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Brain Inspired

by Paul Middlebrooks

Science

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

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Episodes

  1. BI 249 Michael Cole: Brain Flows are the Units of Cognition

    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...

  2. BI 248 Andrea Hiott: The Navigational Approach to the Mind

    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...

  3. BI 247 Maxim Raginsky: A Control Theory View on Brains and AI

    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...

  4. BI 246 Andrea Gambarotto: Cognition Requires Agency

    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...

  5. BI 245 Dan Levenstein: Neuro-AI, Dynamics, and Model Systems

    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...

  6. BI 244 Marco Facchin: Philosophy and Science of Biological Brains

    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...

  7. BI 243 Alison Barth: Learning as a Window to Cortex

    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...

  8. BI 242 Kathryn Nave: How Life Gets its Meaning and Intelligence

    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...

  9. BI 241 Johannes Jaeger: Agency and the Cyborg Myth

    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...

  10. BI 240 Cristopher Moore: Cognition and Computational Complexity

    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...

  11. BI 239 Nedah Nemati: Naturalistic Neuroscience and Lived Experience

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. 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...

  12. BI 238 James Harrison: Hypnosis as Mental Foraging

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. James Harrison is a clinical hypnotist, and author of a new book, Mental Foraging and the Evolution of Memory: An Updated Model of Clinical Hypnosis. As you probably know, hypnosis carries some historical…

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  13. BI 237 Ehud Ahissar: Consciousness and Perceptual Dualism

    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...

  14. BI 236 Liset de la Prida: Neurons, Ripples, and Manifolds

    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...

  15. BI 235 Romain Brette: The Brain, in Theory

    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...

  16. BI 234 Juan Gallego: The Neural Manifold Manifesto

    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...

  17. BI 233 Tom Griffiths: The Laws of Thought

    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...

  18. BI 232 How Should Neuroscience Integrate with Ecological Psychology?

    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...

  19. BI 231 Jaan Aru: Conscious AI? Not Even Close!

    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...

  20. BI 230 Michael Shadlen: How Thoughts Become Conscious

    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...

  21. BI 229 Tomaso Poggio: Principles of Intelligence and Learning

    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...

  22. BI 228 Alex Maier: Laws of Consciousness

    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...

  23. BI 227 Decoding Memories: Aspirational Neuroscience 2025

    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...

  24. BI 226 Tatiana Engel: The High and Low Dimensional Brain

    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...

  25. BI 225 Henk De Regt: Understanding in Machines and Humans

    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...

  26. BI 224 Dan Nicholson: Schrödinger’s What is Life? Revisited

    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...

  27. BI 223 Vicente Raja: Ecological Psychology Motifs in Neuroscience

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Vicente Raja is a research fellow at University of Murcia in Spain, where he is also part of the Minimal Intelligence Lab run by Paco Cavo, where they study plant behavior, and he is external affiliate faculty of...

  28. BI 222 Nikolay Kukushkin: Minds and Meaning from Nature’s Ideas

    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...

  29. BI 221 Ann Kennedy: Theory Beneath the Cortical Surface

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Ann Kennedy is Associate Professor at Scripps Research Institute and runs the Laboratory for Theoretical Neuroscience and Behavior. Among other things, Ann has been studying how processes important in life, like...

  30. BI 220 Michael Breakspear and Mac Shine: Dynamic Systems from Neurons to Brains

    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...

  31. BI 219 Xaq Pitkow: Principles and Constraints of Cognition

    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...

  32. BI 218 Chris Rozell: Brain Stimulation and AI for Mental Disorders

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. We are in an exciting time in the cross-fertilization of the neurotech industry and the cognitive sciences. My guest today is Chris Rozell, who sits in that space that connects neurotech and brain research. Chris...

  33. BI 217 Jennifer Prendki: Consciousness, Life, AI, and Quantum Physics

    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...

  34. BI 216 Woodrow Shew and Keith Hengen: The Nature of Brain Criticality

    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...

  35. BI 215 Xiao-Jing Wang: Theoretical Neuroscience Comes of Age

    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...

  36. BI 214 Nicole Rust: How To Actually Fix Brains and Minds

    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...

  37. BI 213 Representations in Minds and Brains

    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...

  38. BI 212 John Beggs: Why Brains Seek the Edge of Chaos

    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...

  39. BI 211 COGITATE: Testing Theories of Consciousness

    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...

  40. BI 210 Dean Buonomano: Consciousness, Time, and Organotypic Dynamics

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Dean Buonomano runs the Buonomano lab at UCLA. Dean was a guest on Brain Inspired way back on episode 18, where we talked about his book Your Brain is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time, which...

  41. BI 209 Aran Nayebi: The NeuroAI Turing Test

    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...

  42. BI 208 Gabriele Scheler: From Verbal Thought to Neuron Computation

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Gabriele Scheler co-founded the Carl Correns Foundation for Mathematical Biology. Carl Correns was her great grandfather, one of the early pioneers in genetics. Gabriele is a computational neuroscientist, whose...

  43. BI 207 Alison Preston: Schemas in our Brains and Minds

    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...

  44. Quick Announcement: Complexity Group

    Here's the link to learn more and sign up: Complexity Group Email List.

  45. BI 206 Ciara Greene: Memories Are Useful, Not Accurate

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Ciara Greene is Associate Professor in the University College Dublin School of Psychology. In this episode we discuss Ciara's book Memory Lane: The Perfectly Imperfect Ways We Remember, co-authored by her…

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  46. BI 205 Dmitri Chklovskii: Neurons Are Smarter Than You Think

    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...

  47. BI 204 David Robbe: Your Brain Doesn’t Measure Time

    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...

  48. BI 203 David Krakauer: How To Think Like a Complexity Scientist

    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...

  49. BI 202 Eli Sennesh: Divide-and-Conquer to Predict

    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...

  50. BI 201 Rajesh Rao: From Predictive Coding to Brain Co-Processors

    Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. Today I'm in conversation with Rajesh Rao, a distinguished professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington, where he also co-directs the Center for Neurotechnology. Back in 1999, Raj...

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About this show

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

Hosted by

Paul Middlebrooks

Frequently asked questions

How many episodes does Brain Inspired have?

Brain Inspired has 163 episodes on PodParley. The most recent episode was published on November 4, 2026.

What is Brain Inspired about?

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,...

How often does Brain Inspired release new episodes?

Brain Inspired publishes every two weeks, based on its 163 episodes since February 2021.

Who hosts Brain Inspired?

Brain Inspired is created and hosted by Paul Middlebrooks.
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