Researchers talking brain science with the technical detail intact.
Neuroscientists Talk Shop is UTSA's neuroscience research podcast, built on technical conversations between host Charlie Wilson and working researchers. Guests arrive from physics, kinesiology, radiology, psychiatry and medicinal chemistry, and the talk stays close to methods, data and what nobody knows yet.
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Neuroscientists Talk Shop is UTSA's neuroscience research podcast, and its name describes the approach: researchers talking about their work in the vocabulary they would use with each other. Charlie Wilson hosts. The openings follow a steady pattern, with a greeting, the date and a short sketch of what the guest's lab studies, and then the conversation turns to specifics. It is not an explainer. The questions ask for mechanism, such as what a computational model actually consists of or which measure best shows that two brain areas are connected, and guests answer at full technical depth. The guest list crosses disciplinary lines. Marcelo Marucho comes from physics and astronomy, and his lab studies electrical currents generated by microtubules and actin filaments; in his episode, oscillations near 40 hertz, in the same range as brainwaves, raise the question of whether those ionic currents could connect to what an EEG measures. Se-Woong Park works in kinesiology on the dynamics of human movement, and that conversation separates the brain's prediction of its own sensory feedback from the broader anticipation needed to catch a fastball while asking what differs in autism. Jonathan Bohmann, a staff scientist at Southwest Research Institute, leads a medicinal and computational chemistry group and describes a murine crystal structure proving useful in a project aimed at a human enzyme. Some guests come from well beyond San Antonio. Daniel Llano, an auditory physiologist and neurologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is part of an exchange about how hard it has been to divide the inferior colliculus into coherent cell types. Dayu Lin, of New York University's Langone Medical Center, studies the brain mechanisms behind mating, fighting, predation and parenting, and describes an unusually close match between a genetic marker and activity in cells tied to female sexual receptivity. Closer to home, Peter Fox, founding director of the Research Imaging Institute at UT Health San Antonio, explains diffusion imaging from the physics up: water drifts more easily along an axon than across it, and following that bias traces the tracts between regions. The mood is collegial rather than formal. The host reaches for glasses to read a guest's name and checks the pronunciation of 'kinesiology', and the Marucho episode signs off with a running 'even math' joke. In several episodes another researcher sits in, which turns the interview into a small group conversation. Open questions stay open: whether every relevant cell cluster has been found, what prediction really means in autism, how ionic currents might produce electromagnetic waves. For imaging, start with Peter Fox; for behavior circuits, Dayu Lin; for the physics of the cytoskeleton, Marcelo Marucho. It is a poor fit for someone wanting a gentle introduction to the brain, and a good one for anyone happy to follow researchers comparing notes.
Made for: Suits a listener comfortable with lab vocabulary, from optogenetics to crystal structures, who wants to hear researchers reason through methods and unresolved questions rather than a simplified tour of the brain.
What sets it apart: Guests come from physics, kinesiology, radiology, psychiatry and medicinal chemistry as well as brain research, and the questions keep pushing toward mechanism: what a model consists of, which measurement shows two regions are connected.
Neuroscientists Talk Shop is the University of Texas at San Antonio's (UTSA) Neurobiology Podcast, showcasing the current research of internationally renowned guest Neuroscientists. Each episode features a moderated discussion with a cross section of UTSA Neurobiology faculty, highlighting the featured guest's research, and the state of the art in the field at hand.
A box of arrows won't tell you which auditory cells do what; here, you get the argument.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful physics-led review of how microtubule oscillations might relate intracellular currents to brainwaves.
The episode follows Marcelo Marucho, a professor in physics and astronomy, into a question that sits below the usual story of brain electricity.
A focused review of why the auditory midbrain is hard to classify, and how newer tools may clarify its circuits.
The inferior colliculus becomes the center of a careful discussion about how sound moves from the ear toward the cortex. An auditory physiologist and the hosts work through why this midbrain region resists tidy classification, especially when shape, neurotransmitter identity,…
A careful conversation about what ball catching can reveal about prediction in autism research.
Autism research comes into focus through the mechanics of catching a ball. Sewong Park, described in connection with the Department of Kinesiology at UT San Antonio, lays out how his lab studies human movement and the sensory motor mechanisms behind it, then narrows the…
Peter Fox links brain imaging, surgical planning, and neuroplasticity in a focused, technically grounded conversation.
Peter Fox presents brain imaging as a way to look at the brain across structure, function, and connectivity. As founding and current director of the Research Imaging Institute at UT Health San Antonio, he explains how diffusion imaging tracks constrained water movement along…
A focused review of brain circuits involved in social behavior, from female receptivity to aggression.
Dayu Lin's work begins from a productive middle ground: mating, fighting, predation, and parenting are neither simple reflexes nor mysteries that demand a whole-brain explanation all at once.
A technical, focused episode on crystal structures, computational models, and why drug distribution can matter alongside molecular selectivity.
Drug discovery turns on molecular shape here, as Jonathan, a staff scientist at Southwest Research Institute, explains how medicinal and computational chemistry link structure to the biological activity of receptors and enzymes.
A measured return visit follows Fidel Santamaria from brain modeling toward moving proteins, temperature, and experimental limits.
Fidel Santamaria's return to Neuroscientist Talk Shop gives the episode a useful long view. He was the podcast's second guest in October 2007, then a new assistant professor, and now looks back on how his scientific questions have changed.
Mushroom culture from soil to society.
Clear neuroscience for curious minds.
Plant papers, jokes, and useful uncertainty.
Weed science, from genomes to paddocks.
Biomedical careers, described from the inside.
Human stakes behind biomedical progress.
A panel discussion from UTSA's Neuroscience Symposium exploring prefrontal cortical functions beyond fear conditioning.
A neuroscience podcast episode featuring an interview with Maria Diehl about fear and avoidance learning in animals and social learning.
A moderated discussion with neuroscientists about the effects of acetylcholine on the cerebral cortex.
A neuroscience research podcast featuring an interview with Professor Shu Han about optical methods for recording and modifying neural activity.
An interview with Yen Shin about non-coding DNA regions that regulate gene expression in the nervous system.
Neuroscientist Talk Shop speaks with Marcelo Marucho on April 9, 2026 about ionic currents in actin filaments and microtubules at UTSA.
["Neuroscientist Talk Shop turns to the inferior colliculus with Dr.
Five hippocampus researchers at UTSA's March 26, 2026 symposium 'From Place Cells to Computation' discuss place cells firing for locations other than the animal's current one, including Albert Lee's experiment in which animals moved a virtual object by making place cells fire.
Charlie Wilson and Hongan Li interview Se-Woong Park, a UT San Antonio kinesiology researcher who studies sensory-motor dynamics and autism-related movement.
Neuroscientist Talk Shop’s February 26, 2026 episode with Peter Fox focuses on how PET, MRI, CT, and diffusion methods were turned into tools for mapping brain structure, function, and connectivity.
Neuroscientist Talk Shop's February 19, 2026 episode with Dayu Lin, PhD, centers on how the hypothalamus helps generate innate social behaviors such as mating, fighting, predation, and parenting.
Jonathan Bowman, a staff scientist at Southwest Research Institute, explains how researchers use crystal structures and computational workflows to study acetylcholinesterase, the enzyme that rapidly removes acetylcholine from synapses.
Fidel Santamaria and Charlie Wilson revisit Santamaria's scientific work 18 years after his first appearance on Neuroscientist Talk Shop, focusing on the temperature sensitivity of voltage-gated ion channels.
Matthew Goodwin, Leslie Neely, and Charlie Wilson discuss behavioral assessment and intervention technology for autism during UTSA’s December 8, 2025 public-lecture episode.