CortexCast - A Neuroscience Podcast

In this episode, we are joined by Professor Masud Husain, neurologist and clinical neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, to explore how the brain’s failures can reveal its deepest workings. Our sense of self feels indivisible - until the brain begins to fracture it. In this episode, we are joined by Professor Masud Husain, neurologist and clinical neuroscientist at the University of Oxford, to explore how the brain’s failures can reveal its deepest workings. Drawing on his award-winning book Our Brains, Our Selves, he shares the stories of patients whose losses of words, memory and willpower challenge our understanding of identity. Along the way, we also engage in philosophical discussions about consciousness and AI. Our conversation is as much about humanity as it is about neuroscience - thoughtful, compassionate, and quietly profound.

How does the human eye transform waves of light into the vivid, detailed experience we call vision? In this episode of CortexCast, we follow photons on their journey from the moment they strike the retina to the point where visual signals begin to take shape. We explore the cascade of biochemical reactions triggered by molecules such as retinal and rhodopsin, the roles of rod and cone cells in night and colour vision, and the vulnerability of the central retina in age-related macular degeneration. We then turn to the networks of bipolar and horizontal cells, where visual information is funnelled, filtered, and sharpened into receptive fields — the brain’s earliest building blocks of images. Along the way, we uncover how a patch of neural tissue at the back of the eye becomes the gateway to our entire visual world.

In this episode, Neddy speaks with Dr. Johannes Kohl on the brain circuitry behind instinctive behaviours like parenting and shares insights for early-career researchers navigating the fast-moving world of neuroscience.

In this episode, Neddy speaks with Dr. Johannes Kohl on the brain circuitry behind instinctive behaviours like parenting and shares insights for early-career researchers navigating the fast-moving world of neuroscience.

In this episode, Katy interviews Björn Vahsen to discuss his ongoing research on Motor neurone disease using iPSCs to co-culture microglia and motor neurons.