Neuroscience of Stress & Trauma: Prefrontal Cortex Secrets for Mental Resilience w/ Dr. Ben Rein

0:00 Wow, that is not just mind blowing, that's brain blowing. Like that's NSR team and yeah, I am going to go into the prefrontal cortex. Our questions, shout out to Maya E Congo from Abu Dhabi. So number one is does the prefrontal cortex develop differently depending on gender? Oh man, that's a good question. You know, honestly, I can't say for sure. I remember seeing some studies on this like a couple of years ago, and I don't think I ever really got to the bottom of it. I'm sorry I can't give a definitive answer, but you know, hey, this is also one of those things where you don't want to look stupid asking questions.

0:43 What kind of neuroscientist wants to come on a podcast and say, I don't know the answer? The answer is an honest one, one that will actually say, look, I don't you know, this is the you have reached the limits of my knowledge. And I think that's also, by the way, a good sign of who you should trust if you ask someone a question and they always have.

0:58 The absolutely, absolutely. I say something, you know, I'm a professional, right? But I don't know all the answers. But I pride myself, you know, knowing we had to get the answers if I need to. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I could find that answer. Maybe I'll check it out and I'll send. It out of course. So that means that automatically we should book a party for this so that you're going to come back. You can come back with advances.

1:25 Cortex Edition. Yeah. Prefrontal cortex addition. You said you're ready. So #2 is a Does a stress or trauma inhibit its function, particularly before it's fully developed? Interesting. Yes, so I do know the answer to this one. Stress does influence the function of the prefrontal cortex. It's quite interesting also based on some research done in my PhD lab. So when in in short term stress, couple days, couple hours, whatever the the prefrontal cortex actually gets more effective, it becomes better, like the cells are are interacting more efficiently.

2:07 Which makes sense because you have to deal with some challenge. You need to be locked in, right? You got to be capable of processing the challenge. But with chronic stress over time goes for weeks or months, the prefrontal cortex, the function goes way down and the brain cells actually become less effective at interacting.

2:23 What what's really happening amazingly, is that the, the receptors on the neurons where you know, brain cells are sending messages to each other, the receptors start going away. And so the brain cells actually have trouble communicating with each other. And, and basically what that amounts to is that you're processing power and your computing power goes down South. Chronic stress is bad.

2:44 As for the timing, I don't think it can, you know, impair I, you know, I would say in the context of like normal ranges of stress will not necessarily change the function of your prefrontal cortex long term, but like traumatic stress, like PTSD, you know, really traumatic experiences. It could I've been. I believe there is evidence that that it does alter the the function of the prefrontal cortex. Interesting.

3:13 SO there's a third question, and that is how is the prefrontal cortex different from other parts of the frontal lobe? I mean, the prefrontal cortex is the most like evolved. It's like the, it's the, it's the reason you have the frontal cortex and then you have the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is even more for towards the front.

3:36 And there's this general idea that like the further away from the brain stem you get and like this base level, the more evolved and, and fancy the brain area is. And so the prefrontal cortex, it just, it has a lot of amazing functions that aren't necessarily seen in the, the frontal cortex, like much more higher level cognition and being able to understand people and do things that make us human really. But, but The thing is the, the prefrontal cortex is also like every brain area.

4:04 It's like very distributed. There's all these different nuclei and brain and sections, you know, within the prefrontal cortex there's the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and all these different subsets of areas that are all involved in different things. And you know, the brain is just immensely complicated. But without a prefrontal cortex, you know we would not be as high functioning animals.

4:24 I like that they say that human beings, we are animals, it's just that we are higher animals, right? And of course, we have the animals with the highest level of IQ. That is why we are able to dominate. So #4 is the prefrontal cortex is sometimes called the CEO of the brain. Why is that and do you agree with that?

4:48 Interesting You could say that you, I guess, I mean, there's a couple different CE OS of the brain and actually the nucleus accumbens that I mentioned earlier in the context of MDMA is also one of those. But I would say, yeah, I guess the way I kind of think about the prefrontal cortex is it's like the babysitter of the brain.

5:03 You have all these brain areas that are just like impulsive and they're doing their job. And your prefrontal cortex is, is often like shutting off those impulses and being like, wait, a wait. But you know, before we slap this person in the face, let's think about this for a minute, you know, and it's kind of babysitting and keeping those brain areas in check. So, yeah.

5:20 And many, many, it is the CEO. But I like to think of the the CEO of the brain sort of as the nucleus accumbens, because the nucleus accumbens is really in charge of like decision making or not in charge of it. But it has a major role in like deciding what things we pursue and what actions we do based on how much they benefit us. And you know, I think that's kind of like the role of the CEO really.

5:41 So is it the CEO or the COO? I feel like the, the, the, the nucleus accumbens is the CEO and the prefrontal cortex is like the executive board, like the, you know, you have a board of direct or a board that's like steering the company in the right direction. I feel like that's sort of those two are combining to to make things work properly.

6:02 OK, interested stuff. So this particular friend of mine, Maya, she she's very obsessed with the prefrontal cortex. And anytime she sees a person acting, you know, in an abnormal way, she just says, oh, that person's prefrontal cortex is not properly developed. And she is told me before that the prefrontal cortex actually fully develops at the age of 25. Is is is that true?

6:31 Yeah, the prefrontal cortex, whether it's there's definitely not like a you, you're 25, it's done. It's not really like that. It's more of that, you know, as you're getting older, your prefrontal cortex is continuing to be shaped by your experiences. That's really what that whole like your prefrontal cortex isn't done until 25 means. It means that unlike other brain areas, your Pfc remains flexible as you get older.

6:58 And so, you know, it may not, it may be 25 that you kind of get to that point or maybe a little bit later. You know, it doesn't really it, it's not like a firm thing that it's like boom, 25, you're done.