Brains for Dinner: Conversations Between Neuroscientists who Happen to be Married

I think it’s fair to say that Episode 5 of B4D reaches new highs and lows of sophistication (and that’s saying something). From lessons in how to interpret statistics, to laughing fits spawned by burping dogs, this hour of content contains something for everyone.Our musings were sparked by an article Andrea read about how reviews of books, movies, and the like have increasingly disappeared from newspapers and been outsourced to social media. Noting this, Andrea surveyed the contents of some of his “go to” news sources and found other content changes worth talking about. In the conversation that unfolds, we discuss the supply and demand for various “news” content, and the roles that curiosity, belonging, and intellectual humility play in driving our brains’ choices about what to consume.In that space, we also discuss the role of storytelling in science communication, noting that for the vast majority of human existence, stories were the data our brains consumed!And as Andrea and I get more and more experience with this podcasting thing under our belts, our dogs are getting increasingly skilled at disruption. In this episode alone, we have “thunderous toy drop” moments, an epic burp from the frat boy of our family, Kinzu, and much panting and drinking. Since we aren’t going to be renting a dog-free, sound-proof recording studio any time soon, I’m afraid this is part of our “charm.” Perhaps I will create a “Dog Sounds Bingo” card to go with the next episode of B4D. Please drop a comment if you were able to hear the three I mentioned here for an honorary prize. (I’m sorry, my dog’s been drinking again).And now a few show notes:At the beginning of the episode, Andrea asks me to name a book people were crazy about that I thought was meh. I couldn’t retrieve the name of: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. I think “meh” is too strong for me (I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads). There were many things I liked about the book: kids from disadvantaged economic and cultural backgrounds, cross-generational relationships, and lots of good brain happenings including a woman with dementia and neurodiverse youth. But I think there were too many of those things going on to spend enough time on any one of them, and other books I read that stayed in one or two of those lanes just hit me a bit deeper. They include: Stay, All the Colors of the Dark, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and Demon Copperhead.I do love a good coming of age book, and perhaps I’ve saturated my brain!Last but not least, I’ll leave you with a link to the article on Collective Intellectual Humility that we read in the lab. I hope you enjoy this episode, with all its added bells and whistles. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com

Yesterday I was watching a talk about procrastination for book research (I wasn’t procrastinating, I swear). When the cameraperson panned the audience, I saw much younger versions of Andrea and I, and it gave me all the feels.The talk was over a decade ago, and our lives were very different then—but seeing us there, taking it all in, brought me right back into the moment. I could feel the excitement I get when exposed to new ideas. And given that I had just finished delivering my first public lecture to nearly 800 people, I was also feeling a good deal of relief. As I listened to Randy provide the first theoretical explanation of procrastination I had ever heard, I looked forward to digging into the ideas more deeply afterward with Andrea. You can see our lectures on The Neuroscience of Good Decision Making here if you are interested.Sharing these deeper dives with you is our vision for Brains for Dinner, and this episode is all about how feelings shape our memories and how memories shape our feelings. We’re particularly focused on the negative aspects of this cycle as they play out in PTSD. If you enjoy the episode, please let us know and, if you feel so compelled, share with others, so we know you find what we’re doing useful!This episode was inspired, in part, by a collaboration with our colleague, clinical psychologist Lori Zoellner. Andrea and Lori recently published a paper called Remembering and Forgetting: A Dynamic Social Retrieval Theory of Posttraumatic Stress which you can read here! I also ask about what factors contribute to who will get PTSD and he mentions one of Lori’s other papers, which you can read here.We also talk about our friend (and my former professor) Charan Ranganath’s book Why We Remember, which I highly recommend. I had the pleasure of interviewing Charan here in Seattle when his book first came out in February and it was a blast!We hope you enjoy this episode and look forward to braining with you in the future <3 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com

I have good news and bad news and in our family we always do the bad new first so here goes… Brains for Dinner Episode 3 does not come with a side order of dancing birds or babies! (never fear, you can always return to Episode 2 for this!) AND we went nearly 7 minutes over time. EEK!The good news is that this episode is centered on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, language!I was thrilled to learn—based on a recent survey I created and circulated—that learning a natural language was the most highly ranked answer to the question “What’s something you’d like to learn but aren’t currently working on?” But what gets in the way? (If you have 5 minutes to take the survey and tell me about your learning goals click here!)In this episode of Brains for Dinner, Andrea Stocco and I discuss both former research, using quantitative EEG (aka brainwaves) to predict natural language learning and the ability to learn programming languages. Here’s some media coverage of this work:* Scientific American: Some People’s Brains are Wired for Languages* Travel and Leisure: Why Learning a Second Language is So DifficultYou can find the original scientific papers here if you’re interested:* French Learning* Python LearningWe hope you enjoy the episode! Please leave us a note if you have questions or suggestions for what you would like to hear us think aloud about!Cheers! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com

This was an extremely fun episode to record—arguably too fun because we were SO LOUD that Chantel had to learn how to use sound editing software to remove some of the microphone artifacts. Ah well, you live and you learn! We sincerely hope that the fun is contagious. Whether you’d like to add a drinking game (might I suggest guessing whether Chantel says something is “exciting” or Andrea says it’s “interesting” more often and taking a drink when the one you didn’t pick happens?), to watch videos of dancing babies or animal friends, or to dig into the science of the relation between dance, vocal communication, and learning, we’ve got something for you. Below, I’ve included some photos, videos, and links to papers that will allow you to explore with us in your modality of choice. Here are some of the things we talked about:Celebrating Andrea’s application for U.S. citizenship (fingers crossed that its not too early to celebrate)photo credits for this amazing shot go to Debera J. Prat, my amazing mommaand Kintsugi’s 3rd Birthday Here are some of Chantel’s favorite baby and animal dance videos:* Ronan the dancing sea lion * Snowball the cockatoo dancing to Queen* Dancing baby 1 (because who can pick just one)* Dancing baby 2 (inspirational)We’ve established that horses don’t “dance” and this is not a traditional freestyle routine but it is my absolute favorite. True partnership courtesy of the beautiful Stacey Westfall You might want to grab your tissues.Now for the sciency main course! Here are some of the papers we discussed.* Theories on the evolution of dance* Men who dance to the beat are sexier* Paper on vocal learning that stresses environmental factors* Evidence that cockatiels have favorite songs* The beluga that speaks with a Russian accent* Dance has a powerful influence on depressionAnd here’s the music and cognition collaborator whose last name I couldn’t remember! * Dr. Steven MorrisonLast but not least, I give you empirical evidence that Howard the duck responds (maybe not with dance but possibly with suspicion) to my effortless singer/songwriter moments. Don’t worry, I won’t quit my day job just yet.We hope you enjoyed Episode 2 of brains for dinner. Thank you for listening, clicking, or reading along—whatever your brain prefers! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chantelpratphd.substack.com

This engaging discussion dives into metacognition, unraveling the difference between 'thinking about thinking' and the feelings tied to our thoughts. The couple explores how bodily signals influence our decisions and learning, illustrating how emotions guide our meta-awareness. They ponder AI's limitations in understanding human-like metacognitive processes and how adding body signals could enhance AI functionality. The conversation concludes with a reflection on the joy and curiosity that drive scientific discovery, emphasizing the importance of asking the right questions.