On November 6, 2025, I spoke with Dr. Jason O'Connor about the behavioral and psychological effects of inflammation, and their similarity to depression. Jason explained how inflammation can produce those symptoms by increasing levels of kynurenine and metabolites in the brain. We discussed the possibility that depression may sometimes result from a rise in those metabolites in the absence of inflammation.

Guest:

Jason O'Connor, Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the UT San Antonio Long School of Medicine and the Audie Murphy VA Hospital.

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On October 23, 2025 we met with Dr. Peter Crino about how mutations occurring during cell division in the developing cerebral cortex can lead to localized developmental malformations of cortical structure and neurological disorders including focal epilepsy.

Guest:

Peter Crino, Richard and Kathryn Taylor Professor, Chair, Department of Neurology, University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Participating:

Jenny Hsieh, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

On October 16, 2025 we spoke with Sara Swinford-Jackson about effects of parental drug self-administration on motivated drug taking in offspring in rodents. Sarah discussed the approach taken to remove genetic and environmental contributions to isolate the epigenetic contribution, and to identify the biological mechanism.

Guest

Sarah Swinford-Jackson, Assistant professor of Behavioral and Cellular Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University.

Participating:

Matt Wanat, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

Alexey Soshnev, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

Ashley Miller, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio.

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On October 9, 2025 we met with Maria Geffen to discuss the how three kinds of inhibitory neurons in the auditory cortex each contributes to individual features of auditory experience.

Guest:

Maria Geffen, Professor of Otorhinolaryngology, Neuroscience, and Neurology, University of Pennsylvania

Participating:

Alfonso Apicella, Department of Neuroscience, Regenerative and Developmental Biology, UTSA

Alice Bertero, Department of Neuroscience, Regenerative and Developmental Biology, UTSA

Jon-Paul Moler, Department of Neuroscience, Regenerative and Developmental Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Regenerative and Developmental Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On October 2, 2025 Dan Lodge returned to the podcast to talk about the physiological changes in brain circuits associated with schizophrenia. We reviewed the status of the dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia and the brain circuits responsible for its negative, positive, and cognitive symptoms.

Guest:

Dan Lodge, Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacology, Long School of Medicine, UT San Antonio

Participating:

Matt Wanat, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UT San Antonio

Thanks to Jim Tepper for original music

On September 25, 2025 we met with Daniel Dombeck to talk about cognitive maps and place coding by neurons in the hippocampus. Conversation topics included the spatial organization of cells with a map, mappings based on visual versus olfactory cues, changes in spatial scale with the size of the environment, and remapping of the place cells with changes in context.

Guest:

Daniel Dombeck, Professor, Department of Neurobiology, Northwestern University

Participating:

Francesco Savelli, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Stephen Jones, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On September 18, 2025, and we got to talk with Ricardo Mozzachiodi about what was learned and what we continue to learn about the cellular and molecular basis of memory by studying simple behaviors in a mollusk, Aplysia california, the sea hare. Ricardo filled us in on the original rationale for studying cell biology of learning in this animal, and current findings on the role of neuromodulators in learning.

Guest:

Ricardo Mozzachiodi, Professor, Department of Life Sciences, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi.

Participating:

Alfonso Apicella, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On September 4, 2025 we talked with Michael Roberts about exploring complex brainstem circuitry of the auditory system, identifying its characteristic cell types, connections, synaptic features and cellular dynamics. We discussed the challenges encountered in studying brain circuits in general, and the particular difficulties and opportunities that attend this effort in the inferior colliculus.

Guest: Michael Roberts, Associate Professor, Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan.

Participating:

Marina Silveira, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On May 8, 2025 we met with Kevin Bieniek to talk about the nature of brain injury seen in chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes and others who experience repeated concussion. Kevin explained the commonalities and unique features of those injuries compared to neurodegenerative diseases.

Guest:

Kevin Bieniek, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Director of the Brain Bank at the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio.

Participating:

Melanie Carless, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On April 17, 2025 we met with Nicholas Priebe to describe developments in the study of neuronal representations of the visual world. We discussed the origin of variability the temporal patterns of responses, and the possibility that responses are influenced by non-visual pathways.

Guest:

Nicholas Priebe, Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas at Austin

Participating:

Todd Troyer, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On April 10th (I said April 4th, but it was the 10th), 2025 we spoke with Punam Pokam about the molecular mechanisms that control osmotic balance of neurons and glia, and their changes after brain injury. She also explained the pathological membrane potential changes and ionic currents that are associated with injury and their relation to cell swelling.

Guest:

Punam Pokam, Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics, Texas A&M School of Medicine

Host

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On April 3, 2025 we met with Lorena Saelices to talk about what we know about the structure of amyloids, how they form by misfolding and aggregation of proteins, and how they damage cells and tissues in a range of disorders (including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases).

Guest:

Lorena Saelices, Assistant Professor, Department of Biophysics and the Center for Alzheimer's and Neurodegenerative Diseases at the UT Southwestern Medical School.

Participating:

Chris Gamblin, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson , Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On March 27, 2025, we spoke with Nace Golding about the auditory pathways in the brainstem and midbrain. We focused on the inferior colliculus, and on identifying the key cell types that make up that essential but mysterious midbrain auditory nucleus.

Guest:

Nace Golding, Professor, Department of Neuroscience and the Center for Learning and Memory, University of Texas at Austin.

Participating:

Marina Silveira, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to Jim Tepper for original music

On March 20, 2025 we spoke with the speakers at our annual UTSA Neuroscience Symposium for 2025, entitled "Prefrontal Cortical Functions Beyond Fear". The panel talked about the contribution of medial prefrontal cortex in fear, threat and safety learning, cognitive flexibility, psychiatric disorders, recent and remote memory, and some other things.

Guests

Anthony Burgos-Robles, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Laura Denardo, Department of Physiology, UCLA School of Medicine

Jason Keller, HHMI Janelia Research Campus

David Morilak, Department of Pharmacology, UT Health San Antonio

Host

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On February 27, 2025 we were joined by Xue Han about using genetically expressed fluorescent voltage sensors to measure transmembrane voltage simultaneously in multiple neurons in the brain of awake behaving animals over days or weeks. She explained how the genetic sequences for the voltage sensor molecules are found and perfected, how they are delivered to the neurons of interest, the challenges of measuring voltage by changes in fluorescence, and the kinds of questions whose solutions are waiting for this technology.

Guest:

Xue Han, Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to Jim Tepper for original music

On February 13, 2025 we met with Yin Shen to discuss the contribution of cis-regulatory non-coding DNA sequences in controlling gene expression, and how variation of these regions in microglia may be risk factors in idiopathic brain diseases.

Guest:

Yin Shen, Professor in the Department of Neurology and the Institute for Human Genetics in the Weill Institute for Neurosciences at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine

Participating:

Melanie Carless, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to Jim Tepper for original music

On January 30, 2025 we spoke with Ekaterina (Katya) Likhtic about the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and the circuits responsible for fear conditioning and extinction. She informed us about the special contribution of the amygdala to emotion and emotional learning, and we discussed the special place of fear conditioning as a model for learning generally.

Guest:

Katya Likhtic, Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Hunter City University of New York.

Participating:

Tony Burgos-Robles, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA.

Itamar Lerner, Department of Psychology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA.

On December 13, 2024 we spoke with the speakers at our annual UTSA Neuroscience Symposium, on the Basal Ganglia Circuitry. Topics of discussion included the heterogeneity of cells and connections, the usefulness of the idea of cell types (or lack thereof), and the relationship between neuromodulators and fast synaptic transmission.

Sorry about the sound quality on this one.

Guests:

Charles Gerfen, Senior Investigator, National Institute of Mental Health

Joshua Goldberg, Associate Professor, Department of Medical Neurobiology, The Hebrew University

Zayd Khaliq, Senior Investigator, National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke

Tianyi Mao, Senior Scientist, Vollum Institute, Oregon Health & Science University

Gilad Silberberg, Professor | Docent, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute

D. James Surmeier, Professor, Department of Physiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

On December 5, 2024 we spoke with Jason Chen about G-protein signaling in the mammalian photoreceptors, and the G-protein regulator proteins that govern the speed of transduction and the temporal resolution of vision.

Guest:

Jason Chen, Professor in the Departments of Molecular Medicine and Ophthalmology, and Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Chair in Retinal Signaling at UT Health San Antonio.

Participating:

Erika Tatiana Camacho, Departments of Mathematics and Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music

On November 21, 2024 we spoke with Jonathan Fadok on the brain circuits that choose whether an animal will freeze or try to escape in the presence of a dangerous stimulus.

Guest:

Jonathan Fadok, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Brain Institute at Tulane University.

Participating:

Tony Burgos-Robles, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Matt Wanat, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Host:

Charles Wilson, Department of Neuroscience, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, UTSA

Thanks to James Tepper for original music