102: Soledad Gonzalo Cogno: Sloooow oscillations in entorhinal cortex, mentoring, and the physics approach to neuroscience

Soledad Gonzalo Cogno is a group leader at the Kavli Institute for Science Neuroscience in Trondheim. We talk about how she went from studying physics in Argentina to working on the brain in Norway, the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to neuroscience, why researchers should give their research animals a nice life, mentorship, and discuss her recent Nature paper on ultraslow oscillatory sequences in medial entorhinal cortex.

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: Studying physics in Argentina
0:12:30: The advantages of a physics background - interdisciplinarity in neuroscience
0:27:31: How Soledad ended up in Trondheim
0:32:46: Rodent heaven in Norway
0:36:19: Start discussing Soledad's paper on ultraslow oscillatory sequences
1:03:12: So what do those ultraslow oscillatory sequences do?
1:16:18: A book or paper more people should read
1:22:30: Something Soledad wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:30:51: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt

Soledad's links

• Website: https://geni.us/gonzalo_cogno-web
• Twitter: https://geni.us/gonzalo_cogno-twt

Ben's links

• Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
• Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
• Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt

References

Episode about Ramon y Cajal: https://geni.us/bjks-ehrlich

Brun, Solstad, Kjelstrup, Fyhn, Witter, Moser & Moser (2008). Progressive increase in grid scale from dorsal to ventral medial entorhinal cortex. Hippocampus.
Constantinou, Gonzalo Cogno, Elijah, Kropff, Gigg, Samengo & Montemurro (2016). Bursting neurons in the hippocampal formation encode features of LFP rhythms. Frontiers in computational neuroscience.
Dayan & Abbott (2005). Theoretical neuroscience: computational and mathematical modeling of neural systems.
Gonzalo Cogno, Obenhaus, Lautrup, Jacobsen, Clopath, Andersson, ... & Moser (2024). Minute-scale oscillatory sequences in medial entorhinal cortex. Nature.
Hastie, Tibshirani & Friedman (2009). The elements of statistical learning: data mining, inference, and prediction.
Kropff, Carmichael, Moser & Moser (2015). Speed cells in the medial entorhinal cortex. Nature.
MacKay (2003). Information theory, inference and learning algorithms.