Brains Without Borders: The Case for Rebel Neuroscience | Dr. John Krakauer | #45

Описание: In this episode of BeyondPhrenology, I'm joined by Dr. John Krakauer—John C. Malone Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins. He directs the BLAM Lab—Brain, Learning, Animation, and Movement—where his team explores how we learn to move, what goes wrong after stroke, and how to drive recovery. He's also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and co-author of Broken Movement: The Neurobiology of Motor Recovery after Stroke, a field-shaping synthesis that bridges behavior, physiology, and computation.

Today, we dive into what it means to do neuroscience as a rebel—challenging orthodoxies, questioning entrenched metaphors, and reimagining how we think about brain, behavior, and cognition. From motor learning to recovery after injury, from the philosophy of science to the messy realities of research, John and I explore how to push beyond safe boundaries and why bold, sometimes uncomfortable ideas are essential for progress.

Also at Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Ij4...

TIMELINE
00:00:00 – A rebel is born: John's beginnings and the making of a contrarian scientist
00:09:35 – Philosophy vs. science: Stealing insights or sharpening rigor?
00:12:30 – Are humans really special? Rethinking sensorimotor and cognitive capabilities (and why the myth of language specificity has collapsed)
00:23:00 – The holy grail: Bridging movement and thought
00:35:38 – Universal principles: The misplaced obsession
00:38:20 – Why neuroscience never stops being fascinating
00:52:20 – The elegance of physiologically grounded neuroscience
00:54:45 – Wrestling with levels of description in neuroscience
01:00:00 – When explanations are just descriptions in disguise
01:07:00 – Animal models: Indispensable tools or misleading crutches?
01:13:40 – From models to metaphors to myths: How ideas transform (and sometimes mislead)
01:15:15 – The sociology of science: Romantics vs. rationals
01:31:45 – Why it's really, really hard to be a good scientist
01:37:55 – Flavors of motor disorders: Parkinson's, stroke, and beyond
01:44:28 – Broken Movement: Revisiting John's landmark book
01:53:20 – A message to young souls entering science: Be a little poet

John Krakauer: https://profiles.hopkinsmedicine.org/...

John's work:
Broken Movement: The Neurobiology of Motor Recovery after Stroke: https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograp...
Against cortical reorganisation: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.84716
Neuroscience needs behavior: correcting a reductionist bias: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016...