How can we uncover the way we learn and know things? Recent SWC seminar speaker, Professor André Fenton, has spent his career focusing on the deviations from expectations, the noise that can’t be explained. In this Q&A, he shares how this approach has led him to a new paradigm for thinking about cognition.

In a recent SWC Seminar, Prof Gilles Laurent shared his work on the neural dynamics in sleep and visual texture perception, using the Australian dragon and cuttlefish respectively as model organisms. In this Q&A, he elaborates on the routes that his lab took to researching these topics, the specific advantages of using these animals as model organisms, future plans, and more.

What happens in our brain when we seek what we crave, like an ice-cold glass of water on a hot summer’s day? In a recent SWC Seminar, Dr Mark Walton shared his work connecting striatal dopamine with reward-driven action. In this Q&A, he delves deeper into the historical backdrop of his research, the controversies around striatal dopamine’s role in signalling new information, and the implications of his findings.