BI 230 Michael Shadlen: How Thoughts Become Conscious

BI 230 Michael Shadlen: How Thoughts Become Conscious

From Brain Inspired by Paul Middlebrooks

January 28, 2026 · 1h 49m

About this episode

Michael Shadlen discusses the neural basis of decision making and what makes a thought conscious.

Support the show to get full episodes, full archive, and join the Discord community. The Transmitter is an online publication that aims to deliver useful information, insights and tools to build bridges across neuroscience and advance research. Visit thetransmitter.org to explore the latest neuroscience news and perspectives, written by journalists and scientists. Read more about our partnership. Sign up for Brain Inspired email alerts to be notified every time a new Brain Inspired episode is released. To explore more neuroscience news and perspectives, visit thetransmitter.org. Michael Shadlen is a professor of neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University, where he's the principle investigator of the Shadlen Lab. If you study the neural basis of decision making, you already know Shadlen's extensive research, because you are constantly referring to it if you're not already in his lab doing the work. The name Shadlen adorns many many papers relating the behavior and neural activity during decision-making to mathematical models in the drift diffusion family of models. That's not the only work he is known for, As you may have gleaned from those little intro…

People in this episode

Host: Paul Middlebrooks

Guest: Michael Shadlen

Topics covered

  • consciousness
  • neuroscience
  • decision making
  • subjective experience
  • research

Keywords

  • consciousness
  • neuroscience
  • decision making
  • Shadlen Lab
  • subjective experience

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Columbia University, Shadlen Lab, The Transmitter

More episodes of Brain Inspired

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Brain Inspired podcast page.