Neuroscience and artificial intelligence work better together. Brain inspired is a celebration and exploration of the ideas driving our progress to understand intelligence. I interview experts about their work at the interface of neuroscience, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, philosophy, psychology, and more: the symbiosis of these overlapping fields, how they inform each other, where they differ, what the past brought us, and what the future brings. Topics include computational neuroscience, supervised machine learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, deep learning, convolutional and recurrent neural networks, decision-making science, AI agents, backpropagation, credit assignment, neuroengineering, neuromorphics, emergence, philosophy of mind, consciousness, general AI, spiking neural networks, data science, and a lot more. The podcast is not produced for a general audience. Instead, it aims to educate, challenge, inspire, and hopefully entertain those intere
Pitch Analysis
Required Pod Score for this show. PitchCentric checks your profile against host openness, topical fit, and audience signals before you generate a pitch.
Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
50%
Guest openness
Selective
Verified email on file
80/100
Required Score
Sign up to generate a grounded pitch for Brain Inspired.
Brain Inspired is a science podcast hosted by Paul Middlebrooks, with 158 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.
About the host
Paul Middlebrooks hosts Brain Inspired, a science show with 158 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Brain Inspired
BI 243 Alison Barth: Learning as a Window to Cortex
Aug 4, 20261h 40m
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community . The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership . Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org . Alison Barth runs the Barth Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, where they use learning experiments in mice to try to figure out how the cortex works. As you may know, the brain in general but also the cortex itself is made up of a large variety neuron cell types, with different activity properties. Alison has the gritty job of identifying those different cell types in sensory cortex, and seeing how they change when animals learn to associate rewards with sensory stimulation. So unlike many of the guests, who take a much more zoomed out view and look at how populations of neurons carry out some function, Alison is happiest down at the cellular level. So we talk about her work, why she prefers to work at that scale, and a variety of related topics. Barth Lab . Related papers Barth lab publications . Learning, prediction accuracy, and neural plasticity in sensory cortex. 0:00 - Intro 4:24 - Alison's trajectory to learning and memory 21:02 - Automated mouse learning experiments 25:34 - What is success in this line of work? 32:34 - How many cell types do we need to explain? 34:33 - Current experiments 38:11 - How does cortex work? 45:19 - Predictive processing 1:02:01 - Obstacles 1:10:41 - Role of AI 1:33:38 - Moving forward
BI 242 Kathryn Nave: How Life Gets its Meaning and Intelligence
Jul 14, 20261h 45m
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community . The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership . Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org . Kathryn Nave is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of the book A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life . In the book, Kate dives deep into the free energy principle and active inference, which are popular approaches to studying brains, minds, and organisms in general, and which are being used in artificial intelligence. Ultimately, Kate finds these approaches come up short as explanatory frameworks for life, and autonomy, and intelligence. Instead, Kate and many others advocate a framework that Kate calls constraint closure or closure of constraints, but also goes by the name organizational closure. This is a concept from philosophy and theoretical biology that people like Alvaro Moreno and Matteo Mossio have put forth in their 2015 book Biological Autonomy. The core ideas are also found in various forms from people like Robert Rosen, Stuart Kauffman, Alicia Juarrero, Terrence Deacon, and others. We discuss what constraint closure is, why Kate thinks it's a solid foundation to build on, and what if anything it means for cognitive science and brain sciences to embrace this constraint closure view. I highly recommend the book even if you're looking for a primer on the free energy principle and active inference. As we discuss, Kate's journalism experience has helped her become a wonderful communicator of these notoriously difficult concepts. Kathryn Nave @kathrynnave ; @kathrynnave.eurosky.social . A Drive to Survive: The Free Energy Principle and the Meaning of Life Related episode: BI 241 Johannes Jaeger: Agency and the Cyborg Myth Mentioned in the episode: We Need To Rewild The Internet Beyond Control: Finding the Purpose of Enactive Cognitive Science 0:00 - Intro 5:39 - Journalism back to philosophy 15:56 - How Kate got into predictive processing etc. 21:30 - Predictive processing and phenomenology 30:45 - Organizational closure 37:37 - Constraint closure beyond the single cell 45:04 - Brain as metabolic 50:12 - Basal cognition 52:13 - Degeneracy 55:08 - Neutral networks 1:00:33 - AI and autonomy 1:08:12 - Meaning and mind 1:10:02 - Why do we need brains? 1:17:33 - Reframe neuroscience? 1:23:51 - Reifying models 1:27:43 - Free energy principle and active inference 1:37:16 - Tolerating as much variability as possible
BI 241 Johannes Jaeger: Agency and the Cyborg Myth
Jun 30, 20261h 37m
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community . Johannes Jaeger is Associate Faculty at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna. He's also a freelance researcher, a philosopher, and an educator. He's here today to educate us about some of the fundamental differences between living organisms and machines, like AI, and why we should care about those differences. We discuss his paper The Cyborg Myth, an argument for why we can't seamlessly replace ourselves with machine parts over time. We talk about judgment and relevance realization as a fundamental difference between AI and living organisms -the ability to judge what is a relevant problem to solve in the first place, assuming intelligence is about problem solving. We also discuss what agency is in living systems, and why AI agents are something completely different. I think you get the recurring theme here. Yogi is writing a book called Beyond the Age of Machines , a work in progress and you can read it as he writes it on his expanding possibilities website. Untethered in the Platonic Realm (Yogi's website) Expanding Possibilities Book in progress: Beyond the Age of Machines Mastadon: @yoginho 0:00 - Intro 7:11 - The cyborg myth 15:16 - Judgment 24:22 - Consciousness 28:56 - Agency 36:40 - Relevance realization and energy efficiency 46:44 - Metabolism as a metaphor 1:00:39 - Robert Rosen 1:06:20 - Conceptual engineering 1:12:55 - Dynamics and computation 1:23:07 - Agency book
BI 240 Cristopher Moore: Cognition and Computational Complexity
Jun 16, 20261h 42m
Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community . The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership . Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org . Cristopher Moore is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, and he is a computation and computational complexity expert. He recently joined a us in my complexity discussion group, and answered a bunch of our questions, but I wasn't done with him regarding what, if anything, computational complexity has to do understanding how brains and minds work. So that's why he's here today, and we discuss a wide variety of topics related to AI, computation, computational complexity, and cognition. Cris's Homepage Book: The Nature of Computation Related papers What Is a Macrostate? Subjective Observations and Objective Dynamics 0:00 - Intro 4:24 - The Nature of Computation 9:14 - Computational complexity 28:22 - Real mathematics 35:08 - Current state of AI 39:04 - Computational complexity in the AI world 47:53 - Cognition, creation, problems 56:16 - Rugged landscapes and generalization 1:13:52 - What is computation? 1:32:31 - How would you study the brain?
BI 239 Nedah Nemati: Naturalistic Neuroscience and Lived Experience
Jun 2, 20261h 54mS0
<p >Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community.</p>
<p>he Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists.</p>
<p>Read more about our partnership.</p>
<p>Check out this story: Beyond the algorithmic oracle: Rethinking machine learning in behavioral neuroscience</p>
<p>Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released.</p...
Every question we get asked before someone starts their trial.
If you have a concern about deliverability, AI quality, data privacy, or whether this will actually work for your specific situation, it's probably answered below.
What is the difference between Founder Solo and Founder Pro?
Founder Solo gives you 50 AI pitches per month using the credit model (Standard pitches cost 1 credit, Enriched pitches cost 2). Founder Pro raises that to 200 credits per month and adds full Booking Probability access, unlimited Magic Match, Apollo enrichment credits, and data export capabilities. Both plans use the same credit system, so you can stretch your monthly budget further by using Standard-mode drafting.
How do agency tiers work?
Agency tiers have no base fee. You pay per managed client and per talent profile. Agency Standard is $199 per client per month; Agency Pro is $399 per client per month. Both add $39 per talent profile per month. Your own team's user seats are always free.
What is a talent profile?
A talent profile represents one person (founder, executive, or spokesperson) you are booking onto podcasts. It includes their bio, topics, headshots, and outreach history. Team plans include 5 profiles; agency plans are pay-as-you-go.
Can I switch plans later?
Yes, at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades apply at the end of the current billing period. Contact support if you need help migrating between plan families.
Do you offer a free trial?
Every paid plan includes a 15-day free trial. Your card is saved at signup but you will not be charged until day 16. Cancel any time from your dashboard.
What happens if I cancel?
You keep access until the end of your current billing period. No charges after that. Your data is retained for 30 days in case you reactivate.
Is the 20% annual discount automatic?
Yes. Select Annual on the pricing toggle and the discounted price is applied automatically at checkout. The annual price shown is the full year cost.
What if I have more than 50 profiles or 20 clients?
That is our Enterprise tier. Contact our sales team and we will build a custom plan with volume pricing, a dedicated account manager, and SLA guarantees.
