Your brain is an incredibly complex network. The firing circuits of your brain and nervous system shape everything from what you’ll eat for breakfast, to keeping your heart beating while you sleep.

But what happens when the firing of those circuits goes awry? Well, researchers are learning how to fix them: whether it’s using vagus nerve stimulation to safeguard people with epilepsy from the worst outcomes, or exploring the hidden machinery behind confidence, decision-making, and how dopamine shapes the way we learn - there’s a lot we still don’t know about these networks. The research spans different fields and specialties, but shares a strong common thread: if we better understand the circuit, maybe we can change the outcome.

Featured guests:

Dr. Ana Suller Marti,  Neurologist at London Health Sciences Centre and Associate Professor of Neurology at Western University.

Dr. Paul Masset, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and Associate Academic Member at Mila Quebec AI Institute.

This work is supported by The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation and the Azrieli Foundation.

The Future Leaders in Canadian Brain Research Program is made possible thanks to an anchor gift from the Azrieli Foundation, and matched by Brain Canada through the Canada Brain Research Fund. It supports bold, early-career neuroscientists and helps bring their ideas to life.

Bold Minds is hosted by Fiona Sanderson. Our executive producers are Jillian Donnelly and Kate Shingler.

Our lead producer is Jess Schmidt, with editing by Morgane Chambrin.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, we’d appreciate it if you could send it to a friend. If you want to learn more about Brain Canada and the amazing research we support, please visit our website at

braincanada.ca.