FENS Voices: the brains behind neuroscience

In this episode of the FENS Community Testimonials Podcast, Professor Sandra Siegert from the Institute of Science and Technology in Austria talks about her favourite aspects of the Brain Conferences in Denmark, including the intimate setting, the inspiring programme, and the cozy venue.

In this final episode of the first season of the FENS‑EJN Journal Club, Matteo Piumatti speaks with Lisa Trost and Andries ter Maat from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence about their recent EJN publication on vocal communication in female zebra finches. Unlike males, females don’t sing. Yet their brains contain a reduced version of the same song‑control circuitry. So, what is this system doing?
Lisa and Andries walk us through their innovative freely‑behaving electrophysiology setup, what RA neurons reveal about different call types, and how these findings challenge long‑standing assumptions about female vocal behaviour and the evolution of the song system in birds.
Join us for this season finale as we dive into neural timing, communication, and the surprising complexity of these “non‑singing” females.

In this episode of the FENS-EJN Journal Club, Matteo Piumatti talks with Professor Paul Sauseng about the study by Sauseng and colleagues that won the EJN Best Publication Award in 2025.
The research set out to replicate a landmark paper that transformed the field by showing that transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) could enhance working memory performance through fronto-parietal phase alignment at theta frequency. Paul explains the original approach, the challenges of reproducing such influential findings, and what his team discovered when testing both easy and demanding memory tasks. Tune in to learn whether this brain stimulation technique really works, why replication matters, and what these results reveal about the complexity, and evolution, of cognitive neuroscience.

What happens in your brain when you watch a live dance performance? In this episode of the FENS–EJN Journal Club, Dr Hanna Poikonen (ETH Zurich, GAIA Lab, and Wise Motion Community) joins Matteo Piumatti to discuss her study “Cortical oscillations are modified by expertise in dance and music: evidence from live dance audience.”
They explore how dancers, musicians, and non-experts engage differently at the neural level when watching live art, what brain synchrony tells us about expertise, and why taking neuroscience out of the lab might bring us closer to real life.

In this episode of the FENS-EJN Journal Club, Matteo Piumatti talks with Professors Luciano Simone and Luca Turella about their latest study on the Action Observation Network and the Mentalizing System.
They explore how these networks interact to decode social behaviour, the role of key “bridge” regions in the brain, and what resting-state fMRI can reveal about our social cognition. Tune in to uncover the neural dynamics behind one of our most fundamental human abilities.

Kicking off the FENS-EJN Journal Club podcast, host Dr Matteo Piumatti, FENS Communications Manager, sits down with Vikrant Mahajan and Dr Armando Salinas to explore their exciting new research on Parkinson’s disease published on the European Journal of Neuroscience, FENS official journal.
Together, they discuss how mitochondria and ketones may protect dopamine neurons, offering new insights into potential therapeutic strategies.
Listen now to dive into the paper and join the discussion, just like a regular journal club!

Join Professor Richard Roche in this insightful episode of FENS Cast as he interviews Dr Helena Ledmyr, Director of Development and Communications at the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF).

Join Professor Richard Roche for a special live session of FENS Cast, recorded at the FENS Forum 2024 in Vienna, Austria, as he sits down with Yoland Smith and John Foxe, Co-Editors-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience (EJN).

Join Professor Richard Roche in the latest episode of FENS Cast as he delves into the work of Dr. Oliver Barnstedt, PI at the Barnstedt Lab, Institute for Biology, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg.
Dr. Barnstedt recounts his inspiring path to becoming a PI and establishing his lab focused on Neural Circuits for Memory and Action.

Join Prof Richard Roche in this new FENS Cast episode to discover the work of Gaia Novarino, Professor and Group Leader at the Institute of Science and Technology, Austria.