Brains & Bourbon Ep15: A Ginger Tom Collins with Kelly Zalocusky

We sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics. Listen to individual segments from this show here: https://soundcloud.com/neuwritewest/sets/brains-bourbon-episode-15-a-tom-collins-with-kelly-zalocusky

A couple weeks ago, we sat down with Stanford Neuroscience graduate student Kelly Zalocusky over a Ginger Tom Collins to discuss the dopamine reward system, risk tolerance in rodents, and nut caching in squirrels, among other topics.

You can also listen to individual segments of this show here.

Here's the breakdown:
Part 1 (26:23) Dopamine System (extended)

“Anyone who has ever gotten out of bed at 6 in the morning knows that you need motivation in order to initiate movement”

Part 2 (26:48) Dopamine and Risk-Seeking Behavior in Rats, Rat fMRI, and the Not My Field game show

“Have you been able to make the risk-seeking rats into humdrum rats?”

Part 3 (20:05) Squirrels

“It turns out that they bury walnuts at the distance you would bury walnuts if you were planting a walnut orchard.”