1. Matthias Nau: MR-based eye-tracking, cognitive maps & vision, science communication

Matthias Nau is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Trondheim, Norway. He finished his PhD recently in Christian Doeller's group at the Kavli, where he currently works as a postdoc. Whenever the current pandemic cools down, Matthias will start a position as a postdoc at NIH with Chris Baker (this position was supposed to start in early 2020).  

In this conversation, we talk about a variety of topics, from Matthias's recent research (the link between vision and high-level spatial coding principles in the brain (e.g. grid cells), the development of cognitive maps in humans, and a novel form of using fMRI for eye-tracking he co-developed with Markus Frey), to the relationship between electrophysiology studies in animals and fMRI studies in humans, education in neuroscience, and science communication.  

Timestamps:  

• 0:00:15 MR-based eye-tracking  
• 0:22:50 Switching to Python   
• 0:26:20 Grid Cells and vision   
• 0:39:59 Development of the cognitive map in humans   
• 0:45:10 Electrophysiology and fMRI   
• 1:02:25 The interdisciplinary education of neuroscientists   
• 1:20:17 Twitter, science communication, and this podcast   
• 1:35:38 Matthias's plans for the future, complicated by COVID   

Links:   

• Podcast website:  
  • https://bjks.buzzsprout.com/   
  • https://twitter.com/BjksPodcast   
• Matthias's links:  
  • https://matthiasnau.com/   
  • https://twitter.com/NauMatt   
  • https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=r83cbFMAAAAJ   
• Ben's links:  
  • https://bjks.blog/   
  • https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=-nWNfvcAAAAJ   

• Grid cells info:  
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_cell   
  • http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Grid_cells   

Papers mentioned:   

Killian, N. J., Jutras, M. J., & Buffalo, E. A. (2012). A map of visual space in the primate entorhinal cortex. Nature.   

Nau, M., Schröder, T. N., Bellmund, J. L., & Doeller, C. F. (2018). Hexadirectional coding of visual space in human entorhinal cortex. Nature neuroscience.   

Nau, M., Julian, J. B., & Doeller, C. F. (2018). How the brain’s navigation system shapes our visual experience. Trends in cognitive sciences.   

Wills, T. J., Cacucci, F., Burgess, N., & O'Keefe, J. (2010). Development of the hippocampal cognitive map in preweanling rats. Science.