This Week in Neuroscience

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
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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

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
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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

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
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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 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
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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 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