From Our Neurons to Yours

This award-winning show from Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute is a field manual for anyone who wants to understand their own brain and the new science reshaping how we learn, age, heal, and make sense of ourselves. Each episode, host Nicholas Weiler sits down with leading scientists to unpack big ideas from the frontiers of the field—brain-computer interfaces and AI language models; new therapies for depression, dementia, and stroke; the mysteries of perception and memory; even the debate over free will. You’ll hear how basic research becomes clinical insight and how emerging tech might expand what it means to be human. If you’ve got a brain, take a listen.

From Our Neurons to Yours is a science podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 87 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 82.

Unknown Host hosts From Our Neurons to Yours, a science show with 87 episodes published.

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  Episode #17

  How do our brains stay healthy as we age? | Tom Clandinin

  Sep 25, 202643 minS9

  Today on the show, we explore the complex biology underlying a seemingly straightforward question: How do our brains stay healthy – or not – as we age? There seems to be a constant flow of new secrets to healthy brain aging – inflammation, estrogen levels, how the brain clears out its waste. We've talked about many of these explanations on the show, and it can be easy to think that whatever the latest one is, that's the one. At least until the next one comes along. In reality, each of those things is probably part of a larger complex system that guides brain aging. But if that's the case, how do the parts fit together, and how do scientists figure out interventions that could slow or prevent neurodegeneration? That's a tricky challenge to be sure, but it's that challenge we're going to dive into with today's guest, neurobiologist Tom Clandinin. Learn more Clandinin Lab Qiu Lab Allen Lab Big Ideas in Neuroscience tackle brain science of everyday life and more (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2026) Convergence of biological and artificial networks (Current Biology, 2021) Coupling of activity, metabolism and behaviour across the Drosophila brain (Nature, 2021) Drosophila Connectomics: Mapping the Larval Eye’s Mind (Current Biology, 2017) Flies and humans share a motion estimation strategy that exploits natural scene statistics (Nature Neuroscience, 2014) Send us a text! Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends . That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience. We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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  Episode #16

  Sugar on the Brain | Carolyn Bertozzi

  Sep 11, 202652 minS9

  Today on the show, we bring you a conversation with Carolyn Bertozzi, the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Bertozzi is a Nobel Laureate , a MacArthur Fellow , and an all around cool person – although it didn't come up in the conversation, she used to play in a band with Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello . Although Bertozzi wouldn’t call herself a neuroscientist — she’s a chemist at heart – her work is having a big impact on neuroscience. Today, she focuses on the sugar molecules that stud the outer surfaces of our cells. It turns out that these molecules are incredibly important for how cells communicate with each other. But understanding these molecules is so complex and challenging that Bertozzi had to invent a new branch of chemistry in order to study them. In this episode, we'll hear how this research is opening doors not only within neuroscience but across biology and drug development as well. Learn more The Bertozzi Lab ‘To advance science, I think it’s important to blur the boundaries between the disciplines’ (Stanford Report, 2026) Changes in brain’s ‘sugar shield’ could be key to understanding effects of aging (Stanford Report, 2025) Life is sweet (Stanford Magazine, 2022) Stanford’s Carolyn Bertozzi wins Nobel in chemistry (Stanford Report, 2022) Interview with Carolyn Bertozzi (Nobelprize.org, 2022) Aging brains pile up damaged proteins (Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience, 2025) Nobel Prize: How click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry are transforming the pharmaceutical and material industries (The Conversation, 2022) Glycocalyx dysregulation impairs blood-brain barrier in ageing and disease (Nature, 2025) Send us a text! Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends . That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience. We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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  Episode #14

  Transcranial magnetic stimulation and the future of psychiatry | Corey Keller

  Aug 13, 202646 minS9

  Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is one of the most promising new technologies in psychiatry. Essentially, it allows us to reach inside the brain, stimulate it, and alter the brain circuits that go awry in disorders like depression. As the late Nolan Williams once explained , we've known for a long time that mental health disorders are caused by changes in electrical circuits in our brains, until TMS came along, we didn't had a good way of nudging those circuits back toward healthier function. But for all its promise, there is still much we don't understand about what exactly TMS is doing. We know it sends electromagnetic waves into the brain and changes the flow of electricity within. What we don't know is how it changes brain circuits and networks or why that helps treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or any of the other conditions where it's being used. Today's guest, Corey Keller , is dedicated to addressing that gap. He's been developing methods for recording inside the brain to help us understand how treatments like TMS change our brain circuits and address psychiatric disease. Learn more Stanford Precision Neurotherapeutics Lab Koret Human Neurosciences Community Lab Closed-loop Optimized rTMS for Depression (Stanford Medicine Clinical Trials) Probing the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Central Executive Network for Improving Neuromodulation in Depression (Stanford Medicine Clinical Trials) Non-invasive brain stimulation opens new ways to study and treat the brain (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2025) Music supercharges brain stimulation (Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, 2025) How brain imaging is transforming mental health (From Our Neurons to Yours 2025) Psychiatry 3.0 (From Our Neurons to Yours, 2023) Stanford Psychiatry’s Corey Keller Awarded Grant to Research Biomarkers to Improve Efficacy of rTMS for Treatment-Resistant Depression (Stanford Medicine Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 2026) Personalizing Brain Stimulation for Psychiatric Disorders: From Circuits to Closed-Loop Control (American Journal of Psychiatry, 2026) Transcranial magnetic stimulation with intracranial recording in humans and primates: a review (Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 2025) Neural effects of TMS trains on the human prefrontal cortex (Scientific Reports, 2023) Send us a text! Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends . That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience. We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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  Episode #13

  How brain imaging is transforming mental health (finally) | Leanne Williams

  Jul 30, 202653 minS9

  Back in the 1950s, doctors didn't know a whole lot about the heart. If someone came in with chest pain, clinicians would ask a few questions, then take a stab at treating what might be heartburn or a heart attack. That's where mental health care is today, according to today's guest, Leanne Williams. For example: you come into a psychiatrist’s office. The psychiatrist determines that you’ve experienced five or more depressive symptoms for at least two consecutive weeks and you get a diagnosis of major depressive disorder. Maybe you get prescribed some combination of therapy and medication. For some it works. For others it doesn’t. On average, finding an effective treatment for depression takes patients about 7 years – one of the reasons we’re in a mental health crisis. Williams says that the key issue is that psychiatry does not base its diagnoses or treatment plans on any direct test of the organ of interest: the brain. According to Leanne’s research, people with depression actually fall into clearly different categories, caused by changes in specific brain networks that can be seen using brain imaging. She’s shown that using this data can lead to much more targeted and effective therapies. Williams leads the Precision Mental Health Center at Stanford and is helming a new international task force that aims to create a road map for transforming mental health diagnosis and treatment based on biological data and brain imaging. We invited Leanne on the show to tell us about a sea change she sees happening in psychiatry. Learn more Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health Stanford PanLab: Personalized and Translational Neuroscience Lab Reimagining mental health: Stanford Medicine experts chosen to lead precision task force (Stanford Medicine, 2026) Depression's distinctive fingerprints in the brain (From Our Neurons To Yours, 2024) Cognitive behavioral therapy for depression can lead to lasting changes in the brain (Stanford Report, 2024) A study identified 6 types of depression. Here’s why that matters (CNN, 2024) Leanne Williams receives $18 million NIH grant to diagnose and treat depression (Stanford Report, 2024) Brain scans could help personalize treatment for people who are depressed or suicidal (Science, 2019) The Precision Mental Health Commission: transforming mental health through brain circuit science (Nature Mental Health, 2026) Personalized Treatment Selection in Depression Using Clinically Interpretable Neuroimaging Biotypes (Biological Psychiatry, 2026) Personalized brain circuit scores identify clinically distinct biotypes in depression and anxiety (Nature Medicine, 2024) Send us a text! Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends . That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience. We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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  Episode #12

  Is chronic fatigue a gut-brain reflex? | Julia Kaltschmidt

  Jul 16, 202636 minS9

  Why does being sick make you so exhausted – and why does that exhaustion sometimes outlast the illness itself? Today, neuroscientist Julia Kaltschmidt returns to the podcast to talk about the body's hidden "sickness reflex," the gut-brain circuitry behind it, and what those things might reveal about chronic fatigue. Kaltschmidt , a Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute faculty scholar and professor of neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine, is an expert on the enteric nervous system — the gut's own semi-independent network of 200 to 600 million neurons. She's leading a new Big Ideas in Neuroscience project mapping out exactly how the body tells the brain it's sick, alongside Luis de Lecea , an expert in the brain circuitry of sleep, and Christoph Thaiss , who studies communication between the gut, the immune system, and the brain. The team believes that understanding the "reflex" of sickness fatigue could eventually lead to something patients with chronic fatigue and long COVID don't currently have: a real biomarker, and a path to treatment, for a condition that's too often been dismissed as "all in your head." Learn More Big Ideas in Neuroscience tackle brain science of everyday life and more (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2026) Your gut – the second brain? (Our first conversation with Julia Kaltschmidt) The gut's 'second brain' (Stanford Medicine, 2026) Discovery sheds light on earliest development of gut motility (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2024) Neuroscience sheds light on childhood gut disorders (Wu Tsai Neuro, 2024) Could boosting gut–brain communication prevent memory loss? (Podcast episode with Christoph Thaiss) Why sleep keeps us young (Podcast episode with Luis De Lecea) New Science Shows Immune "Memory" in the Brain (Quanta Magazine, 2021) Insular cortex neurons encode and retrieve specific immune responses (Cell, 2021) Send us a text! Thanks for listening! If you're enjoying our show, please take a moment to give us a review on your podcast app of choice and share this episode with your friends . That's how we grow as a show and bring the stories of the frontiers of neuroscience to a wider audience. We want to hear from your neurons! Email us at at neuronspodcast@stanford.edu Learn more about the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford and follow us on Twitter , Facebook , and LinkedIn .

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