This week’s guest is Wilf Nelson, a psychologist turned neuroscientist who studies inhibitory and regulatory mechanisms in the brain. Our talk with Wilf was done in two parts: The first discusses the science and research he does and the second looks at his science communication and the podcast he hosts, Water Cooler Neuroscience.

Psychology to Neuroscience

After getting his Bachelor of Science in psychology and becoming an accredited psychologist in the British Psychological Society, Wilf settled down in his chosen career. After some time, Wilf returned to academia and pursued a degree in neuroscience. As he explains, psychologist are interested in the mind, what a person is thinking and how the brain does different things, while neuroscientists are more interested in the organ itself.

Inhibitory and Regulatory Mechanics in the Brain

Wilf’s research looks at something called inhibitory and regulatory mechanics inside the brain. Before he explained just what that was, he dispelled some popular brain myths. You don’t use just 10% of your brain but all of it, all of the time. In fact, the brain is constantly active and used about 25% of your energy intake: it is a pretty energy hungry organ and, as a result, uses a lot of oxygen. We measure oxygen consumption in a functional magnetic imaging machine or functional MRI (fMRI).

As you perform any task, e.g., listening to this podcast in bed with your eyes closed, the brain tries to be clever in how it uses this energy. As your vision is not important to this task, the brain dampens the visual system. This does not mean you go blind: if you open your eyes you will see just fine. It just means that the brain is not expending energy to that task and will ramp up if/when it needs it.

You can follow Wilf on social media:

• Twitter: @WcNeuro
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WCneuropodcast/
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/WCNeuro/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WCNeuro/

You can hear the second part of Wilf’s interview here.