The Nature & Nurture Podcast

Dr. Danbee Kim is the pioneer of field neuroscience: the non-invasive neuroscientific study of animals in their natural habitats. In this episode we discuss Danbee's motivation to create field neuroscience, the amazing neurobiology of cuttlefish, and Danbee's field neuroscience work on cuttlefish and humans for her PhD dissertation. She currently works at the UK-based company NeuroGears, focusing on building collaborative projects that use storytelling and interactive experiences to help people apply scientific methods of understanding to their daily lives. Learn more about Danbee's work and find her graphic novel "The First VIRS" at: http://www.danbeekim.org/

Dr. Brad Duchaine is a Professor of Psychology at Dartmouth College, where he runs the Social Perception Lab. Sarah Herald is a Psychology PhD Student working in the Social Perception Lab. In this episode we talk about the neuropsychology of social perception, facial recognition, and face processing disorders including prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces) and prosopometamorphopsia (PMO; distortions in face perception). Learn more about their research, and get in contact for a research study if you or someone you know has a face processing disorder at: https://lab.faceblind.org/index.html

Dr. Manoj Doss is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins University. In this episode we discuss his background in neuropsychopharmacology and his research studying the effects of psychedelic drugs on episodic memory and cognition. 

Dr. Kevin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin. In this episode we discuss his background in genetics and neuroscience, the evolution of cognition, and the interplay of genes and environment in shaping human behavior, philosophy of mind, and his book Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are. Learn more about Kevin's work at: https://www.kjmitchell.com/

Dr. Eric Schwitzgebel is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In this episode we discuss his thoughts on "in-between" beliefs, moral philosophy, and why most theories of consciousness are crazy.

Dr. David McKemy is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California. He is an expert in the neurobiology of pain. 

Dr. Tor Wager is a Professor of Neuroscience at Dartmouth College, where he runs the Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience Laboratory and conducts research on emotion and belief. Learn more about his work at: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/canlab/

Dr. Edward Hagen is a Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Washington State University. In this episode we discuss the field of anthropology, evolutionary approaches to studying mental health and substance use, and the evolution of leadership.    Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DW3g4ElSF3c&lc=UgzzkXB9wQ24E2OZYgx4AaABAg Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:26 - What is anthropology? 4:51 - How Ed became interested in biological anthropology 7:15 - How anthropologists differ from historians 9:33 - Evolutionary approaches to human behavior 17:00 - Studying mental health through the lens of evolutionary psychology 25:12 - The "mismatch hypothesis" of depression  28:36 - Kin selection 31:51 - Evolutionary medicine and infectious disease 36:09 - The evolution of substance use 40:53 - The paradox of drug addiction 43:02 - Why adults like bitter flavors 44:43 - Why some animals deliberately consume toxins 52:04 - Just the right amount of toxin 54:45 - Evolving the enjoyment of drug use 1:00:20 - How humans discovered complex drugs 1:02:00 - The evolution of leadership

Dr. Oriel FeldmanHall is a social affective neuroscientist and an Assistant Professor at Brown University, where she studies the neural basis of human social behavior, with a focus on morality, altruism, and socio-emotional decision-making. Learn more about Oriel's work at: http://www.feldmanhalllab.com/ In this episode we discuss Oriel's background in psychology, her research on moral decision-making and altruism, and how these subjective constructs are operationalized and measured in neuroscience. We also discuss her current and future work of studying the neural basis of social cognitive mapping. 

Dr. William Ngiam is a cognitive neuroscientist and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Chicago, where he studies visual working memory. Learn more about his work at: https://williamngiam.github.io/ In this episode we discuss William's background in neuroscience, the neural mechanisms behind visual working memory, and what cognitive psychology tells us about the philosophy of perception. Additionally, we discuss William's involvement in the open science movement and the reproducibility crisis in science, better termed the "credibility revolution."