#106 - The Successes, Failures, and Grifters of Neuroscience (w/ Tommy Blanchard)

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:00:00 -0700

After Jason Arday, the second biggest topic of conversation has of course been the rise of the neuro-grifting guru. And for good reason! Neuroscience has been causing confusion lately. What is the hippocampus up to in there? Is your pre-post-medial-cerebrum-corta-bellum even working properly? What does neuroscience say about whether you should start each day with a slap in the face?

Being incapable of answering these questions ourselves, we're bringing on bonafide neuroscientist and substacker Tommy Blanchard to help us navigate this terrain. Check out Tommy's website and substack, Cognitive Wonderland.

We discuss

Models of decision-making in neuroscience
The common currency model
What do we actually know about the brain?
What constitutes an explanation in neuroscience?
What neuroscience is put on a pedestal
Neuro-grifting Gurus, aka Huberman et al.

References

Tommy's post about his research appearing in the NY Times: https://cognitivewonderland.substack.com/p/scientists-hope-gambling-monkeys

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Which area of your brain lights up when you consider sending an email to incrementspodcast@gmail.com?

Special Guest: Tommy Blanchard.

Increments - Episodes Tagged with “Neuroscience”

#106 - The Successes, Failures, and Grifters of Neuroscience (w/ Tommy Blanchard)