BrainCast · Sussex Neuroscience Society

From Philosophy to Psychedelics | What's Going On Everywhere Else | Dr. Lia Iglesias

·58 min·3 clips

Switching off maladaptive-fear neurons improved memory performance and stress coping in the animals.

1. BrainCast starts with Kira Benn, a second-year medical neuroscience student at the University of Sussex, introducing a series about academics and researchers and their journeys. 2. Leah, a postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark, matters because she brings a neuroscience career shaped by Spain, Brazil, and Denmark. 3. The episode asks why academic paths look so different and how Leah moved from philosophy into behavioral neuroscience. 4. Leah says she nearly chose philosophy, existential literature, and art history before a cousin pushed her back toward science. 5. A high school teacher told her she was “not made for science,” and Leah says that advice initially made her believe science was not for her. 6. Leah describes shifting to biotechnology in Barcelona because it included chemistry, biology, engineering, and math. 7. She says the bachelor felt “extremely boring” at times, but the material later became useful in lab work. 8. Brazil changed her view of science education because professors explained the historical background of theories and encouraged debate in class. 9. Leah says that approach made technical details, like “the diameter of a molecule,” easier to understand because the context came first. 10. That experience convinced her that academia could answer broad questions while still testing specific hypotheses. 11. Leah says her route into neuroscience also depended on luck, effort, failure, and success rather than a straight plan. 12. A planned internship in Germany collapsed the day before the grant deadline, and Denmark became the replacement through a collaboration with Samia Joka. 13. She says moving between countries changed her perspective and pushed her to compare research cultures rather than treat one system as universal. 14. Leah contrasts Brazil’s flexible work rhythms with Denmark’s stronger work-life balance and funding support for early-career projects. 15. She says Denmark gave her room to apply for her own ideas early, while Brazil gave her more freedom to manage holidays and weekend work informally. 16. Her current project studies fear memories, post-traumatic stress disorder, and the depression that she says affects about 50 percent of PTSD patients. 17. Leah says she tags hippocampal neurons that encode intense fear, then turns them off during cognition and mood tests to see whether behavior changes. 18. She reports that shutting down the maladaptive-fear neurons improved memory performance and stress-coping responses in animals, and the lab has now won grants and prizes for the data. 19. The conversation is interview-based, detailed, and reflective, with Kira asking follow-up questions about education, funding, circuits, and psychedelics. 20. Listeners interested in neuroscience careers, fear memory, and psychedelics will get the most from it; listeners wanting a brief, purely clinical overview may skip it.

As heard by us

A warm, student-led interview about careers, balance, and the nonlinearity of becoming a scientist.

Braincast's debut presents scientific careers as rarely straight lines, and it does so with an easy, steady confidence. Kira Benn, a second year medical neuroscience student at the University of Sussex, talks with Leah, a postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University, about academic…

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Press play for a calm, honest conversation about a non-linear academic journey, from Sussex to Denmark and beyond.

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