do we need consciousness?
• Will artificial intelligence become conscious?
• The hard problem: how does the brain generate subjective experience (qualia)

Links:

Christof Koch's homepage

The Quest for Consciousness: A Neurobiological Approach (2004)

Listen to the Episode Now

Share your comments on the Discussion Forum

Audience Survey

Brain Science Podcast #17: The Wisdom of the Aging Brain

This week we discuss another book by Elkonon Goldberg, Ph.D. I highly recommend this book to everyone because it is an excellent review of many of the topics we have discussed over the last several months including memory, emotion, and neuroplasticity. In this episode we continue our discussion of the role of the pre-frontal lobes in intelligence, as well as what happens to our brain as we age.

Show Notes

Episodes that are referred to in this episode:

• #10: Neuroplasticity
• #11: Emotion
• #12: Memory
• #16: The Frontal Lobes

Note: You should have no problem listening to episode to #17 first, but I have provided these references for those who want to review or go back for more details.

Definitions used in this episode:

attractor: a cognitive template that enables pattern recognition. An attractor is thought to be a concise set of neurons with strong interactions among themselves. A unique and important quality of attractors is that a broad range of inputs activate the same set of neurons. This is thought to be the mechanism of pattern recognition.

cognitive competence: the ability to relate the old to the new so as to recognize the similarities between a new problem and one that has been previously solved

cognitive wisdom: an enhanced capacity for problem solving

generic memory: memory for patterns

Brief List of topics discussed in this episode:

1. Review of important ideas about the prefrontal lobes from #16
2. An hypothesis about the differing roles of the right and left hemispheres
3. How the brain changes in normal aging
4. Mechanisms that protect the brain from degenerative changes
   1. generic memory-why this type of memory is more robust
   2. pattern expansion-how parts of the cortex expand with use
   3. effortless experts-why familiar tasks are less demanding
5. Why vigorous mental activity is important throughout life

For more links related to Dr. Goldberg's work see the show notes for episode 16.

Listen Now

The Brain Science Podcast feed is available here.

Subscribe via iTunes™

Subscribe to Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell by Email

Visit the new Brain Science Podcast Forum

Brain Science #8: How Neurons Communicate

From Neuron to Brain: A Cellular and Molecular Approach to the Function of the Nervous System, Fourth Edition

A. Robert Martin

The latest episode of the Brain Science Podcast is more technical than most. It deals with neurotransmitters. One of the key things that makes the brain different from a digital computer is that most of the signaling between neurons is actually chemical. Neurotransmitters are the chemicals released by one neuron that then interact with the receptors on another neuron or target cell (like a muscle). It turns out that it is the properties of the receptor, which is a membrane protein, that determines the effect of the neurotransmitter. This means that the same neurotransmitter can have very different effects in different parts of the brain and body.

Listen Now

The Brain Science Podcast feed is available here.

Subscribe via iTunes™

Subscribe to Brain Science Podcast with Dr. Ginger Campbell by Email

Go to The Brain Science Podcast website for more detailed show notes.

Brain Science Podcast #4: The Great Brain Debate

The debate about the relative contributions of nature versus nurture has probably been going on as long as humans have wondered about the origins of human behavior. In his 2004 book The Great Brain Debate: Is it Nature or Nurture?, Harvard neuroscientist, John E Dowling, describes how recent discoveries about brain development shed light on this controversy.

This episode of the Brain Science Podcast discusses the main ideas of Dowling's book.

The Brain Science Podcast feed is available here.

Click here to listen to the podcast without subscribing.

Subscribe via iTunes™

Direct Download