Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's the lady who keeps candles in her
Speaker 1: wallet because you never know when you're going to be
Speaker 1: in a pinch. And assume me someone's birthday, and then
Speaker 1: you'll be more excited about singing to them than they'll
Speaker 1: be excited about being sunk to Ali. Ward back with
Speaker 1: another episode of Ologies. Okay, you like brains? Does your
Speaker 1: brain like brains? It probably does so right now, your soft,
Speaker 1: squishy think lump is just hanging out in your head.
Speaker 1: It's thinking about itself. How does it work? What's in there?
Speaker 1: Why do I want to eat cool whip out of
Speaker 1: the tub with my fingers? And why aren't I more
Speaker 1: excited about folding my laundry? The answer molecular neurobiology. But
Speaker 1: before we splash splash into your mood juices, let's take
Speaker 1: care of some business up top, and thank all the
Speaker 1: folks on patreon dot com slash ologies for being in
Speaker 1: the club. You all support the show and you hear
Speaker 1: what topics I'm working on first, and you submit your
Speaker 1: questions for theologists. Thanks to everyone wearing ologies merch from
Speaker 1: ologiesmerch dot com. Thanks to everyone whos an episode to
Speaker 1: a friend or who subscribes on their devices and rates,
Speaker 1: and especially in reviews, because you know, I read your
Speaker 1: words and I pick afresheet to put on blast, such
Speaker 1: as Dusky, who says they're falling back in love with
Speaker 1: life and that theologists have shown me the light. The
Speaker 1: world is a beautiful place, and with all these smart
Speaker 1: monkeys out there, maybe, just maybe we have a chance
Speaker 1: to share it with future generations. PS. Thanks to Ali,
Speaker 1: I texted my crush and got some banks. Boy howdy, sincerely,
Speaker 1: Dusky into that, I say hey. Also side note, happy
Speaker 1: wedding Lizzy Vette. And hello to Kangaroo two, who left
Speaker 1: me a one star review because they didn't like that
Speaker 1: I named so many patrons who ask questions, but Kangaroo too.
Speaker 1: Isn't it nice to hear your name in a podcast
Speaker 1: you love, isn't it? Kangaroo two just saying? Also, the
Speaker 1: bat episodes just got a lot of questions. Okay, Kangaroo two,
Speaker 1: it's freakin' bats. I hope I have proven my point
Speaker 1: that people like to hear their names. But I get it,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna read faster. Okay. Molecular neurobiology, let's get
Speaker 1: into it. Let's break it down. Molecules. The word derives
Speaker 1: from the Latin for tiny mass, and neuro comes from
Speaker 1: the Greek for sinew or chord or penis. Because neurons
Speaker 1: are elongated they look like strings or chords or I
Speaker 1: guess penises. Biology, of course the study of life, so
Speaker 1: molecular neurobiology the study of the tiny masses that bring
Speaker 1: our dick look and brain cells to life. I'm just
Speaker 1: reading facts here now. This ologist got a bachelor's in
Speaker 1: biochemistry at uc San Diego and later a PhD and
Speaker 1: molecular neuroscience at Caltech. She's also a dancer, a gymnast,
Speaker 1: a violinist, a TEDx youth speaker, a text strategist, and
Speaker 1: a TV host for Voice of America, Al Jazeera, America, Seeker,
Speaker 1: Discovery News, and more. She's an if THEN STEM Ambassador
Speaker 1: for the American Association for the Advancement of Science and
Speaker 1: a Linda Hill Philanthropies Literally she has appointed a role
Speaker 1: model to other women and girls in science, technology, engineering,
Speaker 1: in math fields. She also appears on segments of the
Speaker 1: new CBS show Mission Unstoppable, where she is known accurately
Speaker 1: as doctor Brain. I've known her for five years and
Speaker 1: have adored her since we first sat down and shared
Speaker 1: a basket of sweet potato fries in twenty fourteen, and
Speaker 1: I was just straight up giddy to have her on
Speaker 1: my couch and to ask her one million questions about
Speaker 1: what a braid is made of in white matter and
Speaker 1: gray matter, and what makes us happy? And how do
Speaker 1: anidepressants work, and why are some substances addictive? What happens
Speaker 1: on drugs? And can I have new habits? And what
Speaker 1: is anxiety all about? And how depression works? And caffeine
Speaker 1: hacks that may not work. So get ready to fill
Speaker 1: your ears and the thing between your ears with all
Speaker 1: kinds of wisdom from wonderful person neuroscientist, your new good
Speaker 1: friend and molecular neurobiologist, doctor Crystal Dilworth. Start recording. Can
Speaker 1: you say your first and last name? Please pronounce it right,
Speaker 1: Crystal Dilworth, or don't mean to spell it for you? No, okay,
Speaker 1: doctor Dilworth, Doctor Dilware. I always like to ask this question.
Speaker 1: What was it like when you like came out of
Speaker 1: the room from defending and you were like, I'm doctor Dilworth.
Speaker 2: So I came out of the room and my committee
Speaker 2: was still in there deliberating, And normally that is one
Speaker 2: of the scariest moments in anyone's life because you're not
Speaker 2: sure what they're going to say.
Speaker 1: But I was.
Speaker 2: I was pretty sure because my committee chair had been like,
Speaker 2: we're just going.
Speaker 1: To chat for a little bit, we'll be right out.
Speaker 2: They came out and they shook my hand and they
Speaker 2: said congratulations, doctor Dilware, and I got an entirely new
Speaker 2: lease on life. Oh my god, like everything changed.
Speaker 1: Did you know growing up that you were going to
Speaker 1: be a doctor or a neuroscientist. I mean, you are
Speaker 1: really good at a lot of things, and I think
Speaker 1: that that sometimes is difficult.
Speaker 2: No, I was going to be a dancer. I was
Speaker 2: going to be on stage at Lincoln Center. Just like
Speaker 2: all of the books that I had read about how
Speaker 2: to be a professional ballet dancer had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with science really.
Speaker 1: And then, so were you studying ballet and then sneaking
Speaker 1: into chem classes? How did it work?
Speaker 2: Who were you cheating on scholastically? I think the decision
Speaker 2: to go to grad school. I was definitely cheating on
Speaker 2: my dance classes. So I was in professional dance school
Speaker 2: in New York City doing the things that you have
Speaker 2: to do to be a professional dancer, and I just
Speaker 2: wasn't fulfilled by the experience. I think it's really hard.
Speaker 2: I was lying about my age so that I could
Speaker 2: be in the school to begin with. And dancers are
Speaker 2: They're treated like empty vessels, right, the choreographer, the artistic director,
Speaker 2: these are the people that are filling the empty vessel
Speaker 2: with the intention. And when you have a bachelor's degree
Speaker 2: in biochemistry and you're used to doing independent research as
Speaker 2: an intern in a research lab, being treated like you
Speaker 2: have nothing personally to contribute is very difficult.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 2: Was looking for an opportunity to be an adult and
Speaker 2: to be treated like I had something to intellectually contribute.
Speaker 2: I wasn't getting that in my artistic life. So I
Speaker 2: started skipping my classes and taking the subway uptown to
Speaker 2: Columbia and attending the chemistry department lectures, which is insane
Speaker 2: now that I look back on it now, like nobody
Speaker 2: goes to those lectures voluntarily, Like the grad students are
Speaker 2: only there because of the free pizza. But I was
Speaker 2: actually there for the intellectual stimulation, which is terrifying and awful.
Speaker 1: Wait, they give pizza out of these things. Otherwise nobody goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of those like weekly lectures are accompanied by
Speaker 2: some type of bribe.
Speaker 1: So why neuroscience. Well, I guess.
Speaker 2: I was always interested in people and their behavior because
Speaker 2: maybe as a homeschooled kid that didn't have like a
Speaker 2: really diverse social network. I mean I had a social network,
Speaker 2: but not the diversity that you wouldn't see in like
Speaker 2: public school, for instance.
Speaker 1: Some people's their behavior.
Speaker 2: Seemed unfathomable to me, like I just don't understand, like
Speaker 2: what is this programming and how does it work?
Speaker 1: And so I thought, oh.
Speaker 2: Maybe I would study history, maybe I would study sociology
Speaker 2: or psychology. And my dad said no, no, he was like,
Speaker 2: that's not a real science. None of those are real sciences,
Speaker 2: and you have to choose a real science.
Speaker 1: What was your dad? Did your dad study?
Speaker 2: Saying he yeah, his background is in physics. My mom's
Speaker 2: background is in microbiology. That was what they understood, okay,
Speaker 2: And I don't think they were afraid of all the
Speaker 2: things the parents are afraid of, like she's never going
Speaker 2: to get a job, she's going to be destitute, she's
Speaker 2: going to move back home with.
Speaker 1: My mom right now.
Speaker 2: By the way, so FYI best laid plans of my
Speaker 2: cin men.
Speaker 1: Yes, but you're like an international traveler and you're like
Speaker 1: about to move to Sumatra.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's true, Yeah it's there are reasons also that
Speaker 2: I decided to move in with my mother to help
Speaker 2: take care of her as well.
Speaker 1: But you know, like I said, this is their plan.
Speaker 1: But so brains, like, do you start with molecular biology
Speaker 1: when you decide? Okay, I want to figure out how
Speaker 1: this weird big lump of stuff in my bone bowl
Speaker 1: in my head works? Like where do you even begin
Speaker 1: with that? Do you start with like neural anatomy? Do
Speaker 1: you start with chemistry of it? Like?
Speaker 2: For me, the eureka moment was I was taking organic
Speaker 2: chemistry because you know, typical freshman okem when everybody has stake.
Speaker 2: And I was also taking biopsychology, which is the closest
Speaker 2: I could get to a psyche class and still like,
Speaker 2: have this be approved? And I should like clarify that
Speaker 2: I started college really young, so I was probably fourteen
Speaker 2: or fifteen at this time, so my parents were still
Speaker 2: approving my course load, so I was restricted in what
Speaker 2: courses I could take based on their approval.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, wait, I've known you for four years
Speaker 1: and I did not know that you started college at
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started at a junior college, which you know,
Speaker 2: your first two years are the types of courses st're
Speaker 2: able to take there. And I transferred to a four
Speaker 2: year college much later.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I don't think I was wearing a
Speaker 1: broad at fourteen. I wasn't either. Your parents would have
Speaker 1: obviously like, help you figure out what courses you're going
Speaker 1: to take, so biopsychic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of backfired because I was in biopsych
Speaker 2: and they laid out in the book and in the
Speaker 2: lecture the pictures of the different neurotransmitters, the chemicals in
Speaker 2: our brain that sort of determined the brain functionality that
Speaker 2: translates into behavior. And I would just learned from my
Speaker 2: organic chemistry class how to identify the critical chemical functionalities,
Speaker 2: like that's an oxygen group, like anoah group, hydroxyl, that's
Speaker 2: a benzene ring, and sort of start to understand how
Speaker 2: those things sort of fit with our biology.
Speaker 1: And that was like the aha moment. If you're like, quick, word,
Speaker 1: what is it benzene ring? It's not an oil gang,
Speaker 1: but more elementally, it's six carbon atoms that are joined
Speaker 1: in a ring with a hydrogen atom stuck to each
Speaker 1: and she was like, ah, my brain loves this stuff. Now.
Speaker 1: Her bachelor's and biocam and so far, most of her
Speaker 1: college courses were more generally about the human body chemistry
Speaker 1: and didn't focus on the thinky parts of the human
Speaker 1: body as much.
Speaker 2: So I didn't really go back to focusing on the
Speaker 2: brain until my senior year. So all of my upper
Speaker 2: division electives were in neuroscience, and that's when I was like, Oh.
Speaker 1: This is how I want to apply these things. What, okay,
Speaker 1: stupid question. What is the difference between neuroscience, neurology, neurobiology,
Speaker 1: molecular neurobiology. I feel like if you don't work with brains,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, olks, kind of call it a neuro
Speaker 1: something or other. Like what are those different fields mean?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm going to take you on a little journey. Okay,
Speaker 2: I am a first year graduate student. I have not
Speaker 2: yet chosen a lab I am. I'm at cal Tech.
Speaker 2: Every single person that I'm meeting is smarter than me.
Speaker 2: I am incredibly intimidated and anxious and like, really really
Speaker 2: need to do a good job otherwise I'm going to
Speaker 2: fail life. And I go into my first meeting with
Speaker 2: the professor that's going to be my PhD thesis advisor.
Speaker 2: But I don't know that at the time, and I'm
Speaker 2: trying to impress him with how smart I am, and
Speaker 2: I tell him I'm really interested in neurology and I'm
Speaker 2: really interested in brains and the things that brains do.
Speaker 1: And he's like, I'm going to stop you right there,
Speaker 1: I'm let you finish.
Speaker 2: Oh God, if you're interested in neurology, then you should
Speaker 2: be going to meet. We don't do neurology here. Neuroscience
Speaker 2: is the science behind the brain, and we do research
Speaker 2: on how the brain works, and we get PhDs and
Speaker 2: that's the type of science that we can do on
Speaker 2: the brain. Here are you still interested? And so that
Speaker 2: is the difference. God, I would have had immediate reactive
Speaker 2: diarrhea and just excuse myself from life. I would have
Speaker 2: been like oops. But you know when you're so anxious
Speaker 2: and your whole like fighter flight system is engaged and
Speaker 2: you're kind of like too numb to it, and you're
Speaker 2: just like, okay, take the hit and keep rolling, like
Speaker 2: keep going, keep going, is nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: So what is a neurologist exactly. Okay, they are physicians,
Speaker 1: medical doctors with mds, probably stethoscopes, I don't know who
Speaker 1: treat neurological diseases and disorders that affect the nerves and
Speaker 1: spinal cord and of course the brain. So you can
Speaker 1: show up in their office and say, please talk fix me.
Speaker 1: That is a neurologia. I honestly don't know about the deethoscopes.
Speaker 1: I just made that up. They might not even need them,
Speaker 1: but you get the general aesthetic, and a neuroscientist.
Speaker 2: Studies the science behind how the brain works and why
Speaker 2: the brain works, so you have to have knowledge of
Speaker 2: some of that stuff, but it's mostly like hypothesis driven investigation. Okay,
Speaker 2: So a brain, what is it? What is this big?
Speaker 2: Is it mostly fat?
Speaker 1: What is it? Is it proteins? What is it made of? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all those good things.
Speaker 2: It's all fats and proteins and carbohydrates all smushed together
Speaker 2: into a collection of different types of cells.
Speaker 1: There's like eighty.
Speaker 2: Billion neurons and they're all sort of smushed together, and
Speaker 2: there's different types of those neurons, those brain cells, and
Speaker 2: they're clustered together in different areas, and those different areas
Speaker 2: have specific functions that all have to work together, and
Speaker 2: that sort of what we think of as that like
Speaker 2: the orchestra of the brain as an organ.
Speaker 1: But that's like not even it. But wait, there's more.
Speaker 2: There's like a whole other layer of cells we call
Speaker 2: them glial cells or astrocytes that help those neurons to function.
Speaker 2: Oh so it's not just neurons, but there's like a
Speaker 2: whole other set of support cells. And they're not even
Speaker 2: really support cells because they doing really important stuff.
Speaker 1: And what are the astrocytes and glial cells do? They
Speaker 1: do so many things.
Speaker 2: So my favorite type of support cell is the cell
Speaker 2: that creates myelination around electrons. So that's like little wire
Speaker 2: insulators to help the electric part of the signal go
Speaker 2: faster down the axon of the neurons, so I can
Speaker 2: like send if I'm a cell in your cell, and
Speaker 2: I can send my message to you like way faster
Speaker 2: because of the insulation. And that's actually one of the
Speaker 2: last parts of brain maturation. So when we talk about
Speaker 2: brains like not being fully cooked until our mid twenties
Speaker 2: and we're still developing, one of the last things that
Speaker 2: things that happened is that insulation process goes in in
Speaker 2: that prefrontal cortex area, which is so important for decision making.
Speaker 1: So glial cells are a support cell and glial means
Speaker 1: glue because it was thought that glial cells just kind
Speaker 1: of held all the neurons together, kind of like a
Speaker 1: bunch of mashed potatoes around a pile of yarn. But
Speaker 1: they do so much more than that. And there are
Speaker 1: different types that do different things. We won't go into
Speaker 1: all of them. But the astrocytes are starry shaped, hence
Speaker 1: astro and they give nutrients to neurons, they help repair damage,
Speaker 1: and the all they got. Dendrocytes insulate the neurons in
Speaker 1: the brain by laying down this fatty cozy padding called mylin,
Speaker 1: which is like rubber around an electrical cord or a
Speaker 1: snuggie that protects you from live wires. Now, if you
Speaker 1: have multiple sclerosis like my mom aka our dear Fancy Nancy,
Speaker 1: who taught you the best insomnia hack ever in the
Speaker 1: Somnology episode, the immune system of folks with MS likes
Speaker 1: to eat away at that mylin and cause nerve and
Speaker 1: signaling troubles. To side note, thank you to all the
Speaker 1: neuroscientists and neurel just working to find a cure for MS.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it and I want to interview you about
Speaker 1: it please. Now, why is it important for these diva
Speaker 1: neurons to be so supported and so insulated? What do
Speaker 1: they look like? What do they do? Now? Neurons themselves,
Speaker 1: those are long and have fingers at one end, kind
Speaker 1: of can you explain what a neuron is?
Speaker 2: They can be long, they can be short, but the
Speaker 2: critical parts of the neuron are the cell body, which
Speaker 2: is where all the good stuff happens, just like a
Speaker 2: normal cell, and the axon, which is sort of like
Speaker 2: that long wire that connects one end to whatever other
Speaker 2: cell it wants to wants to talk to. There's projections
Speaker 2: both from on each side of the neuron. Those would
Speaker 2: be considered like dendrites, and those dendrites create the connections
Speaker 2: which we call synapses that are house cells talk.
Speaker 1: To each other. So it's like sort of the main
Speaker 1: main parts. So neurons, they're a cell with a sometimes
Speaker 1: long axon to reach out to other cells and little
Speaker 1: fingery dendrites at the end. And you may remember the
Speaker 1: dentrology episode with Casey Clapp about trees so just think
Speaker 1: of those little branches at the end of the neurons.
Speaker 1: Those are dendrites. They also kind of look like if
Speaker 1: a bird had a bunch of toes and then those
Speaker 1: toes had toes. That's your brain. Okay, So how are
Speaker 1: all these neurons just chit chatting? Gabin? They're shooting the
Speaker 1: shit running the show up there? What are they doing?
Speaker 2: My favorite part of neuroscience is the fact that neurons
Speaker 2: use both electricity and chemicals. Oh it's like communication. Okay, Oh,
Speaker 2: tell me about that.
Speaker 1: So the really.
Speaker 2: Important part of neurons is that there's like all of
Speaker 2: these little gates that are like regulating the ions flowing
Speaker 2: in and out of them.
Speaker 1: And like ions are.
Speaker 2: Like magnesium, calcium, sodium, these are really chlorine. Theose are
Speaker 2: really important, and they're just like constantly moving back and forth.
Speaker 2: But because all of those ions are charged, you get
Speaker 2: like a little electrical fear from each of the different cells.
Speaker 2: And so if I wanted to pass a signal to you,
Speaker 2: it would start as an electrical field that goes all
Speaker 2: the way down my axon due to the opening and closing,
Speaker 2: opening and closing and ions. But then it gets the
Speaker 2: end and I can't transmit electricity to you because there's
Speaker 2: a little gap, And so what does a cell do.
Speaker 2: The cell's like, okay, crap, we have to communicate to
Speaker 2: the alley cell. She likes serotonin. We're going to release
Speaker 2: serotonin into this little gap. And so that's when the
Speaker 2: electrical signal gets converted into a chemical signal, which you
Speaker 2: can read because you speak the serotonin language. Because you
Speaker 2: have little proteins on the ends of you on like
Speaker 2: the end of your synaps and you are catching all
Speaker 2: of those little serotonin molecules and bring them into you,
Speaker 2: and when there's enough of them, it generates another electrical
Speaker 2: signal that you can send.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And how many cells are doing this
Speaker 1: all the time in our brain lumps?
Speaker 2: So I don't know how many cells would be active
Speaker 2: at a given time because it really depends on what
Speaker 2: we're doing. But if you think there's like eighty billion
Speaker 2: neurons and then there's like estimate like one hundred trillion synapses,
Speaker 2: oh my god. Because it's not necessarily one synapse per
Speaker 2: or two synapses per cell. You can have more connections.
Speaker 2: So this is a lot. Yeah, we're talking.
Speaker 1: The final number is a shit ton many many zeros. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: and so neurotransmitters, this is like a chemical messenger that
Speaker 1: cells are sending to each other. Yeah, and what are
Speaker 1: the main neurotransmitters. I know we hear about dopamine and
Speaker 1: serotonin and maybe neuropinephrine, but take me through some of
Speaker 1: the players here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think dopamine is like the media darling
Speaker 2: of the neurotransmitter world. You have a lot of specific
Speaker 2: chemical like the three that you mentioned, that are involved
Speaker 2: in a lot of behaviors. But then there's other types
Speaker 2: of messengers as well. So we have small like peptides
Speaker 2: like we would say oxytocin, which it's not necessarily a
Speaker 2: formal neurotransmitter, but it's really critical in modulating brain function
Speaker 2: and behavior.
Speaker 1: For instance, oxytocin, you may have heard, is a neuropeptide,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with OxyContin, which is in opiate.
Speaker 1: But oxytocin can promote bonding and feelings of comfort and
Speaker 1: attachment with partners and members of a group, or with babies.
Speaker 1: And yes, it does increase when you pet a dog,
Speaker 1: which is why you probably would not follow around an
Speaker 1: unfamiliar goose in a park and pick up its poo,
Speaker 1: but you would for your dog and not think twice.
Speaker 1: Now onto more neurotransmitters. We use acetylcholine a lot.
Speaker 2: So that's a neurotransmitter that I studied because of its
Speaker 2: relation to nicotine, which I'm sure we'll get to. And
Speaker 2: acetyl colin is really important because it's like the fast
Speaker 2: acting neurotransmitter, and the brains of a few need to
Speaker 2: get a cell to respond right away. Acetyl colin might
Speaker 2: be the way to go. And it's so fast acting
Speaker 2: that it's used in the body as well to like
Speaker 2: help with muscle contractions.
Speaker 1: My god, is it like the text message of neurotransmitter,
Speaker 1: get at me? Just send me a text?
Speaker 2: Your phone is blowing off?
Speaker 1: And so acetyl colin can that do more than just
Speaker 1: make you happy or alert? Is? Does it? Can that
Speaker 1: send all kinds of messages to you? Yeah? It can.
Speaker 2: So if you think we talked about the brain being
Speaker 2: groups of different types of cells, and each of those
Speaker 2: cell groups probably has like different layers of cells as well,
Speaker 2: So the complexity and the brain is really really difficult
Speaker 2: I think to imagine each of those different functional groups
Speaker 2: of cells or different parts of the brain have connections
Speaker 2: to one, if not many many others, and they're all
Speaker 2: talking to each other. That's why I kind of call
Speaker 2: it the orchestra. They're all working together. And if you
Speaker 2: think about each different system, like maybe the string system's
Speaker 2: dopamine system, and the brass section would be your norapinephrin,
Speaker 2: everybody sort of is talking to each other, but in
Speaker 2: different languages. And it might be that imsel that releases acetylcholine,
Speaker 2: but you don't have any receptors for that, so you
Speaker 2: can't see my signal, but somebody else can.
Speaker 1: Did you use that metaphor in your PhD defense? Because
Speaker 1: I think it slaps you should have.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I don't the orchestra of the brain. I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's not original. I think it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: I'm going to look it up and i'll tell you
Speaker 1: if anyone else has used it. Okay, so other folks
Speaker 1: have used this, and it turns out because it's a
Speaker 1: really apt good analogy. Also, when it comes to working
Speaker 1: on brains, Crystal use data from rodent brains to try
Speaker 1: to extrapolate what was happening in human brains, including I
Speaker 1: guess her own. Did you ever have any existential crises
Speaker 1: when you were like, my brain is studying brains brains
Speaker 1: on brains on brains. Does that ever freak you out? No?
Speaker 2: I think there's the Carl Staian quote like we are
Speaker 2: the way for the universe to know itself, and so
Speaker 2: I think that that's kind of how I feel how
Speaker 2: I feel as a neuroscientist.
Speaker 1: Do you ever think about certain reactions you have to
Speaker 1: life or certain like if you're having a down day
Speaker 1: or an update? Are you ever thinking about like your orchestra,
Speaker 1: like your like horn sections going off right? Absolutely? You doo? Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course does that help you at all when you're
Speaker 1: relating to other people thinking Okay, well this is not
Speaker 1: just this person's a jerk, or maybe this person isn't
Speaker 1: being sad for effect, Like do you think about them
Speaker 1: as like a concert of chemicals ever?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think obviously I can. That's when I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: like rationally thinking and using that prefrontal cortex to try
Speaker 2: and compose a logical flow around why somebody.
Speaker 1: Is behaving the way that they are. But you know,
Speaker 1: in an.
Speaker 2: Everyday life, it's usually more a motion driven, reactivity driven.
Speaker 2: That's how our brains evolved, is to react to external stimuli,
Speaker 2: not necessarily to think and problem solve about them as
Speaker 2: the first thing, right, because.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be like, is it a snake?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: If it's a snake, I'm going to keep walking towards
Speaker 2: it until I'm absolutely sure. Ouch now I'm dying, right, Like,
Speaker 2: that's not how brains. Our brains work. So I think
Speaker 2: when I can take a step back and think rationally
Speaker 2: about like why is this person yelling at me?
Speaker 1: It is helpful. But that's you know, I'm human just
Speaker 1: like everybody else. And that prefrontal cortex that's right behind
Speaker 1: our forehead, and that's the kind of meteor chunk that's
Speaker 1: evolved more recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I think that's what we'd like to think
Speaker 2: of as one of the differentiating parts of you know,
Speaker 2: human brains versus other animal brains. And I want to
Speaker 2: make a comment about animal brains in a second, But
Speaker 2: it's our ability to extrapolate, to use logic and reasoning
Speaker 2: to come up with creative solutions to problems, to not
Speaker 2: just react, and to think about downstream effects. That's what
Speaker 2: the prefrontal cortex helps us do. But what I was
Speaker 2: going to say, which is one of those myth busting things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk to Ali about neuroscience. What do
Speaker 2: I want people to know about neuroscience? Okay?
Speaker 1: The pop culture reference to the lizard brain, yes, yes, okay, okay, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's debunk this. Flim flam really bothers me. Okay.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask about it because it's often
Speaker 2: one used incorrectly.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: It's usually when when people say, don't listen to your
Speaker 2: lizard brain, it's just lizard brain. I think what they
Speaker 2: mean is, don't listen to your limbic system, okay, or
Speaker 2: your mid brain or the center of your brain in
Speaker 2: which like emotions are generated and relevant. But I think
Speaker 2: when that quote, and I am blaming Sagan again for this,
Speaker 2: when the same quote of there's an alligator brain around
Speaker 2: which everything else is wrapped was put out there, he
Speaker 2: meant something even more basal, like your brain stem and
Speaker 2: the parts of the brain that control respiration and heartbeat
Speaker 2: and those type of really really basic biological functions. But
Speaker 2: the fact of the matter is is that lizards and
Speaker 2: reptiles actually have something similar to a cortex.
Speaker 1: They do, yeah, they do.
Speaker 2: It's nothing like the giant, you know, white matter that
Speaker 2: we have. It's nothing like the big, you know, prefrontal
Speaker 2: cortex that you would see in primates, but it's something
Speaker 2: that evolves similarly and when they evolved, I mean in
Speaker 2: gestational period and you see like very similar wiring there.
Speaker 2: So poor lizards, they're really getting a bad map. Also,
Speaker 2: are alligators even lizards? Back in the rology episode, I
Speaker 2: asked lizard expert Aaron McGee about.
Speaker 1: It, stupidest question, alligators are lizards? No? No, thank you
Speaker 1: for telling me that. I just realized. I was like,
Speaker 1: how big does a lizard get? Is an alley? Why
Speaker 1: isn't an alligator a lizard? I'm sorry, it is so
Speaker 1: so much horsepucky flim flam debunked all at once. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned white matter and gray matter. What is the difference?
Speaker 2: So white matter is all is basically the wiring, Okay,
Speaker 2: So when you would you would say, like, there's a
Speaker 2: pathway between two brain regions and that's the white matter,
Speaker 2: it's the connections, and gray matter is like more the
Speaker 2: cell bodies and the guyer, the guier stuff, okay, is.
Speaker 1: On it kind of is there like an apple skin
Speaker 1: on a brain.
Speaker 2: Not the way that you are describing it, But we
Speaker 2: do have a barrier between the brain and the blood
Speaker 2: system that provides the glucose and the other nutrients to
Speaker 2: the brain, and that's the blood brain barrier is critically
Speaker 2: important to protecting the brain from all the things that
Speaker 2: we're exposed to.
Speaker 1: Can more things leak through that blood brain barrier than
Speaker 1: we realize? Are we finding that out?
Speaker 2: Probably we used to think that it was impenetrable, and
Speaker 2: now we know that there's evidence of a lot more
Speaker 2: sort of transmission through that barrier than we think.
Speaker 1: But it really does protect us.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about like all of the pharmacologicals that
Speaker 2: you've ever taken in your life, and some of them
Speaker 2: can slip through, and that's good because we need them
Speaker 2: to regulate our behavior. And some of them are kept
Speaker 2: out by that barrier, which is great because they could
Speaker 2: be potentially toxic.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, getting back to neurotransfers. Oh no, I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask if you'd ever touched a brain before, so
Speaker 1: I had to get us off course. I have touched
Speaker 1: what do you make brain?
Speaker 2: It's very delicate, like you don't want to make a
Speaker 2: lot of relief fast food, and they're preserved brains. I
Speaker 2: haven't touched a brain of a person, which some neurosurgeons have.
Speaker 2: I cannot speak to what it's like to touch you
Speaker 2: a live brain, but one that's been preserved and formaldehyde.
Speaker 1: It's very delicate.
Speaker 2: It is as gooey as you think you when you're
Speaker 2: holding it, if you're anything like me, just there's an
Speaker 2: oppressive sense of responsibility that happens when you're thinking about
Speaker 2: the life that that brain was really responsible for guiding.
Speaker 1: I don't hold it for very long.
Speaker 2: I like held it and I kind of like felt
Speaker 2: the profound nature of what I was doing, and then
Speaker 2: and then I gave it back to the technician.
Speaker 1: What was the setting here? What was a setting? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Honestly, this was an undergrad at a science fair. Whoa
Speaker 2: And that was just one of the really cool exhibits,
Speaker 2: Like there were mouse brains and a human brain, and
Speaker 2: you know, like other brains that you could just kind
Speaker 2: of like touch and play with.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be crazy if you don'tated your brain to
Speaker 1: science And they're like, you're just gonna go to science fairs,
Speaker 1: You're gonna recruit some people. You'd be like, what gay, sweet,
Speaker 1: shake some hands, kiss some babies, not shake some babies.
Speaker 1: We answer I will send that background. Okay, So neurotransmitters, serotonin, dopamine.
Speaker 1: Stupid question, but what do they do do they have
Speaker 1: different roles in terms of our emotions, They have very
Speaker 1: very different roles.
Speaker 2: Okay, dopamine I'm going to start with because this is
Speaker 2: everybody loves a good dopamine story. I love, and without dopamine,
Speaker 2: we really wouldn't be motivated to do anything. So it's
Speaker 2: really interesting in computer science when they talk about computers
Speaker 2: having rewards so that you can teach it, like artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence system that you're on the right track, keep going.
Speaker 2: We have similar rewards. You're on the right track, keep going.
Speaker 2: And dopamine is how our brains have been evolved to
Speaker 2: receive this reward. So it makes us feel happy, but
Speaker 2: not really happy, more just like pleasure, like things are
Speaker 2: good and anything that you would do that would keep
Speaker 2: you alive illicits dopamine response really, so eating, drinking, sleeping,
Speaker 2: hang out with your friends, anything that you might enjoy,
Speaker 2: you get a little bit of a dopamine hit. So
Speaker 2: it's basically to keep us doing things that are going
Speaker 2: to keep the human race alive.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Basically, whereas serotonin is more nuanced. It's not just pleasure,
Speaker 2: but it's mood and it's sleep, and it's really helping
Speaker 2: to modulate the way that those little dopamine hits are
Speaker 2: interpreted by the larger orchestra, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what happens when they get off? Is there
Speaker 1: not enough to send a signal to the next neuron?
Speaker 1: Is there too much? And why does it seem like
Speaker 1: a very slim percentage of people have a good balance
Speaker 1: I like, or maybe it's just living in LA or
Speaker 1: Internet culture, but I feel like everyone's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: mirror transmitters are whack.
Speaker 2: I'm no minor, so I mean unfortunately, I want I
Speaker 2: wanted to respond to you philosophically, Like, when we first
Speaker 2: sequenced the human genome, the lead researcher on that project
Speaker 2: was the genome that they chose to sequence. Does that
Speaker 2: mean that he's the most normal genome and every other
Speaker 2: genome is going to be compared to his? Maybe it
Speaker 2: was an arbitrary center for science to pick yea right.
Speaker 1: Okay, so quick aside. There was the publicly funded human
Speaker 1: Genome project, and the first public genome came mostly from
Speaker 1: a single anonymous male donor. I think this would be
Speaker 1: a sperm donor from Buffalo, New York. But then aside
Speaker 1: privately funded genome research project was launched by geneticist J.
Speaker 1: Craig Ventner, who later admitted that his DNA was among
Speaker 1: the first donor pool to be fully sequenced. Tossing his
Speaker 1: own genetics into a research project was later addressed in
Speaker 1: the journal Science in an article bearing the headline not
Speaker 1: wicked perhaps, but tacky. And so when we say off,
Speaker 1: what is off right? Really right? Right?
Speaker 2: So in mental health profession, it's if you have a
Speaker 2: difference that's interfering with your ability to perform tasks in
Speaker 2: your personal or professional life, like your ability to be
Speaker 2: a part of society, then it's a difference that needs
Speaker 2: to be treated as abnormal.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if we can say that they're
Speaker 2: necessarily off for us as an individual, but they're definitely
Speaker 2: off for us as a group of humans that all
Speaker 2: need to act together. Does that make sense? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's definitely differences. And those differences can come from genetics,
Speaker 2: it can come from environment. It can come from adaptations
Speaker 2: to trauma or differences in our early environment as our
Speaker 2: brains were still developing. There's so many different ways that
Speaker 2: we can develop differences in the way that our neurotransmitter
Speaker 2: systems function.
Speaker 1: And what happens if we have too much dopamine.
Speaker 2: It seems like the more the merrier it is, the
Speaker 2: more the merrier, but it's also the way that it
Speaker 2: is dispensed. I guess, like you described it in the
Speaker 2: Addictionology episode as this like sprinkler system, right, and it's
Speaker 2: the intermittent release of dopamine that keeps us going.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: If you have too much dopamine, then you're probably not
Speaker 2: motivated to do anything because you've got everything that you need.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like what do you gift to
Speaker 2: the person that has everything right? Your system is cool,
Speaker 2: so there's no reason to do anything. In early experiments
Speaker 2: around the dopamine ergic system, they allowed rodents to just
Speaker 2: self administer stimulation to their dopamine like whenever they wanted.
Speaker 2: So this is like basically a too much dopamine situation
Speaker 2: because domain makes you feel good, so you're just going
Speaker 2: to keep saying yes, please, yes, please, yes please, yes please,
Speaker 2: and it basically interrupted all functions except for sleep, So
Speaker 2: they just didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: But like people have.
Speaker 2: Probably experienced this before, like you're in a really good
Speaker 2: early stage of your relationship.
Speaker 1: You don't eat, You like your sleep's kind of disrupted.
Speaker 2: All you want to do is like read your text
Speaker 2: messages over and over and over again, or check your
Speaker 2: phone to see if you've got another one. Your normal
Speaker 2: function is disrupted because you've got dopeamine floating around in
Speaker 2: there at levels that you're totally not used to, and
Speaker 2: there's probably some moxytocin in there as well, like really
Speaker 2: fucking things.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Wait, so then at what point does
Speaker 1: that decline? Is that like the two year period of
Speaker 1: like I'm over this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we get we get used to it, yeah, right,
Speaker 2: and then we can sort of like mellow out and
Speaker 2: become more normal.
Speaker 1: The rats, some of them died.
Speaker 2: Because they didn't They didn't eat or really do anything
Speaker 2: because they were just super happy pressing that lever for
Speaker 2: their dopamine hit.
Speaker 1: So don't do that, just pathologically fulfilled? No, okay. Side note.
Speaker 1: I read one article that estimated four years was when
Speaker 1: dopamine starts to wane. But I really should ask a
Speaker 1: psycho neuroendocrinologist or perhaps a biological anthropologist about it. But
Speaker 1: if things are starting to feel a little stale with
Speaker 1: a partner. Some researchers think that doing scary or novel
Speaker 1: things together like I don't know, ziplining or going to
Speaker 1: haunted houses or Costco on a Saturday, those things can
Speaker 1: get those new romance brain juices squirting again. Okay, what
Speaker 1: happens if you don't have enough dopamine?
Speaker 2: If you don't have enough dopamine, it depends on what
Speaker 2: parts of your system are disrupted. But most of the
Speaker 2: classical symptoms that we see for like ADHD or depression
Speaker 2: or you know, even anxiety and in some cases usually
Speaker 2: have to do a disruption of the dopemeansys. That's why
Speaker 2: it gets all the media attention. The classic depression is
Speaker 2: lower levels of dopamine, which means that like you're just
Speaker 2: not having the same response that someone that doesn't have depression,
Speaker 2: like your to your dog or to you know, normal
Speaker 2: things in your life that would normally make you happy.
Speaker 2: You're tired, you're lethargic, there's a lack of motivation, and
Speaker 2: you just aren't getting pleasure from the task as you
Speaker 2: normally would. And so it's like that grayness, that lack
Speaker 2: of color. Everything sort of seems blah, that would be
Speaker 2: what it would be like to not have enough dopamine
Speaker 2: in your system.
Speaker 1: And is that because the dopamine isn't being produced at
Speaker 1: high enough levels or it's just like not making the
Speaker 1: jump between the neurons.
Speaker 2: That's something that is sort of on an individual basis,
Speaker 2: but I would say overall, it's probably your system isn't
Speaker 2: able to produce enough dopamine. So there's all these little
Speaker 2: like packages of the dopamine chemicals that are sitting at
Speaker 2: the terminals, like near the synapse, like just ready for
Speaker 2: the signal like release us.
Speaker 1: We're ready to go.
Speaker 2: And someone that has lower numbers of those little vesicles,
Speaker 2: those little dopamine packets, like even if the cell was
Speaker 2: like okay, go release all the dopamine that you have
Speaker 2: is going to be a lower level, less packages of
Speaker 2: dopamine released than like what we would consider to be
Speaker 2: a normal So.
Speaker 1: And then what about serotonin? Then if does serotonin play
Speaker 1: a big part in depression and anxiety and ADHD as
Speaker 1: well and all of the other things that all of us.
Speaker 2: Have the problem with the orchestra is that you can't
Speaker 2: just remove one section right like they they all work together.
Speaker 2: So yes, they're definitely serotonin is definitely implicated and pretty
Speaker 2: much like and our benefrin is imprecated in pretty much everything.
Speaker 2: But it's just a matter of like what is the
Speaker 2: major contribution, right, So serotonin and depression, we're used to
Speaker 2: thinking about SSR rise, which are selective serotonin uptake inhibitors,
Speaker 2: which that's the medication that we are giving to people
Speaker 2: with depression. And why is that We want more serotonin
Speaker 2: to be floating around in that synapse, in that space
Speaker 2: between the two cells. We wanted to be sitting around longer,
Speaker 2: so that signal to continue elevating your mood is a
Speaker 2: bigger signal. So there's usually these little like pacmans that
Speaker 2: live in that space between the two cells that collect
Speaker 2: all of the leftover molecules and bring them back into
Speaker 2: the cell, like Okay, we don't need you anymore, so
Speaker 2: you're going to come and live back in the cell again.
Speaker 1: And if we inhibit.
Speaker 2: Those little like pac man collectors, then you get more
Speaker 2: chemical in that synapse, and that raises the probability that
Speaker 2: the next cell is going to have a prolonged signal
Speaker 2: from that neurotransmitter.
Speaker 1: Okay, so by cock blocking the neurotransmitter gobblers, there will
Speaker 1: be more in the spaces between the neurons to deliver messages.
Speaker 1: Kind of like if you canceled a neurotransmitter's lift and
Speaker 1: you just kept them at the party longer. You're like, sorry,
Speaker 1: I what can I say? We love avenue around, You're
Speaker 1: great at conversation, we love the signals. You said, this
Speaker 1: is a question that I have had for years. But
Speaker 1: I feel like I've read somewhere that neuroscientists don't really
Speaker 1: know how antidepressants work yet. Now is that true?
Speaker 2: There's look, there's so many medications and like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: Big Pharma, there's so many medications that we don't actually
Speaker 2: understand the molecular mechanism for. But if it works and
Speaker 2: there's the side effects aren't too bad, We're just like,
Speaker 2: just put it out there and it'll help people.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Okay, So we don't totally know how
Speaker 1: SSRIs work. We just know that a certain percent of
Speaker 1: people when they take them are like feeling better.
Speaker 2: We know exactly how they work, we don't know why
Speaker 2: they work. Like, we don't know why keeping the serotonin
Speaker 2: or the noropenephrin or the dopeamin around in the synapse
Speaker 2: and increasing the signal leads to the behavioral changes.
Speaker 1: Because the level of cox, we can.
Speaker 2: Ask those molecular questions, like, that's the level I like
Speaker 2: to look at, because it's a lot more concrete. We
Speaker 2: can get answers there. But the multiple layers of complexity
Speaker 2: from like, well, which cells are getting the attenuated signal?
Speaker 2: And what brain regions are those cells in? Oh, but
Speaker 2: it's this brain region. But it's only those brain layers
Speaker 2: of that brain region. And what are those particular active
Speaker 2: regions doing when they're working in concert? And how does
Speaker 2: that map to the genetic background of this individual and
Speaker 2: the external stimulus? And why does that mean the giving
Speaker 2: this SSRI four weeks later, this person is willing to
Speaker 2: get off their couch.
Speaker 1: We don't know. Yeah. I always wondered about the lag
Speaker 1: time there, because that is the toughest. And I know
Speaker 1: that this is like a psychopharmacology question, but that is
Speaker 1: the toughest. If it's like, hey, you're depressed, take this thing, man,
Speaker 1: six weeks, there's a twenty percent chance you might feel better.
Speaker 1: You're like, you could have a lot of faith and
Speaker 1: lucky for me, like you know, well not lucky for me.
Speaker 1: But I tried a few different medications for anxiety and
Speaker 1: depression before I found one that worked. I've mentioned this
Speaker 1: in another episode, but I tried a genetic test to
Speaker 1: see which anti anxiety or antidepressants would work better for me,
Speaker 1: and I ended up going with something that was recommended.
Speaker 1: It was an SNRI, but you should do your own research.
Speaker 1: I did a ton of reading, and I decided I
Speaker 1: didn't have much to lose, and I tried a company
Speaker 1: called gene Site, which has a sliding scale. It's super affordable.
Speaker 1: They are not a sponsor, but it helped me out,
Speaker 1: but your mileage definitely may bury. Anyway, let's move on
Speaker 1: to Crystal's research on nicotine addiction and what did you
Speaker 1: learn about how addiction work works having studied the mechanisms
Speaker 1: behind it nicotine?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so for nicotine, it's it's super crazy, like you're
Speaker 2: actually when you're exposing yourself to nicotine, you're actually changing
Speaker 2: the way that proteins in your brain are expressing. So
Speaker 2: they're like, oh cool, I really like this. I would
Speaker 2: like it again, I would like it in a specific way.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to change the way that I'm making
Speaker 2: the proteins in my cells so that they are better
Speaker 2: able to bind and respond to this drug that I
Speaker 2: have now been exposed to and no exists in the world.
Speaker 1: And so what does nicotine does? Does it wedge itself
Speaker 1: where a different neurotransmitter should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so nicotine looks a lot like acetyl colline. Okay,
Speaker 2: So the receptors that bind nicotine also bind acetyl coline. Okay,
Speaker 2: they are called nicotinic acetyl coleine receptors. Of course, I
Speaker 2: like dominated my life for five years. But what looks
Speaker 2: similar to a protein might not actually look similar to us.
Speaker 1: So acetylcholine is the one that's responsible for those muscular contractions.
Speaker 1: It's super fast acting. Scientists also think it may affect
Speaker 1: memory and attention. And Crystal produced from her purse two
Speaker 1: molecular models as one does. So she showed me that
Speaker 1: nicotine is a double ringed molecule with two nitrogens and
Speaker 1: acetylcholine has one nitrogen that's crowded with methyl groups, which
Speaker 1: are three hydrogens bonded to a carbon. But in a nutshell,
Speaker 1: crystal describes both molecules is having similar friends a carbon
Speaker 1: atoms that give them kind of an analogous bulk when
Speaker 1: it comes to fitting into the same receptors, so.
Speaker 2: They look similar enough to the receptor that it responds
Speaker 2: in the same way.
Speaker 1: Got it. So it's like when you're doing a puzzle
Speaker 1: and you find a piece that doesn't quite fit, but
Speaker 1: you can jam it in and then it fucks everything
Speaker 1: else up pretty much exactly.
Speaker 2: It's exactly like that that I should have just said that.
Speaker 1: That's exactly, That's exactly what's happening. And so how do
Speaker 1: some people who might be say, predisposed to that kind
Speaker 1: of addiction, how do they have a better chance at
Speaker 1: at beating it if they want to, If they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm done with you vaping, I'm done with you like cigarettes,
Speaker 1: Like what do they do well?
Speaker 2: Beating addiction is really challenging because you have like a
Speaker 2: learning and memory component, and then you have a chemical
Speaker 2: dependence component, especially for smoking, because you'll be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm done, I don't smoke anymore. I am successful, and
Speaker 2: then you'll have one drink too many and suddenly you've
Speaker 2: got a cigarette in your hand and you're not exactly
Speaker 2: sure why, and there's a chemical reason for that. But
Speaker 2: there's also a learning and memory component, Like you definitely
Speaker 2: beat your addiction to smoking at work and at home.
Speaker 2: You did not beat the addiction to smoking at the club.
Speaker 1: In the club, we are all family.
Speaker 2: Because you've learned that you have three drinks, then you
Speaker 2: go outside and you have a smoke. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 2: those behaviors that can really hang up recovery. Nicotine is
Speaker 2: actually one of the most substances. So I was listening
Speaker 2: to the addictionology episode that you did, and yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of really really terrible withdrawal symptoms, Like withdrawing
Speaker 2: from alcohol is potentially lethal, so you need to be careful.
Speaker 2: We've seen media depictions of withdrawal from heroin, for instance,
Speaker 2: which looks like it's the one where everyone's like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, I'm being attacked by bugs and my skin
Speaker 2: is itchy and I need to get my skin off.
Speaker 2: Like that's awful. You're not going to get that if
Speaker 2: you try and quit smoking. But once you go through
Speaker 2: those really really awful, terrible withdrawal periods, you have a
Speaker 2: really good chance of not doing those drugs again, whereas
Speaker 2: with nicotine, like it can come back really at any time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what can one do? Is there any promise
Speaker 1: when it comes to like meditation and mindfulness and breathing exercise. Like,
Speaker 1: can you retrain your brain through healthier behaviors at all? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can definitely retrain your brain. You can also through meditation, mindfulness,
Speaker 1: and cognitive behavioral therapy reduce the reason that you are
Speaker 1: smoking at all. So we see smoking behaviors especially with
Speaker 1: an ad addicts. But yeah, like if.
Speaker 2: People that are addicted to nicotine oftentimes are in response
Speaker 2: to other things. So schizophrenics have a very specific smoking behavior.
Speaker 2: We think they're trying to self medicate. Veterans come back
Speaker 2: not even with PTSD, but just that have come back
Speaker 2: from really traumatic experiences. Possibly they're smoking in the characteristic
Speaker 2: way that they smoke to reduce activity in their amygdalah.
Speaker 1: So you may remember the magdala from the two part
Speaker 1: errology episode, and it is a little brain nugget that
Speaker 1: I like to think of as the screaming almond of terror.
Speaker 1: So some folks may self administer nicotine to appease their
Speaker 1: shrieking almond. Does it solve problems? No, not at all,
Speaker 1: It only makes life worse. Blame your almond and then
Speaker 1: try to outsmart it.
Speaker 2: There's lots of different indications that could cause somebody to
Speaker 2: smoke heavily that would make quitting harder.
Speaker 1: Is that at all the same when it comes to
Speaker 1: anxiety or depression or ADHD. Are there any kind of
Speaker 1: situational triggers that might affect our levels of neurotransmitter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a problem.
Speaker 2: So we have that learning and memory, as I was
Speaker 2: saying component, So if we've learned something is dangerous to us,
Speaker 2: even if it's not, then our bodies are going to
Speaker 2: continue to respond to it that way and you have
Speaker 2: to retrain. No, that's not like some people are scared
Speaker 2: of dogs. Some people are scared of people right like
Speaker 2: you are snakes.
Speaker 1: My mom is terrified of snakes. And it is my
Speaker 1: brother in law, and he is like a six foot
Speaker 1: four heavy metal guitarist with hair down to his waist,
Speaker 1: and he can't if he sees a snake on TV,
Speaker 1: he's like darted off. Yeap. My mom is exactly the
Speaker 1: same way. She gets like the chills because.
Speaker 2: And then she like runs out of she runs out
Speaker 2: of the room. And so if she decided that was
Speaker 2: something that she wanted to learn to not be afraid of,
Speaker 2: there are ways through like overexposure and other therapeutic methods
Speaker 2: that I don't know anything about by no exist to
Speaker 2: rewire the brain. Probably that direct signal of snake fear
Speaker 2: is never going to really go away, but you might
Speaker 2: be able to add a layer regulation like snake checkpoint. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to react in a different way instead of
Speaker 2: I'm going to react with my fear response.
Speaker 1: And will your neurons form new pathways? Will they kind
Speaker 1: of make new channels you.
Speaker 2: Are referring to neuroplasticity, Yes, you did. Yeah, you can
Speaker 2: definitely create new connections. We're doing that all the time.
Speaker 2: If we couldn't do that, we wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: learn anything new, and we wouldn't be able to teach
Speaker 2: babies all the things that they need to learn in
Speaker 2: order to be competent humans.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got to assume that there's some of
Speaker 1: those out there.
Speaker 2: So yes, through using particular pathways, particular connections in the brain,
Speaker 2: you can make those connections stronger. You can recruit other
Speaker 2: connections to make that pathway larger. I like to think
Speaker 2: of it as like you start out with like a
Speaker 2: hiking trail that you were told was a trail and
Speaker 2: Google Maps doesn't really have it on there, and you
Speaker 2: have need a machete and you're kind of like hacking
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 1: It's a jungle in here.
Speaker 2: But if you walk that trail many, many times, it
Speaker 2: eventually becomes much easier to use, and you can eventually
Speaker 2: become like a six lane super highway that's very very
Speaker 2: fast to go down.
Speaker 1: And that's the preferred method because our brains are really lazy.
Speaker 2: They don't want to do new things, they don't want
Speaker 2: to think about anything. They just want to react because
Speaker 2: that's how we stay alive. And so if you can
Speaker 2: train your brain that taking the path that you want
Speaker 2: it to take is actually easiest and allows it to
Speaker 2: be the most lazy, then you can influence the path
Speaker 2: that it chooses to take without you cognitively having to
Speaker 2: control it all the time.
Speaker 1: So practice makes a habit kind of yes, yes, well,
Speaker 1: that's good to know. I have a gym membership that
Speaker 1: I have not used a month, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: can I ask you questions for patrons? Yeah? Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: before we dive into the questions that you submitted on Patreon,
Speaker 1: a few words about sponsors who make it possible for
Speaker 1: ologies to donate to a different cause each week. Now,
Speaker 1: Crystal is once again an if then STEM ambassador for
Speaker 1: the Lena Hill Foundation, which works with a few non profits.
Speaker 1: So that's already amazing, But she chose her donation to
Speaker 1: go to the Gena Davis Institute on Gender and Media,
Speaker 1: founded by Gena Davis, who has said, what our children
Speaker 1: see sets the framework for what they believe is possible.
Speaker 1: So the Gena Davis Institute on Gender and Media is
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Speaker 1: sponsors of the show. What you may hear about now, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to your molecular neurobiology questions. Shall we have questions?
Speaker 1: And also this definitely warrants like a psychopharmacology.
Speaker 2: Yes follow up because absolutely I think that given all
Speaker 2: of the response to all the questions, you definitely need
Speaker 2: like a psychiatrist, yes on psychiatrist ologists.
Speaker 1: This podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat. Okay,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks had questions about this Jack, Jennifer Alvarez,
Speaker 1: Eli's Anna Thompson, Grace Lauren, Rachel Thompson, panic or painick
Speaker 1: either way, Donald McGregor, Pandora to Rebecca Lynn Weisselberg, Juliana
Speaker 1: arisl And, Penny Lee and Generic Nikki all asked about ADHD.
Speaker 1: Jack said, very very plainly, I have ADHD. What exactly
Speaker 1: is wrong with my neurotransmitters? And so, yeah, all those folks,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about it too, because sometimes I'm like, do
Speaker 1: I have ADHD? Maybe I do, I don't know.
Speaker 2: So. Classically, ADHD is described as a disruption of the
Speaker 2: dopamine system, but I think that there's a lot to
Speaker 2: be said for the involvement of other neurotransmitters. We like
Speaker 2: to talk about serotonin, but I actually think that norapinephrine
Speaker 2: is more relevant to ADHD specifically because noropinephrine is responsible
Speaker 2: for attention and alertness. So when your norropinephrine system is working,
Speaker 2: you are, you're awake and you're alert. When it's really activated,
Speaker 2: it's telling you there is something you need to pay
Speaker 2: attention to right now and be very awake and maybe run.
Speaker 1: You never know when you may have to jam. And so.
Speaker 2: The attention needed to perform and complete a task was
Speaker 2: associated with norapper nephrin sort of cycling. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot and then there's not so much, and then there's
Speaker 2: a lot, and then there's not so much. It's like
Speaker 2: just enough to kind of keep you on task and motivated.
Speaker 2: And that motivation also comes from dopamine. But when it's tonic,
Speaker 2: when it's just kind of like at an okay level
Speaker 2: and just kind of like plugging along, there's really no
Speaker 2: reason for you to maintain attention because it's not telling
Speaker 2: you to do so, and so you're like, I want
Speaker 2: to feel good about something. And then when you go
Speaker 2: looking in search of dopamine, because dopamine in ADHD people
Speaker 2: is a little bit lower, and so they're constantly looking
Speaker 2: for stimulus that's going to pop that up so they
Speaker 2: can feel good.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Why do you think so many people have
Speaker 1: ADHD or are getting diagnosed with it? And I know
Speaker 1: so many people who are diagnosed later in life, Like where,
Speaker 1: why do you think it's so prevalent. I don't have
Speaker 1: a good answer for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of discussions people have about our
Speaker 2: technology training us to have ADHD, about the fact that
Speaker 2: we have declared a thing kind of promoting the diagnoses
Speaker 2: of it, and you know, not being able to compare
Speaker 2: it to twenty years ago to know if it really
Speaker 2: is increasing in prevalence because we've just started diagnosing it.
Speaker 2: This is an argument. This used for a lot of things.
Speaker 2: So I don't really have a good answer for you,
Speaker 2: but I think that it might be that we're just
Speaker 2: becoming aware of our differences and ADHD is a way
Speaker 2: for us to label those differences. Sometimes that's a good thing,
Speaker 2: but it isn't always. I know that there's a lot
Speaker 2: of really smart, really really energetic and curious kids that
Speaker 2: get diagnosed with ADHD, and it might just be because
Speaker 2: we have a hard time handling that level of energy
Speaker 2: and curiosity.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick aside. I looked this up and adult ADHD
Speaker 1: diagnoses rose one hundred and twenty three percent between two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven and twenty sixteen, and the prevalence of
Speaker 1: ADHD and kids went up twenty six percent. So many
Speaker 1: researchers think it's just awareness of symptoms that's driving more
Speaker 1: people to get evaluated for it. And I know so
Speaker 1: many folks with ADHD, some diagnosed in adulthood, that just
Speaker 1: wish they knew sooner. I was just want to tell
Speaker 1: you that in the process of writing this aside, Jarrett
Speaker 1: was typing really loudly on his keyboard and I got distracted,
Speaker 1: so I went and got the headphones that I'd lost
Speaker 1: for about six months but just found. And then in
Speaker 1: the process it wanted into the kitchen to make a
Speaker 1: Macha latte and then I sat back down, but I
Speaker 1: got an email and so I ended up checking my
Speaker 1: credit score for a while. Anyway, Okay, yes, ADHD awareness,
Speaker 1: it's up. More people might have it than they realize.
Speaker 1: And then what about treatment of ADHD? I know, like
Speaker 1: emphetamine salts are sometimes prescribed. What is that doing to
Speaker 1: the dopamine or what is that What does that helping
Speaker 1: level out?
Speaker 2: So when I learned about this, which was a while ago,
Speaker 2: we were talking about the use of amphetamines in the
Speaker 2: concept of Homeostacey's. So our entire system is designed to
Speaker 2: keep us in a certain region of activity and alertness
Speaker 2: and awakness. We want to maintain that Homeostacey's because when
Speaker 2: we get thrown out of it, we get disease and
Speaker 2: a lot of like terrible things. And so when you
Speaker 2: take an ADHD brain and you give it mphetamine, You're
Speaker 2: releasing a lot of nourop and ephrine, you're releasing a
Speaker 2: lot of adrenaline, you're releasing a lot of dope meine,
Speaker 2: and that's like throwing you way up. So in a way,
Speaker 2: it's compensating for the things that you might not have
Speaker 2: enough of, but it's also telling your body, hey, as
Speaker 2: a complete system, you've got to pay attention to what's
Speaker 2: happening here because something has gone crazy and it's forcing
Speaker 2: your system to level you out. So if you don't
Speaker 2: have those discrepancies though the lower level of dope meine,
Speaker 2: then you take an mphetamine, then you've completely you've thrown
Speaker 2: your entire system into like a whole other solar system,
Speaker 2: which is for some people good.
Speaker 1: That's why we love cocaine.
Speaker 2: Because we love a lot of dopamine and we want
Speaker 2: that to hang around for a while, but usually ends
Speaker 2: up in really really bad results.
Speaker 1: Right, But if you are already low on the dopamine,
Speaker 1: then it just levels you off to where maybe a
Speaker 1: neurotypical person might be, Oh, that's fascinating. So the first
Speaker 1: line of therapy for ADHD is usually medication. Why is that, well,
Speaker 1: it works in up to eighty percent of folks suffering
Speaker 1: with ADHD if the dosage is right. But the best strategy,
Speaker 1: doctors say is combining strategies, so exercise. Some supplements like
Speaker 1: fish oil and magnesium have been shown in some studies
Speaker 1: to improve symptoms, and being around nature every day can
Speaker 1: also be effective. Either way, there is no shame in
Speaker 1: the ADHD game super common and there are treatments out there,
Speaker 1: and yes, I want to do a whole episode on
Speaker 1: this now. Besides, everyone wakes up and pours themselves a
Speaker 1: piping hot cup of stimulants anyway.
Speaker 2: Right, But one of the interesting things about Homeostacey's is
Speaker 2: that it doesn't have to be like it's something that
Speaker 2: our body does naturally, and it doesn't necessarily have to
Speaker 2: be drug related. Although like the there's a really great
Speaker 2: story about homeostaces and coffee. So if you go through
Speaker 2: this same morning routine, when you wake up and you
Speaker 2: go down, you're about to de press the button on
Speaker 2: your coffee maker, like maybe the sound of the coffee
Speaker 2: maker and the sound of the coffee going into the
Speaker 2: pot or the cup, your body knows I'm about to
Speaker 2: get some caffeine. So we'll depress its system in anticipation
Speaker 2: of the stimulation from caffeine. So that's why like replacing
Speaker 2: your coffee with DCAF is like a really terrible trick
Speaker 2: to play on people, because you'll actually get more depressed
Speaker 2: than you would otherwise because your body has depressed a
Speaker 2: system waiting for the stimulant and then it has not
Speaker 2: gotten it. Fuck yeah, that sucks, So be really careful
Speaker 2: with your routine.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I still say we use the routine
Speaker 1: we have. Caffeine binds to the thing that makes you sleepy.
Speaker 1: It takes the place.
Speaker 2: So caffeine interacts with adenizine receptors, and dinnersine receptors are
Speaker 2: just kind of like open and waiting for the dynzine
Speaker 2: to come. And it comes and it binds them, and
Speaker 2: if enough adentizine blinds enough of the receptors and it's
Speaker 2: like okay, we're sleepy, now we're going to.
Speaker 1: Go to bed.
Speaker 2: But the caffeine comes and it like sits in that
Speaker 2: binding site and prevents the adentizine from binding the receptor
Speaker 2: but doesn't activate them, so the enzine can't get in,
Speaker 2: and the receptor's like waiting for a signal that never
Speaker 2: comes and it's like, hah, you are awake now forever.
Speaker 1: So yes, caffeine, it swoops in and it takes the
Speaker 1: seat of the sleepy chemical kind of like musical chairs,
Speaker 1: and it blocks the snoozy feelings. But what if you
Speaker 1: are staring at the ceiling and not even the fancy
Speaker 1: nancy trick of thinking of a category like fruits or
Speaker 1: cities or Star Wars characters and then going down the
Speaker 1: alphabet thinking of things in that category that start with
Speaker 1: each letter is working. Is it best to gradually taper
Speaker 1: off caffeine? Like if you need to? If you needed to, like,
Speaker 1: why would you stop drinking coffee?
Speaker 2: I don't and I don't understand the question, she says
Speaker 2: with a coffee cup.
Speaker 1: I don't know why anyone to do that? Okay. A
Speaker 1: lot of people had questions about the genetic levels of neurotransmitters,
Speaker 1: like Bradley, Joe Portfino, Corey Navis, Kinley, Wallace Andrea essentially asked,
Speaker 1: you know, anxiety, depression, hereditary contagious. Radley asked, our imbalances
Speaker 1: in neurotransmitters more likely due to genetics or environment, speaking
Speaker 1: of someone with a whole slew of mental illnesses and
Speaker 1: addicted behaviors in my family, including myself and Radley. You're
Speaker 1: not alone. I feel like most of us are probably
Speaker 1: in the same basket going into Thanksgiving. Everybody's gonna know
Speaker 1: that they're in a family of nuts. Absolutely, we all are,
Speaker 1: all of us.
Speaker 2: There's so many ways that neurotransmitter levels can be affected.
Speaker 2: Definitely genetics is one of them. Definitely environment is another,
Speaker 2: and things that were temporarily going through can.
Speaker 1: Influence it as well.
Speaker 2: So like if you've just experienced a traumatic loss, you
Speaker 2: are going to have differences in your neurotransmitter release, but
Speaker 2: that is temporary and will eventually go back to what
Speaker 2: for you as a normal level and you're able to cope.
Speaker 2: But some people that have genetic differences, what does that
Speaker 2: even mean. It could mean we produce different amounts of neurotransmitter.
Speaker 2: It could mean that our receptors have different responses to
Speaker 2: those neurotransmitter than a neurotypical response. There's so many different
Speaker 2: ways that the amount or the reaction to a neurotransmitter
Speaker 2: can be affected by genetics or by environment. So the
Speaker 2: answer is yes, yes, That was a very long yes answer.
Speaker 1: So genetics can influence your neurotransmitter levels for sure. But
Speaker 1: before you blame your parents for everything, a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of factors are also at play. So it's not you,
Speaker 1: fancy Nancy, it's me or Dad, or how much caffeine
Speaker 1: I drink, or maybe jet lag or the fact that
Speaker 1: I haven't been to the gym in a month. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what about SNRIs versus SSRIs, I know, Aurora, Heather Gentry,
Speaker 1: Gracie Zeca, le An Schister, Rachel Polivka, and Amelia h
Speaker 1: All wanted to know. Do we know why different SSRIs
Speaker 1: and SNRIs have different effects on people? Amelia h wanted
Speaker 1: to know, is it just the molecular structure? Heather Gentry
Speaker 1: is a first time question asker, so is Gracie Zeca,
Speaker 1: And they both kind of asked about increasing numbers of
Speaker 1: atypical antidepressants and if the serotonin and depression model is
Speaker 1: not correct, if it's bigger than that. It's definitely bigger
Speaker 1: than that. Okay, it's definitely bigger than that.
Speaker 2: Especially when you're talking about the interplay between depression and anxiety.
Speaker 2: And that's what I think of when I think of
Speaker 2: a combination of SSRIs and s NRIs. So we're still
Speaker 2: talking about reuptake inhibitors. We're still talking about like the
Speaker 2: little molecules that go around collecting the neurotransmitters and shoving
Speaker 2: them back into the cell that they originated from and
Speaker 2: waiting for the next opportunity to release them, and inhibiting
Speaker 2: this process, so keeping those neurotransmitters in the synapse longer
Speaker 2: so that you get a more prolonged signal. Now we're
Speaker 2: talking about changing the amounts of serotonin and norepinephrin and
Speaker 2: titrating those differences. That's why a lot of people have
Speaker 2: to try multiple different combinations of drugs until they find
Speaker 2: the one that works for them, because their problem might
Speaker 2: be more serotonin or less serotonin might be more about norepinefrinin.
Speaker 2: If it's anxiety related, it probably is or less.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Ah, I wonder if that's why SSRIs didn't do
Speaker 1: much for me. But as a person with generalized anxiety disorder,
Speaker 1: thanks very much. An SNRI was helpful. Like what is
Speaker 1: happening with the noropenephyrin when it comes to anxiety? Like
Speaker 1: is it going off?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, like I was saying, nora penephrine is
Speaker 2: keeping you awake and it's telling you what focus on.
Speaker 2: So a generalized anxiety disorder, not only are you awake,
Speaker 2: but you're constantly having to focus on all the things
Speaker 2: that are chasing you, Like you're just your attention is
Speaker 2: on all the things that could potentially kill you, because
Speaker 2: your brain's trying to keep you alive, but it thinks
Speaker 2: that everything is trying to kill you, so you have
Speaker 2: to pay attention to everything. And then there's all the
Speaker 2: things and it gets really overwhelming because everything is trying
Speaker 2: to kill you, and it's like living in Australia, but
Speaker 2: yet it's you know, like this is like a terrible
Speaker 2: cycle for brains to get.
Speaker 1: Into Australia, the land of shacks and snykes and spoil
Speaker 1: us and angreek kangaroos. I guess an angry kangaroo too?
Speaker 1: Who gives you just one star? Oh look, kangaroo two?
Speaker 1: I said your name again. You loved it. I feel
Speaker 1: like perhaps you're very empathetic too this particular. It might
Speaker 1: be that I have experienced that before, and so does
Speaker 1: an s n RI. I does it? What exactly is
Speaker 1: it doing to norop an effort if it's a selective
Speaker 1: norop and ephrin reap take inhibitor. Does that? Is it
Speaker 1: good to have more norropin efforn between the cells?
Speaker 2: Yes, it can be, but it depends on the comparison
Speaker 2: levels to the other neurotransmitters. Okay, right, so you have
Speaker 2: you're trying to balance dopamine, serotonin, nora peneffrin and get
Speaker 2: that right cocktail so that you get a harmony instead
Speaker 2: of a discordant dysfunction.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. That doesn't make sense. I didn't
Speaker 1: realize that snrize and anxiety. Could that could be a
Speaker 1: good link. I always thought, if I've got anxiety, why
Speaker 1: do I want more goddamn nora perffor my set absence?
Speaker 1: I didn't. That was me screaming at my own brain. Yeah. So, yes,
Speaker 1: SNRIs affect both the nora pernephrin and the serotonin, and
Speaker 1: it's the balance that can be helpful. Although the first
Speaker 1: few weeks on an snri I can be rocky as
Speaker 1: hell and more stressy as your brain adjusts and then
Speaker 1: becomes more chill. So my brain asked me to tell
Speaker 1: your brain that as a heads up, Nikki. First time
Speaker 1: question asker asked, is the dopamine pathway activated when you
Speaker 1: eat an oreo while studying, like it would be when
Speaker 1: you smoke a cigarette. What is that oreo question?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm going to assume that the reason we're
Speaker 2: talking about oreos is because there is a paper that
Speaker 2: showed that mice prefer oreos to cocaine, and then it
Speaker 2: was used in mainstream media to promote many popular but
Speaker 2: scientifically irrelevant headlines like sugar is more addictive than cocaine
Speaker 2: and a bunch of other things. So I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: substitute oreo for parmesan goldfish, which is what I eat
Speaker 2: when I was studying. And yeah, very very different things.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about sugar and carbohydrates and feeding your
Speaker 2: brain in a certain way. There's definitely dope mean release
Speaker 2: when you're eating food, because that's one of the things
Speaker 2: that are going to keep you alive. And that's what
Speaker 2: dope mean is there for have we gotten this point enough?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Let me reiterate it. Dope I mean is released to
Speaker 1: when you encountered things that keep you alive.
Speaker 2: The nicotine completely different. So nicotine is a cognitive enhancer,
Speaker 2: so it's probably helping your prefrontal cortex function, and it's
Speaker 2: shown to help decrease anxiety. So it's probably interacting in
Speaker 2: your amygdala to reduce stress and facilitating better studying.
Speaker 1: Okay, side note, just google oreo plus cocaine. That study
Speaker 1: is everywhere. It was cited by pretty much every news
Speaker 1: outlet in the known universe, and a professor who worked
Speaker 1: on the study stated in a twenty thirteen press release
Speaker 1: that he quote hadn't touched an oreo since the experiment,
Speaker 1: but it's unclear if that's because of their addictive implications
Speaker 1: or just because watching rats pick apart any food with
Speaker 1: their tiny clod feet for years on end tends to
Speaker 1: kind of tarnish its appeal. Now speaking of full little bellies,
Speaker 1: so this is a good segue to the gut biome
Speaker 1: and Libby Miller, Emmahawk, Schneider, Kabi, maybe Isabelle, Christine Hottinger,
Speaker 1: Cara Gallan, Mackenzie Campbell, Generic Nikki Eli's I Lean, Mackenzie Campbell,
Speaker 1: Stephen Williams, Jen Anathos, and Michelle Lee all asked about
Speaker 1: how many of our neurotransmitters are made in our guts
Speaker 1: and do we have any leads yet on good foods
Speaker 1: for good neurotransmitters Christine Hotten dress that is, how do
Speaker 1: I eat myself happy?
Speaker 2: Well, actually, there's been a lot of recent studies on
Speaker 2: the microbiome and the influence of food on mood, and
Speaker 2: we've always known, even before we identified that the microbiome
Speaker 2: was a thing that diet had a huge impact on mood.
Speaker 2: And of course we have always talked about sort of
Speaker 2: blood sugar activity and how crashing after a lot of
Speaker 2: sugar can influence our mood and make us depressed. But
Speaker 2: what I think that we're really asking about here is
Speaker 2: the chemicals that are released by the gut biomey. One
Speaker 2: of those chemical has been shown to be serotonin, which
Speaker 2: is like one of the really really big findings in
Speaker 2: that field, and like in the neuroscience field too, because
Speaker 2: we thought, oh, neurotransmitters are synthesized in the neurons, But yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess not always. I guess there can be serotonin
Speaker 2: and potentially other neurotransmitters just kind of floating around.
Speaker 1: In your bloodstream. Fancy meeting you here. Does it influence mood? Yes? Probably.
Speaker 2: Are there particular superfoods that you can eat to raise
Speaker 2: your serotonin? Probably not, But what we eat definitely does
Speaker 2: influence the different types of microorganisms and the ratios of
Speaker 2: those microorganisms in our gut. So I can't tell her
Speaker 2: what to eat to make herself happy, But if she
Speaker 2: finds a particular type of diet that does make her happy,
Speaker 2: she's not just it's not all placebo, right, It's not
Speaker 2: just in.
Speaker 1: Her head, in her good exactly. I think that's so bananas,
Speaker 1: that so much serotonin is made in our in our
Speaker 1: simmering poo tubes. Who knew? Who knew? It? Is crazy?
Speaker 2: And I think about that too sometimes when I'm I'm
Speaker 2: like on a particular binge of like very very unhealthy.
Speaker 1: Food, and I'm like, how long am I going to
Speaker 1: have to eat.
Speaker 2: Healthy to readjust the ratios of like gut bacteria because
Speaker 2: I know that I'm feeding it a certain type of
Speaker 2: sugar or just a lot of sugar that like there's
Speaker 2: going to be overgrowth of one population, you know, of
Speaker 2: my in my microbiome, and like I'm like apologizing to
Speaker 2: the potentially more valuable and rarer bacteriums in my gut,
Speaker 2: Like I'm sorry, i know overfeeding.
Speaker 1: That, you know. I feel like, if you like SimCity,
Speaker 1: you'll love the gut biome Oh, yes, that's so true.
Speaker 1: It's like real world consequences. For more on this topic,
Speaker 1: you can see last November's Microbiology episode with doctor Elaine Shaw,
Speaker 1: who herself says she tries to eat a very diet.
Speaker 1: So give your microbes natural foods that would help them thrive,
Speaker 1: i e. Not oreos or cocaine, which was in soft
Speaker 1: drinks until the early nineteen hundreds, which is just bananas. Okay,
Speaker 1: speaking of guzzlin' up, A few people asked about alcohol.
Speaker 1: Lindsay to Falco, Amelia h Anna Thompson and Emmanuel Sanchez
Speaker 1: asked what's going on in the brain with different drugs
Speaker 1: and controlled substances like alcohol? And Amelia h one, you
Speaker 1: know why is alcoholism an inheritable trait? Oh? Alcohol is
Speaker 1: so interesting because there's no like alcohol receptor. Oh, like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It doesn't act on a particular receptor the way that
Speaker 2: like I was describing aceetylcholine and nicotine. It like sort
Speaker 2: of cozies up to the receptor and it's like soft influence,
Speaker 2: like we would call it allosteric modulation. Okay, So it
Speaker 2: doesn't like bind to the receptor and cause the receptor
Speaker 2: to do anything, but it affects the way that the
Speaker 2: receptor responds to the molecules that it's really supposed to
Speaker 2: be talking too, So it can make it open like easier,
Speaker 2: so it needs like less drug or less neurotransmitter before
Speaker 2: it responds. So it's very like sneaky and insidious in
Speaker 2: terms of the activity in the brain.
Speaker 1: Alcohol has anyone that.
Speaker 2: Has been drunk, like you know, it affects your motor
Speaker 2: control and your muscles as well, so it has more
Speaker 2: than just brain brain effects. But in the brain it
Speaker 2: acts in that allisteric sort of soft soft power kind
Speaker 2: kind of a way, and.
Speaker 1: Does it kind of mess with frontal cortex activity, Like
Speaker 1: does it in terms of like loss of inhibition and
Speaker 1: maybe less control over emotion?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it it disinhibits the inhibitory neurons.
Speaker 1: Okay, that right.
Speaker 2: It's like the act of alcohol is a double negative. Okay,
Speaker 2: So it works on your inhibitory neurons.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, that's why I won't. So they're normally like
Speaker 1: on like I'm inhibiting and I'm doing my job and
Speaker 1: then I'll calls like take a break, no gap, Crystal says.
Speaker 1: The alcohol affects dopamine. Sarah toonin gabba, which is a
Speaker 1: neurotransmitter that helps maintain calm and glutamate pathways which affect memory.
Speaker 1: But just as your college roommate may have just lived
Speaker 1: for Friday Jaeger shots and you have never finished a beer,
Speaker 1: different people have different genetics that influence how receptors respond
Speaker 1: to alcohol. But the main point is it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to just affect dopamine to become addictive. And scientists they're
Speaker 1: still figuring out how it all works, neuroscience. It's complicated.
Speaker 1: Who knew? I mean all of us, literally all of us? Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: on the topic of substances, a bunch of people did
Speaker 1: ask about recreational rooks. Jess Basita Garcia, Rebecca Landry, Joe Portofino,
Speaker 1: him and Alonso, Kevin List, James Bullio, Cassie Carrie Brigham
Speaker 1: all kind of asked, Hey, what's going on with res
Speaker 1: creational ritualistic drugs like ayahuasca. Kevin List asked, what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on microdosing for mental health issues like depression?
Speaker 1: And Jess wanted to know flim flame or not is
Speaker 1: psilocybin in effective treatment for medication resistant psychiatric conditions? So
Speaker 1: what's going on with magical things.
Speaker 2: Magical things are like it's if one aspect of the
Speaker 2: orchestra went completely like we came on steroids. If you
Speaker 2: showed up and there was like thirty seven cellos and
Speaker 2: like four of all of the other instruments, whatever, that
Speaker 2: would sound like that's kind of what recreational drugs do.
Speaker 2: They put things completely out of balance. And we experienced
Speaker 2: through a new reality through that lens, like brains are
Speaker 2: basically making a guess at our realities anyway, and so
Speaker 2: we experienced a brain's best guess at what is actually
Speaker 2: happening right now.
Speaker 1: Your whole reality is just a picture that your brain
Speaker 1: has painted based on what it's sensing. How weird is that?
Speaker 1: What is even real?
Speaker 2: And so when the predictions of the brain, or the
Speaker 2: way that the system that is the brain tries to
Speaker 2: anticipate or interpret these completely out of whack situation, that's
Speaker 2: when we get the fun that is recreational drugs.
Speaker 1: What happens with psychedelics is it a particular neurotransmitter that
Speaker 1: is just going off.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are acting on the serotonin system. Okay,
Speaker 2: because serotonin is like when it's sort of a mod
Speaker 2: it's a modulation. It's more global than a lot of
Speaker 2: the other neurotransmitters, I would say. And so when you
Speaker 2: get like a bunch of serotonin like dumped into the system,
Speaker 2: you have a lot of different brain regions that are
Speaker 2: all like trying to cope with life.
Speaker 1: Is that why people will take supplements like five htp
Speaker 1: after they will do like Mollie or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can deplete the amount because your brain is
Speaker 2: synthesizing those molecules.
Speaker 1: There's a limited number of them.
Speaker 2: If you think about a factory production line, it only
Speaker 2: goes so fast, so you can only produce so many
Speaker 2: toys or so many cars, or you can only produce
Speaker 2: so many molecules of your particular neurotransmitter.
Speaker 1: And so if you have.
Speaker 2: Taken Mollie or one of these recreational drugs that has
Speaker 2: dumped a whole bunch of neurotransmitter into your brain and
Speaker 2: you've been like backstroking through those happy molecules.
Speaker 1: For a while, Oh the water is great.
Speaker 2: And when there's time for your brain to go back
Speaker 2: to normal because it's no longer getting those signals, there's
Speaker 2: like it has nothing left to give, literally, and so
Speaker 2: giving it some precursors for the molecules that it needs
Speaker 2: to replenish. Is sort of a way of helping it
Speaker 2: get back to normal because you're skipping a few steps
Speaker 2: in the assembly line.
Speaker 1: Got it, so you're not left like high and dry,
Speaker 1: like literally high and actually dry of the good range juices. Now,
Speaker 1: this next topic was on the minds of Patron's John
Speaker 1: Rokevic Graham Tattersall, Maria Generic, Nikki, Sidney Manzil, don Ewald,
Speaker 1: first time mindfulness question asker Jennifer Ran and first time
Speaker 1: question asker Ashley Beatty, who wondered about the impact of
Speaker 1: meditation on anxiety and depression specifically. And now, what about meditation, yoga,
Speaker 1: things like that. Do you ever use any of it?
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you should be using it? I
Speaker 1: think that it's definitely a good place to start.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those people that is, like, why would
Speaker 2: you pay your gym membership if you could just go
Speaker 2: outside and run?
Speaker 1: And then I just stay inside what's netflix the entire time?
Speaker 2: And that's kind of how I feel about like about mindfulness,
Speaker 2: Like it's something that you can do quite easily. You
Speaker 2: know that there's positive effects, Like there's been scientific papers
Speaker 2: that have shown that there are positive effects of meditation practice,
Speaker 2: of mindfulness practice that really does help quiet some of
Speaker 2: the overactivity and the amygdala that we see and like
Speaker 2: stern society for instance, So why not do it?
Speaker 1: I don't do it. I probably should. It would definitely
Speaker 1: help me a lot. So do as I say, not
Speaker 1: as I do. Okay, doctor, Yeah, okay? What is your
Speaker 1: least favorite thing about neuroscience? About brains or about your
Speaker 1: life as a doctor brain? Essentially on TV and all
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 2: Neuroscience is really hard to do without actually touching the
Speaker 2: tissue that you're trying to study, and so we use
Speaker 2: a lot of model brains in order to learn the
Speaker 2: things that we learn, which is really challenging because a
Speaker 2: lot of the even the information that I was sharing
Speaker 2: with you today, like we know this to be true
Speaker 2: for mice and rats, and we assume that it is
Speaker 2: also true for humans to the best of our possible ability.
Speaker 2: But as far as I know, we aren't able to
Speaker 2: like do the same types of experiments on humans. So
Speaker 2: a lot of what we know is inferred.
Speaker 1: Right, would you ever donate your brain to science? Who?
Speaker 1: What do you think I think I would be? I
Speaker 1: would be a terrible test well subject, like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: always in.
Speaker 2: The outlier, Like I never feel that I am a
Speaker 2: good representation of the mathematical average of a human anything,
Speaker 2: So I feel like my brain would give like wrong
Speaker 2: data or like not accurate data. And I think that
Speaker 2: actually speaks to There was an earlier question about like
Speaker 2: why don't we know how these things work? And it's like, well,
Speaker 2: we can know things pretty accurately for a particular breed
Speaker 2: of mouse or particular breed of rat because they're all
Speaker 2: exactly the same. They're all clones of each other, so
Speaker 2: it's really easy for us to know what's going on there.
Speaker 2: We can't clone humans, we can't do research on humans,
Speaker 2: so all of the genetic background, all of the environmental differences,
Speaker 2: all of those things mean that we're really just kind
Speaker 2: of guessing at what's going to work for the average population.
Speaker 1: Isn't it kind of crazy that we just have clones,
Speaker 1: like animal clones run around? Is that kind of weird?
Speaker 1: Does that ever creep you out?
Speaker 2: It doesn't really creep me out, But I guess because
Speaker 2: I mostly work with bacteria and with mice and they're
Speaker 2: not it's easy to not see them as necessarily having personalities.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess, but I never raised mice.
Speaker 2: I was the beneficiary of people that did mouse experiments,
Speaker 2: but I never actually had a colony of mice that
Speaker 2: I was raising. And I know that neuroscientists that do
Speaker 2: work directly with life behaving animals would absolutely tell me
Speaker 2: that I'm crazy. But they have personalities and differences even
Speaker 2: though genetically they're the same. Wow.
Speaker 1: Do you hear that Barbostressing cloned her dog and she
Speaker 1: thought she was getting one, and they're like, well, we
Speaker 1: have four, and she's like fuck, She'd just like, oh no,
Speaker 1: she'd like give it away to her assistant's daughter or something.
Speaker 1: She's like, I didn't. I didn't think i'd give four
Speaker 1: of them. It's true. Barbara Streis and missed her dog,
Speaker 1: Samantha so much that she had four more made from
Speaker 1: a swab of her cheek. Now, the runt of that
Speaker 1: letter sadly died, but she kept two of the other
Speaker 1: ones and the third. She says, the thirteen year old
Speaker 1: daughter of my A and R Man bonded with one
Speaker 1: of the clones, so I gave them that puppy. So
Speaker 1: there you go. Clones. They're all over the place. It
Speaker 1: is just like not a biggie shrug. What's your favorite
Speaker 1: thing about your job or neuroscience or the brain?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that we are inherently selfish and
Speaker 2: that we really like to know things about ourselfs and
Speaker 2: neurosciences is kind of like my way of trying to
Speaker 2: understand this like human condition. So, you know, brains are
Speaker 2: they're really intense, and they want everything to have meaning,
Speaker 2: and they will subscribe meaning to things that really they're
Speaker 2: is no purpose too, And so I think that's probably
Speaker 2: just like what I'm trying to do with my meaningless
Speaker 2: life is to figure out, you know, why why humans?
Speaker 2: Question Mark and why me?
Speaker 1: That's the best title for a biography, Why Humans? Why Us?
Speaker 1: Oh As for neuroscience movies, Crystal says, pretty much none
Speaker 1: of them get it right, like none, and they all
Speaker 1: try to make things way too spiritual, and that using
Speaker 1: only ten percent of your brain is a big, hairy,
Speaker 1: smelly myth, and that this Scarlet Johansson vehicle Lucy was
Speaker 1: wall to wallflim flam and agregious. So she thinks writers
Speaker 1: and directors should just focus on the real neuroscience because
Speaker 1: it's bananas and it's mysterious enough.
Speaker 2: Reality is stranger than fiction, and so let's figure out
Speaker 2: what's actually going on and how can we tell that
Speaker 2: story in an epic but accurate way, because it really
Speaker 2: is enough to blow your mind, right, your actual mind.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, doctor Delaware. Thank you for having
Speaker 1: me of course. Okay, so now that you are fully
Speaker 1: enchanted by the knowledge of doctor Brain Crystal Dilworth, you
Speaker 1: could head to Crystaldilworth dot com for links to her
Speaker 1: social media and her LinkedIn page. There's a link to
Speaker 1: that in the show notes of this episode, and special
Speaker 1: thank you to Caseyhnmer for making sure that she got
Speaker 1: that domain name. That's Crystaldilworth dot com. So go there
Speaker 1: and follow her on Twitter and on LinkedIn and on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also check out Mission Unstoppable on CBS every Saturday. Now.
Speaker 1: Links will be up at aliward dot com slash ologies
Speaker 1: slash Molecular Neurobiology, including to the charity supported and to
Speaker 1: the sponsors making that possible. We are at ologies on
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter. I'm at ali Ward with one L
Speaker 1: on both. If you have a picture of yourself in
Speaker 1: merch on merch Mondays, we repost it. So just hashtag
Speaker 1: get Ologies Merch. I'm also on CBS every Saturday morning
Speaker 1: on Innovation Nation with Molrocca, and i have my own
Speaker 1: science show on CW called did I Mention In, which
Speaker 1: is on Saturday or Sunday, depending on where you live
Speaker 1: in the country. And thank you to Aaron Talbert and
Speaker 1: of course Hannah Liippo for admitting the Facebook Ologies podcast
Speaker 1: group and for being amazing people. Special love going out
Speaker 1: to the brain of Hannahalippo this week. Also thank you
Speaker 1: to Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltis of the comedy podcast
Speaker 1: You Are That for handling merch at ologiesmerch dot com
Speaker 1: and also for being wonderful. Transcripts and bleeped episodes are
Speaker 1: at aliward dot com slash ologies dash extras. They'll be
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes. Thank you to all
Speaker 1: the Ologies transcribers and the Ologies Transcribers Facebook group and
Speaker 1: Emily White for working on those and assistant editing was
Speaker 1: done by Jared Sleeper of mind Jam Media and the
Speaker 1: mental health podcast My Good Bad Brain. He talks about
Speaker 1: ADHD a lot on that, so check out My Good
Speaker 1: Bad Brain. And thanks as always to the brain that
Speaker 1: stitches all these pieces together. Each week Stephen Ray Morris,
Speaker 1: who also hosts the percast about Cats and the Dino
Speaker 1: podcast c Jurassic Right. The theme music was written in
Speaker 1: performed by Nick Thorburn of the band Islands, and that
Speaker 1: cello music you heard was the cello song by the
Speaker 1: Piano Price and there on YouTube. Now, if you stick
Speaker 1: around and tell the the episode, you know, I tell
Speaker 1: you a secret. This week's secret is that I had
Speaker 1: a night mirror that I was getting shot to space.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm an astronaut, I guess. And
Speaker 1: beforehand they had to weigh everything that went into or
Speaker 1: came out of my body. Let's just say it was
Speaker 1: a little too close for comfort in my dream, and
Speaker 1: I woke up so relieved that I didn't have to
Speaker 1: pee in a bucket in front of anyone. Also another secret,
Speaker 1: I actually do keep candles of my wallet because honestly,
Speaker 1: it happens so often it's someone's birthday and just being
Speaker 1: able to shove a candle and like a piece of
Speaker 1: toast or a Snickers, it's such a day maker. But
Speaker 1: so they don't take up a bunch of room. I
Speaker 1: just put like two or three wrapped up in a
Speaker 1: little piece of tinfoil and I wedge them in my wallet.
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty sure it looks like something illegal. But
Speaker 1: I promised keep a few birthday candles in your bag,
Speaker 1: and you're going to use them sooner than you think.
Speaker 1: They come in handy all the time. Also, does NASA
Speaker 1: even make you pean buckets? Or did I just make
Speaker 1: that up in a dream? Let me know, Okay, sure?
Speaker 1: By pack adermatollege, hobiology or doo zoology, lithology, yethology, melogy, pedatology, sychnology, seriology, selenology. Hey,
Speaker 1: I came here to be drugged, electrocuted and probe, not insulted.