94. David Van Essen: The Human Connectome Project, hierarchical processing, and the joys of collaboration
02/18/24 • 61 min
David Van Essen is an Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about David's path to becoming a neuroscientist, the Human Connectome project, hierarhical processing in the cerebral cortex, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: David's childhood: ravens, rockets, and radios
0:05:00: From physics to neuroscience (via chemistry)
0:13:55: Quantitative and qualitative approaches to science
0:19:17: Model species in neuroscience
0:31:35: Hierarchical processing in the cortex
0:46:54: The Human Connectome Project
0:55:00: A book or paper more people should read
0:58:01: Something David wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:00:31: Advice for PhD students/postdocs
Podcast links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt
David's links
- Website: https://geni.us/VanEssen-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/VanEssen-scholar
Ben's links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt
References & links
David's autobiographical sketch for the Society for Neuroscience (in Volume 9): https://www.sfn.org/about/history-of-neuroscience/autobiographical-chapters
Felleman & Van Essen (1991). Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. Cerebral Cortex.
Glasser, Coalson, Robinson, Hacker, Harwell, Yacoub, ... & Van Essen (2016). A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex. Nature.
Hubel & Wiesel (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The Journal of physiology.
Maunsell & Van Essen (1983). The connections of the middle temporal visual area (MT) and their relationship to a cortical hierarchy in the macaque monkey. Journal of Neuroscience.
Sheldrake (2021). Entangled life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures.
Van Essen & Kelly (1973). Morphological identification of simple, complex and hypercomplex cells in the visual cortex of the cat. In Intracellular Staining in Neurobiology (pp. 189-198).
Van Essen & Maunsell (1980). Two‐dimensional maps of the cerebral cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology.
Van Essen (2012). Cortical cartography and Caret software. Neuroimage.
Van Essen, Smith, Barch, Behrens, Yacoub, Ugurbil & WU-Minn HCP Consortium. (2013). The WU-Minn human connectome project: an overview. Neuroimage.
Wooldridge (1963). The machinery of the brain.
David Van Essen is an Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. In this conversation, we talk about David's path to becoming a neuroscientist, the Human Connectome project, hierarhical processing in the cerebral cortex, and much more.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: David's childhood: ravens, rockets, and radios
0:05:00: From physics to neuroscience (via chemistry)
0:13:55: Quantitative and qualitative approaches to science
0:19:17: Model species in neuroscience
0:31:35: Hierarchical processing in the cortex
0:46:54: The Human Connectome Project
0:55:00: A book or paper more people should read
0:58:01: Something David wishes he'd learnt sooner
1:00:31: Advice for PhD students/postdocs
Podcast links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt
David's links
- Website: https://geni.us/VanEssen-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/VanEssen-scholar
Ben's links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt
References & links
David's autobiographical sketch for the Society for Neuroscience (in Volume 9): https://www.sfn.org/about/history-of-neuroscience/autobiographical-chapters
Felleman & Van Essen (1991). Distributed hierarchical processing in the primate cerebral cortex. Cerebral Cortex.
Glasser, Coalson, Robinson, Hacker, Harwell, Yacoub, ... & Van Essen (2016). A multi-modal parcellation of human cerebral cortex. Nature.
Hubel & Wiesel (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The Journal of physiology.
Maunsell & Van Essen (1983). The connections of the middle temporal visual area (MT) and their relationship to a cortical hierarchy in the macaque monkey. Journal of Neuroscience.
Sheldrake (2021). Entangled life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds & shape our futures.
Van Essen & Kelly (1973). Morphological identification of simple, complex and hypercomplex cells in the visual cortex of the cat. In Intracellular Staining in Neurobiology (pp. 189-198).
Van Essen & Maunsell (1980). Two‐dimensional maps of the cerebral cortex. Journal of Comparative Neurology.
Van Essen (2012). Cortical cartography and Caret software. Neuroimage.
Van Essen, Smith, Barch, Behrens, Yacoub, Ugurbil & WU-Minn HCP Consortium. (2013). The WU-Minn human connectome project: an overview. Neuroimage.
Wooldridge (1963). The machinery of the brain.
Previous Episode
93. Nachum Ulanovsky: Bats, spatial navigation, and natural neuroscience
Nachum Ulanovsky is a professor at the Weizman Institute. We talk about his research on spatial navigation in bats, how Nachum started working with bats, the importance of natural behaviour, how to build a 700m long tunnel for neuroscience, and much more.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: How Nachum started working with bats
0:09:29: The technical difficulties of working with bats and in a new species
0:16:03: The Egyptian Fruit Bat
0:19:42: Wild bats vs lab-born bats / spatial navigation in very large spaces
0:26:28: How to build a 700m long tunnel for neuroscience
0:44:30: 2 random questions about bats
0:53:48: The social lives of bats & social place cells
1:05:09: Why are there so many types of cells for spatial navigation?
1:13:01: Natural neuroscience
1:17:33: A book or paper more people should read
1:20:39: Advice for PhD students/postdocs
Podcast links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt
Nachum's links
- Website: https://geni.us/ulanovsky-web
Ben's links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt
References & links
Bracken Cave in Texas, with millions of bats: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNPioS_roRE
The Onion video on scientist who wasted life studying anteaters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXD9HnrNrvk
Eilam-Altstadter ... (2021). Stereotaxic brain atlas of the Egyptian fruit bat.
Eliav ... (2021). Multiscale representation of very large environments in the hippocampus of flying bats. Science.
Finkelstein ... (2015). Three-dimensional head-direction coding in the bat brain. Nature.
Geva-Sagiv ... (2015). Spatial cognition in bats and rats: from sensory acquisition to multiscale maps and navigation. Nat Rev Neuro.
Geva-Sagiv ... (2016). Hippocampal global remapping for different sensory modalities in flying bats. Nat Neuro.
Hafting ... (2005). Microstructure of a spatial map in the entorhinal cortex. Nature.
Hodgkin & Huxley (1952). A quantitative description of membrane current and its application to conduction and excitation in nerve. The J phys.
Hubel & Wiesel (1962). Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex. The J phys.
Lettvin... (1959). What the frog's eye tells the frog's brain. Proceedings of IRE.
Miller (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two ... Psych Rev.
O'Keefe & Dostrovsky (1971). The hippocampus as a spatial map ... Brain research.
Omer ... (2018). Social place-cells in the bat hippocampus. Science.
Sarel ... (2017). Vectorial representation of spatial goals in the hippocampus of bats. Science.
Sarel ... (2022). Natural switches in behaviour rapidly modulate hippocampal coding. Nature.
Tsoar ... (2011). Large-scale navigational map in a mammal. PNAS.
Ulanovsky ... (2003). Processing of low-probability sounds by cortical neurons. Nature neuroscience.
Ulanovsky & Moss (2007). Hippocampal cellular and network activity in freely moving echolocating bats. Nat Neuro.
Yartsev & Ulanovsky (2013). Representation of three-dimensional space in the hippocampus of flying bats. Science.
Next Episode
95. Emily Finn: Neural fingerprinting, 'naturalistic' stimuli, and taking time before starting a PhD
Emily Finn is an assistant professor at Dartmouth College. We talk about her research on neural fingerprinting, naturalistic stimuli, how Emily got into science, the year she spent in Peru before her PhD, advice for writing well, and much more.
There are occasional (minor) audio disturbances when Emily's speaking. Sorry about that, still trying to figure out where they came from so that it won't happen again.
BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.
Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon
Timestamps
0:00:00: Supportive peer review
0:03:25: Why study linguistics?
0:11:05: Uncertainties about doing a PhD/taking time off
0:18:05: Emily's year-and-a-half in Peru
0:25:17: Emily's PhD
0:29:34: Neural fingerprints
0:49:25: Naturalistic stimuli in neuroimaging
1:24:01: How to write good scientific articles
1:30:55: A book or paper more people should read
1:34:58: Something Emily wishes she'd learnt sooner
1:39:20: Advice for PhD students/postdocs
Podcast links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-pod-twt
Emily's links
- Website: https://geni.us/finn-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/finn-scholar
- Twitter: https://geni.us/finn-twt
Ben's links
- Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
- Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
- Twitter: https://geni.us/bjks-twt
References and links
Episode w/ Nachum Ulanovsky: https://geni.us/bjks-ulanovsky
Byrge & Kennedy (2019). High-accuracy individual identification using a “thin slice” of the functional connectome. Network Neuroscience.
Burkeman (2021). Four thousand weeks: Time management for mortals.
Finn, ... & Constable (2014). Disruption of functional networks in dyslexia: a whole-brain, data-driven analysis of connectivity. Biological psychiatry.
Finn, Shen, ... & Constable (2015). Functional connectome fingerprinting: identifying individuals using patterns of brain connectivity. Nature Neuroscience.
Finn, ... & Constable (2018). Trait paranoia shapes inter-subject synchrony in brain activity during an ambiguous social narrative. Nature Communications.
Finn, ... & Bandettini (2020). Idiosynchrony: From shared responses to individual differences during naturalistic neuroimaging. NeuroImage.
Finn & Bandettini (2021). Movie-watching outperforms rest for functional connectivity-based prediction of behavior. NeuroImage.
Finn (2021). Is it time to put rest to rest?. Trends in cognitive sciences.
Finn & Rosenberg (2021). Beyond fingerprinting: Choosing predictive connectomes over reliable connectomes. NeuroImage.
Grall & Finn (2022). Leveraging the power of media to drive cognition: A media-informed approach to naturalistic neuroscience. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
Hasson, ... & Malach (2004). Intersubject synchronization of cortical activity during natural vision. Science.
Hedge, Powell & Sumner (2018). The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences. Behavior research methods.
Sava-Segal, ... & Finn (2023). Individual differences in neural event segmentation of continuous experiences. Cerebral Cortex.
BJKS Podcast - 94. David Van Essen: The Human Connectome Project, hierarchical processing, and the joys of collaboration
Transcript
[This is an automated transcript that contains many errors]
Benjamin James Kuper-Smith: [00:00:00] Yes, I mean, as I mentioned before we started recording, uh, you have this nice biographical sketch for the Society for Neuroscience that I will, that I read and that I'll use heavily, kind of just to structure our conversation to some extent. And I thought, uh, I'd, uh, start with some of your kind of childhood observations and in particular some of the ones that relate a lit
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