Our Neuroscience of Learning and Memory (NLM) Journal Club meets roughly fortnightly (Meet or Zoom), depending on schedules. Meeting Invites are sent out by Google Calendar. We also have an NLM Google Group (listserv). Membership in both is reserved for neuroscience students and postdocs, and practicing neuroscience researchers. 

Our JC and listserv are free and educational in purpose. We seek to help each other understand knowns and unknowns in the neuroscience of learning and memory by evaluating both classic and recent papers, models, experiments, literature and open questions in the field. Neuroscientific work involves processes of description, classification, modeling, control, prediction, and understanding. We are interested in all of these. Our NLM JC is particularly focused on the “big question” of what kind of high-level information  can eventually be retrieved from high-resolution static connectome imagery and structure-function relationships, and represented in computer emulations. The goal of decoding non-trivial memory, in any animal model, is admittedly aspirational today, but it seems increasingly plausible given our current models, tools and advances.

Given this question, our JC is especially interested in the physical and informational bases of perception, encoding, storage, and recall of hippocampal and long-term memories, in high-resolution connectomics, in neural imaging and recording, in engram manipulation tools and techniques, and in computational neuroscience and neuro-inspired AI. We also use the JC and listserv to share a low volume of NLM-related news, research, recent advances, and review papers. All members are welcome to nominate papers for discussion, including self-nominations. Both the JC and listserv are forums for respectful discussion and debate, sharing unfettered opinions and insights, and making new friendships.

To encourage frank discussion, we use Chatham House rules—each member is free to use what is discussed in group, but sources remain confidential, unless permission is granted by the source.

Our JC typically meets Sunday Afternoon (3pm Eastern) on Google Meet or Zoom. All members are welcomed to present or lead discussions. Attendance is entirely optional, and many of our members post and attend JCs only occasionally.

Meeting Formats include:

1. Single Paper Presentations and Discussions (in-depth on a particular paper, typically more formal)
2. Dual Paper Presentations and Discussions (comparing two models or techniques, less formal)
3. Single Topic Exploratory Meetings (a specific educational goal or research question, less formal)
4. Multi Topic Exploratory Meetings (multiple topics, discussions led by multiple JC members, informal)
5. AMA Meetings (investigators are invited to answer questions from JC members, informal)
6. Book Club Meetings (introduction and discussion of new technical and trade books, informal)

Meeting Notes (when there are volunteers to take and post them) are posted afterward to the listserv. The listserv is also a great place to give updates to colleagues, ask questions, share draft papers, post relevant papers and news, and engage in friendly discussion of memory encoding, retrieval, manipulation, preservation, scanning, and emulation and other NLM-related topics.

Podcasts are great onramps to community practice in many subjects. Some podcasts we recommend in relation to our JC are listed below, in alpha order. Let us know your favorites, for neuroscience audiences.

• Brain Inspired. Host Paul Middlebrooks delves deep into neuroscience, computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and the intersections between them. Good coverage of the neuroscience of learning and memory.
• Brain Matters. Hosted by fledgling neuroscientist Anthony Lacagnina, at UT Austin. Wide ranging discussions with neuroscientists, often covering topics related to learning and memory.
• Data Skeptic. Hosted by Kyle Polich, this podcast takes a skeptical look at data science, machine learning, and statistics, often featuring interviews with experts. Topics sometimes include neuroscience and its relationship to AI.
• Neuromatch Academy. A nonprofit working to democratize access to neuroscience education and jobs. Their podcasts, in conjunction with Brain Inspired, discuss computational neuroscience and interview experts in the field.
• New Books in Neuroscience. Produced by the New Books Network. Interviews with neuroscientists (30-60 mins) about their recently published books. Both broad and technical coverage, occasional learning and memory topics.
• Talking Machines. Hosted by Katherine Gorman and Neil Lawrence. Primarily focuses on machine learning, but often interviews experts who discuss the neural basis of learning and decision making.
• The Brain Science Podcast. Hosted by Ginger Campbell, this podcast covers a wide variety of neuroscience topics, including some computational neuroscience and memory topics.
• The Language Neuroscience Podcast. Neuroscientist Stephen Wilson talks with leading neuroscientists working on the scientific study of language. For a neuroscience audience.