Podcasts
The Giants Shoulder “How to Model the Human Brain and Build Brain Based AI” by Evan McGloughlin, November 11 2024 | 130 min
Tony Zador is a Computational Neuroscientist who is attempting the gargantuan task of modelling all the connections in the human brain using a fascinating and novel approach that he developed. Using Viruses!
Brain Inspired “How Anthony Zador thinks neuroscience can help improve AI” by Paul Middlebrooks, November 11 2024 | 95 min
Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous and powerful, but can neuroscience still help advance it? Zador describes the “virtuous circle” of neuroscience and AI that drives progress in both fields.
The House Call “Anthony Zador, MD, PhD – Neuroscientist” by Dr. Brian McHugh, October 2, 2024 | 75 min
Dr. Zador shares insights from his remarkable career, which spans decades of groundbreaking research in the brain sciences. Together, Dr. McHugh and Dr. Zador dive into the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, discussing how advancements in AI are shaping our understanding of the brain and the future of neurotechnology.
The Embodied AI Podcast “Tony Zador: The Embodied Turing Test, Genomic Bottlenecks, Molecular Connectomics” by Akseli Ilmanen, January 15, 2023 | 90 min
Using rodents, [Tony Zador’s] lab studies the neural circuits underlying auditory decisions. He is also developing new technologies for connectome sequencing and does some NeuroAI work. In the episode…we discuss his recent paper on “The Embodied Turing Test” and Moravec’s paradox; the idea that what we find hard is easy for AI, and vice versa.
Brave New World “Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work” by Vasant Dhar, March 31, 2022 | 64 min
The brain is a complex machine, but some of us study its circuits and figure out its secrets. Anthony Zador joins Vasant Dhar in episode 35 of Brave New World to reveal what the cutting edge of neuroscience looks like.
Brain Inspired “NAISys” by Doris Tsao, Tony Zador, Blake Richards, January 19, 2022 | 72 min
Doris, Tony, and Blake are the organizers for this year’s NAISys conference, From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems (NAISys), at Cold Spring Harbor. We discuss the conference itself, some history of the neuroscience and AI interface, their current research interests, and a handful of topics around evolution, innateness, development, learning, and the current and future prospects for using neuroscience to inspire new ideas in artificial intelligence.
Brain Inspired “Tony Zador: How DNA and Evolution Can Inform AI” by Paul Middlebrooks, May 8, 2019 | 79 min
BI 034 Tony Zador: How DNA and Evolution Can Inform AI
Use the media player above to listen to the interview.
Essays
The Transmitter – Anthony Zador, February 5, 2025
NeuroAI and the hidden complexity of agency
As we attempt to build autonomous artificial-intelligence systems, we’re discovering that a capability we take for granted in animals may be much more complex than we imagined…read more
The Transmitter – Anthony Zador, November 11, 2024
What the brain can teach artificial neural networks
The brain offers valuable lessons to artificial neural networks to boost their data and energy efficiency, flexibility and more. The field of NeuroAI encompasses two intertwined research programs: the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to model intelligent behavior, and the application of neuroscience insights to improve AI systems…read more
The Transmitter – Anthony Zador, November 11, 2024
NeuroAI: A field born from the symbiosis between neuroscience, AI
As the history of this nascent discipline reveals, neuroscience has inspired advances in artificial intelligence, and AI has provided a testing ground for models in neuroscience, accelerating progress in both fields…Almost unheard of until about five years ago, it has now emerged as a “hot” area of research…read more
Use the media player above or follow this link to the Transmitter article to listen to the interview.
The Transmitter – Anthony Zador, February 27, 2024
The origins of COSYNE: Building a community
Thirty years ago, theoretical and experimental neuroscientists rarely went to the same conferences. So I helped launch a meeting to get them talking. Just like you never forget your first love, you never forget your first conference…read more
Scientific American – Anthony Zador, Yann LeCun, September 26, 2019
Don’t Fear the Terminator
Artificial intelligence never needed to evolve, so it didn’t develop the survival instinct that leads to the impulse to dominate others.
As we teeter on the brink of another technological revolution—the artificial intelligence revolution—worry is growing that it might be our last. The fear is that the intelligence of machines will soon match or even exceed that of humans…Such dramatic scenarios, exciting though they might be to imagine, reflect a misunderstanding of AI…read more
Observer – Anthony Zador, May 19, 2017
Government’s ‘Golden Fleece’ Is Now Humanity’s Golden Goose
William Proxmire of Wisconsin retired from Congress almost 30 years ago, but he would fit right in as a senator today. An avowed opponent of government waste, he famously created the “Golden Fleece Award” to draw attention to whatever he deemed to be frivolous Federal spending. Some of the awards still hold as much crowd appeal as they did back then—the fourth award, in 1975, went to the U.S. Congress for “living high off the hog while much of the rest of the country is suffering economic disaster.” But many of his awards went to the National Science Foundation, NASA, and scientific agencies, targeting what he saw as pointless scientific research. These misguided awards reflect a widespread but wrongheaded understanding of how scientific progress and breakthroughs are made…read more
Press Coverage
Medical Xpress, May 28, 2018
Revolutionary brain-mapping technique provides new blueprint for cortical connections
Using a revolutionary new brain-mapping technology recently developed at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), an international team of scientists led by Professor Anthony Zador have made a discovery that will force neuroscientists to rethink how areas of the cortex communicate with one another… read more
Quanta Magazine, April 4, 2018
New Brain Maps With Unmatched Detail May Change Neuroscience
What Zador showed me was a map of 50,000 neurons in the cerebral cortex of a mouse. It indicated where the cell bodies of every neuron sat and where they sent their long axon branches. A neural map of this size and detail has never been made before…read more
Drug Target Review, April 3, 2018
MAPseq technique provides new blueprint for cortical connections
Using a revolutionary new brain-mapping technology an international team of scientists have made a discovery that will force neuroscientists to rethink how areas of the cortex communicate with one another…read more
Spiegel Online, January 18, 2018
The Man Who Can Read Minds
Anthony Zador is not one for modesty, and so he has never been content with small things. He has always dared to do big things. As a doctoral student, the neuroscientist set out to create a conscious machine…read more
MIT Technology Review, August 18, 2016
New Brain-Mapping Technique Captures Every Connection Between Neurons
The human brain is among the universe’s greatest remaining uncharted territories. And as with any mysterious land, the secret to understanding it begins with a good map… read more
Foreign Policy, December 1, 2015
Foreign Policy 2015 Global Thinkers: Innovators
This year scientists made significant discoveries about the least understood part of the body: the brain. Three labs, in particular, began to unlock the organ’s extraordinary potential...read more
The Atlantic, October 15th, 2014
Rats Aren’t Smarter Than Mice and That Actually Matters
New research shows that when it comes to most psychology experiments, all rodents might be created equal...read more
Scientific American, June 24, 2014
Brainomics: Hacking the Brain (and Autism) with Gene Machines
Tony Zador is a professor of biology at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who studies auditory processing, attention and decision-making in rodents. He spoke recently at the laboratory’s 79th annual symposium on quantitative biology, which focused this year on the topic of cognition. Zador talked about his recent work trying to demonstrate how brain circuits might be mapped by using techniques for sequencing genes…read more
MIT Technology Review, October 25, 2012
DNA Sequencing Could Map the Brain’s Wiring
A fast, cheap way to identify neuron-to-neuron connections could shed light on disorders including autism and schizophrenia…read more