This week Guardian Science correspondent Ian Sample reports on his trip to the brainiest science conference on the planet, the annual Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington, which took place last week.

Alok Jha looks at the growing problem of diseases of the brain, specifically dementia. Alok meets Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer's Society UK. They discuss the latest understanding of Alzheimer's and why we need to put as many resources into treatments in the next 20 years as we have invested in cancer treatments.

Finally, we hear from the winner of the Royal Society's Winton prize, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, about his book on the nature of waves, The Wavewatcher's Companion.

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