Elena Galea's guest appearances

Elena Galea

Convergent Science Network Podcast

Brain Inspired

OwlTail

Support the show to get full episodes and join the Discord community.  Check out my free video series about what's missing in AI and Neuroscience  Brains are often conceived as consisting of neurons and "everything else." As Elena discusses, the "everything else," including glial cells and in particular astrocytes, have largely been ignored in neuroscience. That's partly because the fast action potentials of neurons have been assumed to underlie computations in the brain, and because technology only recently afforded closer scrutiny of astrocyte activity. Now that we can record calcium signaling in astrocytes, it's possible to relate how astrocyte signaling with each other and with neurons may complement the cognitive roles once thought the sole domain of neurons. Although the computational role of astrocytes remains unclear, it is clear that astrocytes interact with neurons and neural circuits in dynamic and interesting ways. We talk about the historical story of astrocytes, the emerging modern story, and Elena shares her views on the path forward to understand astrocyte function in cognition, disease, homeostasis, and - Elena's favorite current hypothesis - their integrative role in negative feedback control. Elena's website.Twitter: @elenagalea1Related papersA roadmap to integrate astrocytes into Systems Neuroscience.Elena recommended this paper: Biological feedback control—Respect the loops. 0:00 - Intro5:23 - The changing story of astrocytes14:58 - Astrocyte research lags neuroscience19:45 - Types of astrocytes23:06 - Astrocytes vs neurons26:08 - Computational roles of astrocytes35:45 - Feedback control43:37 - Energy efficiency46:25 - Current technology52:58 - Computational astroscience1:10:57 - Do names for things matter

<a href="https://www.patreon.com/braininspired" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Support the show</a> to get full episodes and join the Discord community. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/braininspired" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a href="https://braininspired.co/open/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Check out my free video series about what's missing in AI and Neuroscience</a> <a href="https://braininspired.co/open/" rel="noreferrer noopener nofollow" target="_blank"></a> Brains are often conceived as consisting of neurons and "everything else." As Elena discusses, the "everything else," including glial cells and in particular astrocytes, have largely been ignored in neuroscience. That's partly because the fast action potentials of neurons have been assumed to underlie computations in the brain, and because technology only recently afforded closer scrutiny of astrocyte activity. Now that we can record calcium signaling in astrocytes, it's possible to relate how astrocyte signaling with each other and with neurons may complement the cognitive roles once thought the sole domain of neurons. Although the computational role of astrocytes remains unclear, it is clear that astrocytes interact with neurons and neural circuits in dynamic and interesting ways. We talk about the historical story of astrocytes, the emerging modern story, and Elena shares her views on the path forward to understand astrocyte function in cognition, disease, homeostasis, and - Elena's favorite current hypothesis - their integrative role in negative feedback control. <ul><li><a href="https://www.icrea.cat/Web/ScientificStaff/elena-galea-248" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Elena's website</a>.</li><li>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/elenagalea1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@elenagalea1</a></li><li>Related papers<ul><li><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6832773/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A roadmap to integrate astrocytes into Systems Neuroscience</a>.</li><li>Elena recommended this paper: <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34139160/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Biological feedback control—Respect the loops</a>.</li></ul></li></ul> 0:00 - Intro 5:23 - The changing story of astrocytes 14:58 - Astrocyte research lags neuroscience 19:45 - Types of astrocytes 23:06 - Astrocytes vs neurons 26:08 - Computational roles of astrocytes 35:45 - Feedback control 43:37 - Energy efficiency 46:25 - Current technology 52:58 - Computational astroscience 1:10:57 - Do names for things matter