This Week in Neuroscience

• TWiN 76: Light Switches Go To Stockholm

  TWiN explains the science behind the 2026 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries on light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.

  Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

  Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

  Links for this episode

  • MicrobeTV Discord Server
  • Nobel Prize Physiology or Medicine 2026 (Nobel)
  • Driving fast-spiking cells (Nature)
  • Manipulating synthetic optogenetic odors (Science)
  • Microbial rhodopsin in mammalian neurons (Nat Methods)
  • Deisseroth lectures on optogenetics (iBiology)
  • Cardiogenic control of affective behavioral state (Nature)
  • Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

  Music is by Ronald Jenkees

  Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

• TWiN 75: Arc, tau, and Alzheimer's

  Jason Shepherd joins TWiN to discuss the work in his laboratory showing that Arc protein plays a role in intercellular transmission of tau protein, which becomes hyperphosphorylated and misfolded, a major histopathological hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

  Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

  Guest: Melissa Cooper

  Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

  Links for this episode

  • MicrobeTV Discord Server
  • Arc and Tau intercellular transmission (Cell)
  • Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

  Music is by Ronald Jenkees

  Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

• TWiN 74: Plastic astrocyte networks with Melissa Cooper

  Melissa Cooper joins TWiN to discuss her discovery that astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic networks.

  Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Tim Cheung

  Guest: Melissa Cooper

  Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

  Links for this episode

  • MicrobeTV Discord Server
  • Astrocytes form plastic networks (Nature)
  • Newly found brain network (Nature)
  • Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

  Music is by Ronald Jenkees

  Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

• TWiN 73: The price of a bigger brain

  TWiN unpacks a striking paradox, that the very cell divisions that built the human brain's most advanced layers also put them at greatest risk, and how a dedicated DNA repair pathway saves them.

  Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

  Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

  Links for this episode

  • MicrobeTV Discord Server
  • Expansion of outer cortical CUX2 neurons requires adaptations for DNA repair (Nature)
  • Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

  Music is by Ronald Jenkees

  Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv

• TWiN 72: What cesarean babies miss

  TWiN explains the finding that vaginal microbiota transfer ameliorates cesarean-associated neurodevelopmental deficits in mice via synthesis of a sphingosine derivative on neonatal skin.

  .Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Vivianne Morrison, and Tim Cheung

  Subscribe (free): Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, RSS

  Links for this episode

  • MicrobeTV Discord Server
  • Vaginal microbiota transfer ameliorates cesarean-associated neurodevelopmental deficits (Cell Host Microbe)
  • Timestamps by Jolene Ramsey. Thanks!

  Music is by Ronald Jenkees

  Send your neuroscience questions and comments to twin@microbe.tv