What is the brain?
In this first episode, Bo and I go into a fair bit of depth regarding how the brain works - the intention of which is to provide a functional foundation for the episodes to come. I promise the next episodes will be less lecture, more conversation.
Here are some of the references I used in this episode:
1. David J. Chalmers. Consciousness and Cognition, 1990 (http://consc.net/papers/c-and-c.html)
2. Erwin D, Davidson E. The last common bilaterian ancestor. Development. 2002 129: 3021-3032 (http://dev.biologists.org/content/129/13/3021.long)
3. van der Bijl W, Thyselius M, Kotrschal A, Kolm N. Brain size affects the behavioural response to predators in female guppies (Poecilia reticulata). Proc Biol Sci. 2015 Aug 7;282(1812):20151132. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2015.1132. PubMed PMID: 26203003 (http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1812/20151132)
4. Møller AP, Erritzøe J. Predator-prey interactions, flight initiation distance and brain size. J Evol Biol. 2014 Jan;27(1):34-42. doi: 10.1111/jeb.12272. Epub 2013 Nov 6. PubMed PMID: 25990564. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jeb.12272/epdf)
5. Kandel, Eric R., James H. Schwartz, and Thomas M. Jessell. Principles of Neural Science. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, Health Professions Division, 2012.
I'd love to hear any feedback you might have!
Intro & outro song is by Bonobo, the best electronic artist alive right now (in my opinion). Everyone should go out and purchase his albums; they are all excellent.