The Neuroscience of Empathy: Why Brains Need Friends w/ Dr. Ben Rein (Stanford Scientist)

0:00 I am going to ask you a question that was sent to you by my partner and she says this, She says from your perspective, what's the most exciting or surprising discovery about the brain in recent years? We think for a minute, Oh my gosh, there's so many. Let me give you 1 from my book that so. Welcome to the King Dems Podcast, where we share the stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics that shape our world.

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1:46 Once again, this is a big partnership with Better Help and I encourage you to take that first step if you've been thinking about it. Sometimes the best you can make ease in. Yourself real life, ladies and gentlemen, you'll once again welcome to the Kingdom's podcast. And today I've got with me a V VIP14 out of New York, United States of America.

2:07 Mick, welcome, Doctor Benjamin Ryan. How are you, Doctor Ben? I'm great man, Thanks for having me. It's good to be here. Wow, wow, finally, finally six months in the making. And of course, you know, we finally have you here. And before we hit the record button, I was saying it like it feels like this man is not just a genius.

2:31 This man is also a seer. Probably he sees the future. I think we should have futurist to to your list of titles because you actually did like a perfect timing on the better help partnership. So better help reached out to me last week to become a brand partner with them. And you know, this is highly, highly connected to the work that you do to mental health. It's a therapy and it's it's a good time. It's a good time to be on the podcast and you actually timed it perfectly.

3:11 So I appreciate you and of course, like I like to see in every of my episodes, gratitude is good attitude. When a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you because the SI unit for measuring life is time. So I will give you your flowers. Please sit back and let me read out your introduction. So ladies and gentlemen, to do I have the pleasure of speaking with Doctor Benjamin Brain, a neuroscientist, educator and award-winning science communicator. Doctor Ben is the Chief Science Officer of the Mind Science Foundation and adjunct instructor at Stanford University and founder of the Aspiring scientists Collision supporting students in over 75 countries. He's groundbreaking research

4:01 spans autism spectrum disorder, empathy and the neurobiology of social behaviour, and he has authored more than 20 peer reviewed papers. Beyond the laboratory. Doctor Ben reaches over 1,000,000 people worldwide with educational science videos on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, where he breaks down complex neuroscience and tackles misinformation head on. His mission is to see is to make science accessible, accurate and inspiring.

4:34 And today we're diving deep into his journey, research and impact. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, make welcome Doctor Ben Rain. Thank you for that intro by the way, because you know IA lot of the time people when I'm introduced, they'll just use the bio I have on my like website or whatever. But I could tell you, you really you customised that and I appreciate that. It means a lot really.

4:58 Brother, we, we, we do our research here, you know, and of course, that is why we're climbing the global rankings. I'll tell you these. Well deserved. Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. You know, as at the time of recording, we are currently global top 2.5% and the goal is to make it to the global top 1%.

5:20 I think you're going to do it. Absolutely with you on the show come on collaboration, teamwork makes the dream work. You know that's right. This dream is going to absolutely work we're going to smash it we are going to smash it. Let's. Do it. Wow. So let's go back to, you know, where it all started.

5:39 You know your journey and your vision. What really you know initially treats you to neuroscience. And how did empathy and social behaviour become central to your research focus? Man, my relationship with neuroscience started way before I knew it started. It really began for me honestly in, in grade school, elementary school, I remember looking around my cafeteria, sitting at lunch and eating my sandwich or whatever and just noticing that there was the kids naturally distributed by like social behaviour. And, and you know, I, that's not how I thought about it when I was like 7 years old.

6:18 But I noticed that there were really outgoing groups of children and then they were really shy, quiet groups, you know, and you see this everywhere now as an adult, you can look around a bar, a pub, you know, a library, a concert, whatever, you name it. You look around, you can see this distribution of how people treat and act towards others.

6:36 And I thought that was really interesting when I was young because I was, I was like, why? Why are some people really outgoing and others are really shy? But I didn't think about it obviously from a neuroscience lens. But later on when I got to my, my college, I was studying psychology and I was interested in that. I was interested in social psychology, why people act the way they do and, you know, in social interactions. And I knew I had an interest in the brain. I knew I had some, like there was something inside of me that said the brain is the interesting part. It's not about the behaviour, it's about what's driving the behaviour, right.

7:08 Like this organ, this mysterious organ up here in the dark. What's it doing? And but I was afraid of neuroscience. Honestly, I was. I was. Everybody thinks you have to be a genius to to be a neuroscientist. I don't know. And I. Didn't well, I didn't believe in myself And, and you know, the reality is if you want to become a neuroscientist or you want to become, you know, any sort of scientist or doctor, whatever, you have to take, you know, genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, all these really challenging courses.

7:34 And I didn't know if I had it in me. I was really intimidated by that. And so I stayed studying psychology for a while, kind of feeling like I was doing the wrong thing but not willing to confront it. And then in my second year of college, I had the most terrifying nightmare of my life. And I'll spare you the details of the nightmare, but the important part is that I woke up and I sat up in bed and I thought, Oh my goodness, how did my brain do that?

8:00 How did my brain generate this whole environment, this world that I was interacting with and there were characters and I was making decisions and there was a storyline and people would say things to me and I would react. And not knowing that it was all happening within this one organ, the world I was inhabiting and the person I was, we're all within the same organ.

8:19 And that just blew my mind. Like it something just happened where I was like, I need to understand the brain. It's not about behaviour, it's about this thing. And I literally changed that day. I went to my academic advisor, changed my major, changed my path, started studying neuroscience got as in those classes I was afraid of. So everybody, don't be afraid.

8:38 Don't let your intimidations steer you in the wrong direction. Take it on. You were saying this before we started recording. I mean, if you really, if you want something, if you really believe in something you're capable of anything you can get right through it. And so now coming full circle, I'm able to, I've been studying for the last decade, the neuroscience of social behaviour and studying things like you mentioned, autism spectrum disorder, empathy, looking at the, the brain systems that drive these social changes and social differences in people and really getting it to the heart of that question I cared about as a child.

9:06 And I'm, I'm living the dream. I'm enjoying all the, the work I'm leading. It's a lot of fun. Wow, you know, it's, it's quite interesting and I appreciate your what I say, authenticity and ability to the vulnerable. A lot of successful people want to paint a perfect picture, but I always tell people, people don't relate to perfection.

9:33 People relate to excellence. And successful people are people who have failed multiple times. But you know, we're Brazilian enough to find ways to be successful at the things that they do. Imposo syndrome. A lot of people struggle with imposo syndrome, but I'm quite grateful. I'm a man of faith, by the way, I'm a Christian and at the early age of 16, I went to Bible school, graduated and you know, the faith was, you know, very, very ingrained in my heart. And do you want to know what my favourite Bible verse is? Philippians chapter 4, verse 13.

10:17 I can do all things true crisis strengthens me. That's verse what I say sort of helped me in my life to beat the whole imposter syndrome thing. I'm not afraid to feel because I failed multiple times out of very early age. I was very poor at mathematics and failed twice at what you call the O level in Nigeria and third time asking, third time as a champ. I got it.

10:47 So I feel like that experience made me have a very, very early encounter with failure. And we've been there, done that. But what would you say about like young people who try to chase perfection and I'm not able to get it. And because they probably feel like certain things, they feel like they're not worthy or they don't have a place in society.

11:15 And going into the adulthood impulsive syndrome, you know, kicks in. I'd like for you to touch on that. Yeah, You know, I told you the very short version of my story, which basically sounded like I became a neuroscientist and it was successful, right? I left out a lot of details. And the reality is it wasn't, it wasn't just I changed my major and I poof, I was a Stanford neuroscientist. No, the truth is I've had I had setbacks like that all the way through my life.

11:42 And when I was first applying to college, I thought I was, I thought I was smart and I thought I was gonna have no problem getting into colleges. And I thought I'll, I'll know I'm smart, you know, And so I applied to, I don't know, 12 dozen schools. And the only school that I got into was my very lowest fall back, a school with like an 80% acceptance rate. And it's a, it's a, it's a great, it was a good school. I had a great education.

12:06 It's West Virginia University. It's in West Virginia in America. And it's most known for being the number one party school in America. And I had a good time. I did, but I was disappointed with myself. I was disappointed with life. And that was the first time where I felt like, Oh my gosh, my life is not going to be what I thought it was going to be.

12:23 You know, like I like I've, I had this ambitious vision and now I just took this scary detour into I don't know what my life is going to be like. And that scared me that kind of, you know, it's intense to say this, but it kind of traumatised me where that was the first time I felt like my well-being, my, the sustainability of my career was threatened.

12:42 So I went to my, my undergrad, I did it. I worked as hard as I could. I had a four point OGPAI graduated in, in three years. I, so a year early, I worked in all these research labs. I did everything I could so that when I was applying to my PhD, it wouldn't happen again, that I wouldn't get disappointed like that.

12:58 And so I applied to all these great schools now like 10, once again, I only got into my lowest fall back, which is the school that I did not want to go to. And I was like, Oh my goodness. Again. I worked so hard, like I was 100% more deserving this time around. I had such a higher GPAI had all this extracurriculars, like I've poured everything into being successful academically and I still didn't get what I wanted. And that broke my heart.

13:23 And so, but I kept my head up and I stayed optimistic. And so I went to my PhD and once again, I worked my ass off. Sorry, I don't know if we swear on this podcast, but. Feel free. Feel free brother. All right, I'll, I'll try and take it easy here. Not, not like a off the rails cursor or anything, but I worked really hard and I ended up publishing, you know, a bunch of papers and having a really high GPA and getting all these awards. And I went to the next step where you're after a PhD, you apply to a postdoc.

13:52 If you're doing a, if you want to be a researcher, it's kind of like a residency. When doctors do a residency, a postdoc is like the scientist equivalent. And so I applied to Stanford, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Harvard, all these great schools. And I thought, please do not let me get disappointed again.

14:08 And I got offers from Stanford, MIT, Yale, Duke, Johns Hopkins, I could have gone to any of those places and I end up going to Stanford. And that was I Stanford. I went to Stanford because it's one of the top institutions in, in the US And when I visited, so I'm from the East Coast and the East Coast is very where, where I'm from at least, is very grey and cloudy and you don't get a lot of sun.

14:30 It's cold, we get a lot of snow. And then we, my wife and I, we visited Stanford and we were like, yeah, like this is, it's like blue skies, sunny, gorgeous. And it was, it was kind of the, the environment that that sold us and also the, the lab that I was going to work with. That's amazing. But I, but I share all this to say, like, you can be disappointed and humiliated and just terrified over and over, and then you can have a breakthrough. And I think that it's, it's important to not bang your head against a wall that's going nowhere. But I think, you know, you want to make calculated decisions about this stuff, right?

15:07 Like, I don't think that in any universe, even if I, let's say the story ended in a bad way, where once again, I didn't get into all those places, I don't think I would look back and say, man, I regret trying so hard. You know, and I regret having all that success academically, But I, it did pay off because I was resilient and I kept pushing through.

15:24 And, you know, I, I think that as long as we know that the challenge we're up against is worthwhile and that the outcomes, the potential upside is there and it's what we want, You know, it's, it's just like the same thing with taking those classes. You know, you might be afraid of, of something and then you do it and just 'cause you have to do what you get through it. You know, I think if you love something and you want it and you keep fighting for it, there's going to be something good.

15:48 It may not be the, you know, I can't promise, you know, you're going to get everything you want, but you will breakthrough eventually. And and you can imagine what it has been like for me. I mean, imagine, imagine going through that and going all these universities saying you're not worth our time, you're not worth, you can't be a student here. And then finally, after 10 years of working on that or seven years of working on that, you get to Stanford and you're in front of all these scientists who are Stanford scientists and they all come from Harvard and UC Berkeley and all these great schools.

16:16 And you're like, I've never been in anyone like around these calibre people ever. Imagine the imposter syndrome, right? That was difficult, but it was fine. I was completely fine. I kept up with everyone, you know, I, I, it was completely fine. There was no issue. And, and I could have been alongside these people all along. I think that the truth is, you know, another major lesson I like to tell people is this all started because I didn't apply myself in high school.

16:43 I didn't have the grades that I, that I thought I had in high school. I, you know, I was capable of getting high grades, but I wasn't really trying in my classes. And if I had tried harder, then I would have probably gotten into a better college and then I would have gotten into a better PhD and I wouldn't have been fighting all that time. And so, you know, I think for young people, it's important to take academics seriously because academics in many cases will be the key to unlocking whatever the future is. And when that when you reach that point, if you reach that point like me, where you open that door, you know, use that key and you twist that knob and you open that door and it's a horrifying reality on the other

17:18 side and it's not what you expected. That's a real wake up call. And so if you can apply yourself earlier and really start taking stuff seriously before it becomes too late, you're gonna thank yourself for doing that. And I wish I had done that myself. Wow. I think this is a very, very great a Big Brother advice. You know, here in the UK, it's really, really puzzling to me how the key to here, the Gen Z generally do not really value education, especially tertiary education. And then they tell me, oh, if you went to university, I'm not interested in going to university. I'm like, OK, there's one in my apartment. I had to talk to you.

18:02 I said, you know what, if you become well educated, you may never become very rich or you will never become very poor and good. Point unless you take out too many student loans. You know, back to your point of, of, of, you know, at least trying, you know, Nelson Mandela of blessed memory, he said something.

18:28 He said if we try, we may fail. Or if we don't, we have failed, at least try. And I love your theme of resilience. It's something that I preach, you know, on this podcast, you know, all the time. Resilience is, is very important. You know, keep going and never let anybody stop you. Never let anybody put you down. Never let anybody, you know, try to put you in a box because we all don't know what we are doing. And, you know, some people try to advise other people based on their own worldview or based on the limitations that, you know, they have on their minds or the cast on themselves, right? And they try to project it and other people. And that's something I very, very, very much detest. I remember when I was, you know,

19:19 about to start this podcast, I'll see someone who was very opposed to it. And I think that was the reason why that relationship had to end. It's crazy. You can't stop me from my dreams. You can't stop me from my goals. And I was very, very upset about it. And they were like, oh, you're finance guy, What are you?

19:40 Why are you going into the media? Do you need permissions from anybody? If you're passionate about something and go for it. If you have a dream, always go for it. And of course, keep. And, you know, can I add something on that because we were talking earlier before we started, before we turn on the recording, we were talking about, you know, your journey and what you're up to nowadays.

20:00 And you know, I was noticing because you're talking about this theme of. Basically, I was realising that your values and beliefs and your interests are all perfectly blended into the theme of this podcast. You know, like you've taken all these different things that you come that you care about, right? Like whatever finance, business, psychology, growth mindset, you've taken all these, all these angles that have influenced you in your life and you compiled them into one podcast.

20:27 Then I think another tip for young people and anybody really is like, you know, you will naturally gravitate towards what you care about. And it's for me, like I, I started this is getting really complicated now, but when I started my PHDI was just happy to be there because I had gotten almost rejected from all PhDs and I just wanted to be successful. That's all I wanted.

20:51 I wasn't thinking about, oh, I want to study social behaviour anymore. It didn't matter. It was just like, I need to just be successful. That's I need to, I need to regain the lost ground that I've, that I've lost, right. And so I ended up joining this research lab and started working there for in about a year in it occurred to me that I was studying autism spectrum disorder, that I had joined the lab because they were a productive lab. And I thought, this isn't the lab that's going to give me the best shot at being having a good career. But I found myself, I had carved out this little niche of studying social behaviour without even thinking about it. It was just like my gut and my

21:26 subconscious mind had sort of geared me into this direction of doing what I love. And I think, you know, I got this fortune cookie years ago that I always think of that says, look for the dream that keeps coming back. It is your destiny. And that's kind of what I think about with your podcast and with my journey and, and with just with your journey and like this person telling you like, oh, why you're a finance guy? Why are you talking about this stuff? Like, or why are you going into media like that's that's you. That's that's what makes you who you are. That's what makes you unique and, and what you care about. That's what your brain is interested in. And you're naturally suited to

22:00 put out good materials on this because people, people like what they're good at. People are, they're naturally driven to the people, the things that they excel at. And so if you are good at something and you're have interesting ideas about it, your podcast is going to do well and look at where you are. So I think, you know, follow that dream to the listeners, you know, like, listen to your gun and listen to your heart because it's it's telling you your destiny. Maybe if my fortune cookie was right. Well, I love and respect to you, you know, absolutely love how you you framed it so, so beautifully. It's interesting.

22:38 You're welcome. I tell people this, right? There's potential and there's credentials. When you're younger, you you judge based on your potentials. But as you grow older, you get judged based on your credentials. But you don't want to be a person who has, you know, massive potentials but little credentials. And a lot of people suffer from this bandwagon effect, you know, wanting to do what other people are doing. You are not other people.

23:04 You're yourself. And I think a lot of people get discouraged by the opinions of other people. It's crazy. Think about it like if I had listened to that person at that time saying do not do podcasting, I wouldn't be here speaking with, you know, one of the greatest scholars of my generation, you know, today.

23:31 Think about. It I'm honour for you to say that. Thank you. To walk and I think about my body of work. I've spoken to, you know, people that are highly successful from, you know, different parts of the world in your neck of the woods. I spoke on people who weren't in school and have it, you know, for it. It's really mind blowing.

23:50 People who are #1 in the world, you know, at whatever ease that they're doing. And if I listen to, you know, that person saying do not do this, what would happen? So I don't know, like what what would you say to the people out there in terms of, you know, sticking to their guns and believing in themselves? And if you're able to maybe butchers that with a personal story of yours in a situation where you wanted to go for something or somebody said otherwise apart, you talk to your gods, your instinct and you know, went for it and he was successful.

24:30 Yeah, for I, you're bringing up something immediately, you know, so I've always been really ambitious, which is probably clear from my story. And, you know, the career path I chose, you know, and, and I like to reach for things. I like to set goals and, and get after them. And just for everybody listening and yourself included, you know, I, I wanted to make it very clear.

24:50 I was completely full of anxiety all the way along that journey I just described. Imagine how it felt when I didn't get into that school that I wanted to and I realised, Oh my gosh, like I was horrified for my future. And I was and I was motivated to keep on reaching and keep on reaching. And so I don't want everyone to think, you know, oh, this guy is just full of confidence and he believes in himself all the way. No, you can.

25:12 It's, it's going to be normal for you to experience that for sure. But an example of what you're talking about when I was working at Stanford, this is very personal, but I don't mind sharing personal things. When I was working at Stanford, I was seeing this therapist because I was, and I was talking to her about exactly what we've been talking about here, that I'm, I want so badly to just succeed in my career and I'm so afraid of setbacks.

25:35 And I've always been like, I want to be the best at this, you know, I want to be like the number one scientist, whatever. You know, I've always just been ambitious like that. And this, this therapist, she told me basically, it's OK to be average. She was like, if you, you know, I, I bought this book something, something about basically it's OK to be average. And I gave it to my son and he's reading it because I want people to understand it's OK to be average. And I was like, that's really comforting advice, but that's not what I want.

26:06 That's I had to listen to my heart, which was telling me, yeah, you're reaching for something so far away and it's stressful because you want it so bad and you don't know what you're going to, if you're going to get it or not. And so sure, it would be so much easier to say, you know what, I'm OK with not getting it. I'm OK with being average.

26:25 But that's not the journey that I wanted for myself. That's not what I how I view my life and how I view myself, you know, I want to reach. And if I fail, I fail, but I don't think I'm going to fail. And that's a big part of it, by the way, is just being optimistic and having that growth mindset. And I remember just, you know, this was right when I joined Stanford and I was dealing with that imposter syndrome that I described.

26:45 And I remember like three years after that, I was in, I don't know, Iceland or Italy. I've been to Portugal. I've been flown out to give talks. And I thought, Can you imagine if I had, if I had just decided, yeah, I want to be average. Like, I wouldn't have achieved this for myself. I wouldn't have experienced this. The satisfaction of attaining that goal that I wanted so bad. And that's what drives me.

27:07 Is this the satisfaction of setting a goal and then working my way to it? I love the feeling of progress. And I, I don't think I would be happy if I, if I just said, you know what, I'm going to stop reaching. It's, it's not what's meant for me. And so my advice to anybody is to basically like set goals and figure out what you want, right? If by setting a goal, you can learn a lot about your preferences and what you want from life, you know, because if you're setting a goal and it's like, all right, I'm a scientist.

27:37 My goal is to win a Nobel Prize. You know, it's like, OK, that's a lofty goal. Like, I don't know, 0.0001% of scientists win the Nobel Prize. I'm making that up. But it's really, really, really small. That was my goal when I was young, by the way. I'm now smart enough to realise, or I guess wise enough to realise that that's never gonna happen.

27:53 I'm never gonna win a Nobel Prize. I'm OK with it. But if your, if your goal is like, I wanna win a Nobel Prize, OK, good. Like hunt after that, right? Make that your journey. Make that your, your meaning of life, right? But if your goal is like I, I just want to like, take, have, make enough money to take care of my parents.

28:12 It's like, OK, there's a lot of routes that you can take to that goal, right? Like you don't have to be as hungry as devoted, but identify sort of your ambition levels and, and what your dreams are. Because to me, that is one of the sort of meanings of life. I think like if anyone ever asked me, what do you think the meaning of life is?

28:30 For me, it's about telling yourself this is what I want and going and getting it, carving that journey for yourself, right? I think of it like a, like a board game, right? It's like you get to pick your, your player and where they go and which direction you're headed or what kind of player you want to be like.

28:46 That's life. You get to live 100 years and take whatever journey you want. And I think it's, I get sad when I think about people who kind of just float in that journey and they don't steer their own journey. And I think it's important, especially as young as you can be, the younger, the better to start thinking about where is that dream and how do I get there?

29:07 Because for me, that's the most satisfying thing in the world. And that dream can change, by the way. So don't worry, mine has changed. That's called P13. You know, along the journey of life, I remember a particular lecturer, you know, when who taught me in my professional accounting classes on strategy.

29:28 He said, you know, that different types of strategy and you know, strategy comes with planning. And some people have, you know, that's plan to be average. And you know, they say something, if you don't plan, you plan to fail. So not having a plan is a plan on its own. It's just a plan to fail. But you know, back to your point on, you know, it's OK to be average. I don't like that idea at all.

29:55 And you know, I'm grateful I was able to read a book, alien life, It's called Conquering an Enemy called Average by John Mason. I think I'll try to put the link to that book in the description. And of course, you should, you should give, give that book to your son as well because for me, no, no, average is a no, no.

30:16 Like I'm not born to be average in Nigeria. If you are to join the military and as a graduate from university, I thought about joining the military and about somebody told me that if you join the military as a graduate from university, you did not go to the combat school. You can never become a general. And immediately that dream just died. Like I will never join an organisation where I can never rise to the top.

30:48 No, no, no, no way, No way. And that has actually like, pushed me in terms of the way my career has progressed. And when you join the big four accounting firms, they always tell you, you know, join us and associate. You can actually work your way up to become a director or partner, you know, having share of profit.

31:06 Yeah, that's cool. That's interesting. You must always have that pathway, reasonable pathway to the top. And of course, you know, if you work, if you put in the work, right, you should get, you know, certain expected results. That's what I like personally, but I stand to be corrected. But when when we come back to science, you know, the autism and of course our neurodevelopment are disorder disorders, right?

31:31 Your PhD identified neural systems are regulating social behaviour in autism. So looking at that field now, which therapeutic pathways seem, you know, most promising? But you have gene therapies, epigenetic approaches or the pharmacological tools like MDMA. So which pathways actually would I say are effective or efficient in your opinion?

32:02 Yeah. So when it comes to autism spectrum disorder, which is characterised by difficulties in social interactions, there's nothing on the market right now. If if you or a loved one is someone who is on the autism spectrum and you suffer with social interactions and you want to enhance your interactions or feel more comfortable in interactions, there's no options.

32:25 There's nothing out there. And, and before I even go any further in this topic, I just want to mention that there are a lot of people who are, you know, in the autism community or they're on the spectrum, they have loved ones with autism and they're, the idea of the treatment is, it's just, it's a, it's a terrible idea. It's basically that to treat this is to label it as a dysfunction and to say that there's something wrong with me. But this is what makes me unique. And so I, I just want to qualify that by just acknowledging that it is not my belief that everyone on the autism spectrum should have some treatment.

33:04 That's not at all what I believe. In my PhD, though, I got to studying the biological basis of autism and discovered, you know, there are no treatment options for those who are struggle with their symptoms and want treatment. And that was sort of the focus of the lab. And so I got into studying like, what are these brain systems and how could they potentially be altered, which is interesting, altered to enhance sociability, I should say, which is interesting because it got exactly at the question that I was looking at when I was young, which is like, how do you know if, if you could go into the, the table where the quiet kids are sitting and tickle a certain brain system and make them feel like sitting with the, you know,

33:38 outgoing kids? Like, wouldn't that be interesting? What, what brain systems are there that, that do that? Right? It's such a fascinating question to me. And so it turns out it's, it's very complicated and very molecular, basically. But I will say this, the root cause of autism in most cases or many cases I should say, I guess is genetic. And so it is possible that if done early enough, if like, because what happens is if you have a genetic mutation, so the gene is coded as it is.

34:10 And then if there's a change in one of the base pairs, let's say, and it, each gene corresponds with a physical protein. So you have, you know, 30,000 genes, 30,000 proteins floating around your cells or that, you know, you could have up to 30,000 floating around your cells. And so I like to think of it as like a house. Let's use that analogy.

34:29 So your cell, each of your brain cells is a house. And like, you know, this book is 1 protein, right? Like this book serves a purpose. Like this water bottle is a protein. It serves a purpose. And so there's a blueprint to build this water bottle. There's a blueprint to print this book. Those are the genes, right? So the genes are the blueprint and they build the actual like physical structures.

34:51 And So what could happen is you can have a mutation in one of the genes which causes the blueprint to basically change. So let's say there's a mutation in the gene for this water bottle and it comes out and there's a hole in the bottom, and now it's no longer functioning as a water bottle because the water is draining out the bottom.

35:07 That's sort of like what happens in cells where if you have a genetic mutation, the protein in your cell that's supposed to do something is not doing what it's supposed to do. It's it's functioning improperly. And that can change how brain cells are functioning in a way where if that change happens to be going on in a brain area involved in social interaction and the brain starts that brain area starts functioning differently, it can result in changes in social behaviour. And so if this genetic change is caught early enough, super, super, super early, like in the womb in it before, you know, the brain has developed, could theoretically reverse autism spectrum disorder before it even like begins. Very controversial idea though,

35:50 of course, right. It's like if we're gonna do gene therapy, if anyone's gonna do gene therapy, you know, the, the first use case should be anything that's fatal, right? If there's someone, if you're gonna suffer from some condition like like Huntington or something like that, Huntington's disease and you're gonna be struggling your whole life with with condition, you know, this, whatever it may be, and you're gonna die young. Those are the things that should be used for gene therapy, autism even even to propose that is super controversial to use gene therapy.

36:17 But hypothetically, you know, it would kind of make sense because it's a genetic disorder in many cases. Now, the other thing you mentioned, it's like pharmacology, right? So you can use pharmacological agents, drugs, in other words, to target epigenetics, which is kind of sounds confusing because epigenetics is how experience changes our, our gene expression.

36:41 So expression being not the code or the blueprint, but how many of these water bottles do I have? You know, And so you could think if I'm really thirsty, I might want to have ten of these water bottles around. And so I'll go to the store and get 10 of these bottles or I'll make 10 of them from the blueprint.

36:55 That's how cells act, right? Like you have an experience, like my experience as being thirsty, I need more of these cells are the same. Something changes in the cell or we need more of that or we need less of that. Let's change how many copies of that gene we're producing. That's epigenetics. And so while it would seem that only experience can do that, you can actually there are epigenetic drugs that you can basically go in and manipulate the parts of the cell that make that change happen or manipulate the accessibility of the DNA. And there is some evidence from the lab that I was do working in and some of my own research that doing that and altering the gene expression through a drug can

37:35 change social behaviour as well. And so that's, you know, a possibility. But again, none of these things are actually like demonstrated, right? Like we haven't done this in human beings. We don't know if this is useful. And then the last one though, is MDMA. And I've also studied MDMA, but in a different context. And for those who don't know, MDMA is ecstasy, the illegal drug.

37:55 But I in my postdoc working at Stanford, I was studying how MDMA enhances empathy. And if you're curious, if you're neuroscientifically minded, it comes down to serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens, a certain brain area That's kind of irrelevant unless you want to get into that. But, but what's interesting though, is that we actually, we found that in in mice with those same genetic mutations that are linked to autism in humans, those mice socialise less.

38:24 They also show reduced empathy. We can test empathy in mice also. Happy to get into that if you want, but they show reduction in social and empathic behaviours. And when we gave the mice MDMA, they became more social, they became more empathic. And I mentioned that MDMA's effects seem to be related to this serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens. Well, when we just know MDMA, we just stimulated serotonin in the nucleus accumbens.

38:51 It had the same effect on the mice. So it's possible that that also could be an approach. You know, I actually personally, I see that less as a like a therapeutic for autism. I see that more of a just empathogen, which is what you know, and empathogen is a drug that's that enhances empathy. But I see that if we can target that system, it could be a useful tool for all of humanity.

39:15 You know, I think that we are, we are living in a sort of unusual time right now. I would argue that the current era of humanity, at least in America, I'm not sure how it is over in the UK, but in America it feels like we're really kind of living through an era of low empathy. And I think part of that is because we interact.

39:34 Yeah, I think part of that is because we interact online a lot. I think part of that is because we're super politically polarised. And so, you know, we can get into this, but the brain's empathy systems are very sensitive to how we view someone, whether they're on our team or not, basically. And that can be anything. It could be their political affiliation, it could be their religion, their race, their sexuality. If we see them as different from us, The brain scenarios that Dr Empathy literally just like don't come online as much. They show less activity.

40:05 That's significant. And I think, you know, in a world that's very politically polarised where you look at anybody, at least this is how it is in America. You look at someone, you look at their clothes, you know, maybe they have a Red Hat on or maybe they have, you know, a blue shirt on or whatever it is. And you're like, oh, that person's on the other side. Empathy systems.

40:23 Disengage and you basically view that person or your brain treats that person as less of a person and that's really problematic. And so, you know, do I really think that we'll be given people will be taking a drug to simulate their empathy? No, I mean, because how would that even work? And it's another ethical concern.

40:44 But but hey, maybe, you know, maybe not in a clinical context where it's like like going to this, you know, clinic and take this drug and you're gonna feel empathy. But wouldn't it be cool if there was like, like instead of going to the bar and drinking alcohol, we went to a bar and drank in a pathogen, right? Something that stimulated serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens, made us all feel a bit more connected and more empathic and you know, not to be kumbaya, but like brought people together and actually drove connection and community. I think that that'll be interesting. And the reality is we don't know how to do that neurobiologically.

41:23 But with the research that I did at Stanford, we know a little bit more about how we might do that. And I don't want to, by the way, before I go any further, I don't want to say I just said how we might do that. I know there's a lot of people out there with opinions on science. I don't want people to think that there's like some secret scientific society controlling what you drink at the bar. There's not.

41:39 Scientists have very little control over the real world. We could control what happens in our labs. But even when it comes to policy, public policy, you know, we're very detached, unfortunately, because I think scientists often have a lot of good ideas. But yeah, I mean, you know, our our goal is to discover new things so that humanity, whether that's, you know, commercial entities like what if really, what if a drink came out, a brand came out that was like, you drink this and you're going to feel more empathy. It's, you know, there's no hangover. You can go to the bar and drink it. People be interested in that, right? It's kind of interesting idea.

42:10 Or if there was a clinical drug that people could take and enhance their empathy, you know, or if what I always like to joke about is half kidding. Wouldn't it be amazing if right before a political debate, the presidential debates, all of the candidates had to take a drug that made them more empathic and made them see the other person's side a bit more?

42:28 And so instead of going up there and just hurling insults at each other, they actually understood each other and had a real conversation about why they disagree. And not in a way that was hostile and violent and maybe not violent, but hostile and aggressive and sets this bad example for all of Americans to think That's how I treat the people on the other side. So anyways, as you can probably tell, you know, I care about community and connection.

42:52 And, you know, this is also the whole, the topic of my my whole book, which I held up earlier as an example. But why brains need friends? I, you know, we need each other. And I think that the more we can understand the importance of that, truly, the healthier we will be. The research suggests that we will be healthier and we will be happier as well. Wow, I'll tell you something.

43:14 Let's say like minds always find a way to connect. There's something I always see on the podcast and it's links back to the title of your book. It is hate when you can't collaborate. Why hate? You know, it's crazy how people always find something to act as a differentiator. We are all human, we all bleed red. And it takes a high level of when I say certain ease, right, I tell people you can never function at a high level capacity, right, if you don't have certain ease right at that high level.

44:01 And what are the ES education, exposure, enlightenment and experience. So fees ease right from the level of capacity that a person can perform at intellectually. So a lot of times when I see people acting in a sub, you know, optimal way or an undesirable way, I, I, I feel, I feel sorry for them. I feel empathy for them because the joke is not on me. The joke is on you, right?

44:37 You get into an elevator, you, you try to be polite, you try to be respectful. You see a greeting and you know, some people just ignore you as though you don't exist. And you look at yourself, Am I, am I invisible now? It's crazy. Like what you said, people, you know, lack empathy in this age and time.

44:59 I'm a very, very big enthusiast of AI and I'll just make the joke that it's like my parents knew the assignment. My initials are AII team. All I see there, because, you know, I've used AIA lot, you know, in terms of enhancing efficiency for my company and of course green this podcast. In university, I studied economics and that is, you know, the social sciences faculty and I was, you know, opportunity to take courses in psychology and sociology.

45:30 You know, psychology is the study of the human mind and sociology is the study of human social behaviour, social interactions. And it gave me that privilege to be able to, you know, stand back and be objective, you know, to observe and analyse, you know, absorb information like a sponge. And like I told you before we started the podcast, when I was in secondary school, I was just pure sciences, a student. So I understand that background from chemistry to biology to physics, and adopting the empirical method for reasoning. When you adopt the empirical method of reasoning, it makes you objective, right?

46:13 And that's why I think in terms of basic education, people should I don't know what the policy makers are doing the people first to study the sciences, right, Because, you know, still part of the ease if your education is, you know, left wanting, it's difficult to have you operate at a high level of critical reasoning. You know, philosophy has a branch called logic for a reason, deep logic, arguments, critical reasoning. And when I think about the high quality of education that I am privileged to have, it has made me to be able to operate at a high level in in society.

47:01 I've been privileged to, you know, speak with brilliant minds, you know, of my own time. And you know, you look at my body of work, having people from different works of life, from athletes to businessmen to scientists like yourself, to healthcare practitioners. And this is a guy from finance. I have this debate, right, about the nature versus nurture.

47:25 And I want to put it on you right now because you are the science guy. What do you think? Or is there like a balance or hybrid or what's the bigger influence in terms of people's behaviours? Is it nature or is it nurture? It's, it's got to be both. It's always both, in fact. Well, actually, no, that's not true. It's not always both.

47:50 So let me let me give you an example. Let's say, let's talk about empathy, right? Let's say you are born with a genetic change that fundamentally alters how parts of your brain work. And let's say those parts of your brain are related to empathy. You will probably be diagnosed at some point in your life with a condition called psychopathy, where you are, you lack empathy. That change was driven by a genetic mutation that happened to you when you were a cluster of cells, before you had a brain, you know, before you were anything, before you encountered the world.

48:31 And it it required that you will develop with an absence of empathy. That's very much nature, right? And that genetic change could happen to anybody. It's just, you know, in that case it would be de Novo. It's new, it happens randomly, spontaneously, very much nature. But you could also not have that genetic change and be born with, you know, a brain that is like the average person's brain, but be born to parents that are super unresponsive to your emotions. They don't show you, hey, this is how you react, right? Like you.

49:07 And then it starts with very young children emotional mirroring, right? You smile and you laugh in the baby's face and the baby starts laughing and smiling in your face, right? And then when you, when the baby smiles, oh, the parents start smiling and laughing too, because it's cute, right? This like emotional mirroring and the parents responsiveness to the child, to their emotions is a big part of shaping empathy.

49:29 That's nurture, right? That's pure experience. And so you could be born with the exact same genes but have parents that are super responsive to your emotions or super unresponsive to your emotions, end up with completely different ways of perceiving the world and and experiencing empathy and experiencing other people's emotions.

49:50 So it's gotta be both. It has. It's always both. I mean, and what, and basically the way I see the, the role of genes is that they're sort of like a funnel, right? So it's like you could be anything, right? You could be anywhere out here. I'm not sure how much my, my body. You can actually see my hands are wide or if anyone's listening, I have my hands wide out.

50:08 You could be everybody could be anything, but your genes narrow that range to you. You could be something like this. And and it's for every trade, right? Your height, you might be anywhere between 5-6 and five eight, because that's the height of your genetics, right? Or your empathy. You might be really empathic or you might be sort of empathic, but you're probably not gonna be not empathic or you're how how sociable you are. You're probably gonna be not very extroverted. You'll probably be more introverted because that's what your genes, how they have shaped your brain. That's all nature.

50:39 But then you're born and you encounter the world and any of those things can change. I mean, maybe not height. I don't know about height, if that can change, but you know, like your your introversion, extroversion, right? When you're young, you might your it might just so happen that your parents best friends had kids the same age as you.

50:59 And so when from when you were a little kid, you always hung around others. And so your nurture, your experience caused you to start favouring social interaction. Even though your parents might be introverts, suddenly you had experiences that shaped you. And, and I think that we are all this just beautiful, unique concoction of our experiences and where we come from, our lineage, our parents, their parents, their parents, their parents, this all is just uncontrollable. And, and As for the argument of like free will versus determinism, you know, I think by the time our genes narrow us to that range and then our experiences narrow us even further, there's a very small area of wiggle room that we are basically able to operate

51:49 within. And so that's kind of the Robert Sapolsky determinism perspective. And, you know, I, I believe in that. I, I believe that we have free will, but I believe that our, our ability to exercise that free will is very much restrained by who we are and who we are comes from what we've been through and what we, where we come from.

52:09 And you know, it's interesting because I'll have, I'll have this happen to me all the time where like, you know, I'll, I'll film a video for Instagram 'cause I post like short form videos on, on social media about neuroscience. I'll, I'll press play and I'll start talking and I'll record myself. And then I, you know, couple days pass by and I look back at the video or I maybe I don't even look back at the video. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? I, I don't, I don't think I like that take. Let me redo this video.

52:35 And so I'll, I won't have a script. I'll refilm the exact same video and then a couple days later I'll come back and I'll compare the 2 and it'll be like the exact same video. Like I did not watch the video before. I was not at all influenced, but the wording, the way I presented it, the way I move my arms, it's like I only have so much wiggle room to act within.

52:55 And when I'm talking about it, you give me the the prompt of talk about this topic. I'm probably gonna say almost the exact same thing most of the time because it's who I am. And I might feel like I have free will when I'm exercising that, but it's, it's like determined by who I am. And so it's got to be both. It's always both.

53:15 You know when you have an identical twin, and of course the this has happened in real life. You have identical twins who maybe by way of life circumstances grew up in different environments. They typically have different attitudes, but tend to have like similar talents. Interesting. And you know, for me, I feel like the talent is the nature and the attitude is the nurture. Interesting.

53:47 And there's something I always say on this podcast, hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard. But when you're talented and you work hard at the same time, you become unstoppable, unbeatable. You know, I tell people about how growing up I felt like I was talented at music and talented at speaking. The very first two books I ever bought with my own money were books by Bill Kanecki, How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Art of Public Speaking.

54:29 So people because of the nature of the education that I have in finance, you should think oh why are you going into the media? They you don't know Jack about me. I grew up in a place in Nigeria called Lagos and just right at the back of my parents house was Dark Communications, that is the company that owns the very first independent radio and TV station in Nigeria. Think about it right that just where the whole dream of broadcasting came about.

55:14 So I was exposed very early to, you know, the media and that was a very big influence. You now go to university, become a finance guy. Even in university I used to, you know, MC events. I did MC an event for a when I say a concert very in this this guy that's really famous right now in Afrobeat. His name is Shake.

55:45 He went to my university and you know, it's it's crazy how people have potentials. And I never knew he was going to be that that famous going into the future. And I used to MC seminars, conferences and, you know, left university. But there's something we do in Nigeria called the NYSE, the National Youth Service Corps.

56:06 It's like a one year service to your government, a paramilitary training. When I was on the camp for that service, I was on something called the Orientation Broadcasting Service. Now you see the storyline. I've always taken communication very seriously and I got into PwC, second largest accounting firm in the world.

56:29 I was always involved in, you know, the trainings, teaching to clients, right, Anything involved in communication. I got into KPMG here in the UK, find a way to always be involved in presentations and you know, people not think, oh, you're a finance guy, you shouldn't be in the media. But they don't realise that I had made that conscious effort over time. Oh, I, I think I left something out. I was also involved in teaching.

57:01 I was a lecturer for professional accounting students, right. That actually helped to refine my approach. And of course you are a teacher as well. You'd agree with me that the highest level of communication is teaching something. Of course, you need to understand it better than the average person before you can teach it.

57:25 If you if you think you want to communicate something, teach it. And then you know that, OK, that's the highest level. Yeah, or if you want to think you want to, if you want to learn something, right, that'll happen to me. I used to do that in my PhD all the time. I would read a paper and the way I would test myself, do I actually, did I learn it? Did I actually figure out what they were doing is I would, I would ask myself, all right, how would I teach this to someone? And you start telling, you know, you start imagining. OK, so this is what you know, this is what the the study found.

57:56 And and you imagine, oh, well, they're probably gonna ask me that question. And it's like, oh, shit, I don't know the answer to that. You know, let me go back and and study some more and see if I can figure that. Out. Absolutely. Absolutely. When they ask you questions, it makes you think about the concept from another perspective, and thinking about it from another perspective helps you to understand it better.

58:18 Yeah. And by the way, on this, I meant to say this in the beginning. We're talking about like young people and, and learning and stuff. Never be afraid to ask questions. That is like the best thing you could possibly do. I used to always be afraid, oh, if I'm gonna ask this question, I'm gonna look stupid. They're gonna, they're gonna know. Obviously, I don't know the answer to this and I'm gonna look so stupid.

58:40 You don't look stupid. What looks stupid is if you don't ask the question and then five years later, you definitely should know that information, but you don't know it because you never asked. And now you do look stupid because you're in a position where you should know it for sure when you're learning and you're just getting started.

58:53 Or honestly, it doesn't even matter if you're just getting started, if you ask people to help you, it shows humility and it also shows respect and it just shows vulnerability and trainability. And these are all great traits that you want. Never be so worried about looking smart or looking a certain way that you that you don't ask for help. Super, super important.

59:13 But there's also another point that I wanted to comment on earlier. You talked about the importance of learning the, the nature of empirical study, scientific study, right? And this is how I live my life. I don't know if it's because I'm a scientist or not, or if it's just the way I think. But like this is how I think about everything. It's like I want to know the answer to something. Show me the data.

59:36 Let me what what are the data say? And so like, here's an example of this. Evidence based. Yeah, like you, it just, it will take your life like you want to live like a genius. Like I always like to motivate people with this. It's like, OK, if you want to live like a genius, use science in your daily life because it will.

59:52 It'll help you just understand the world. Here's an example. So the other day I went to make a cup of water from my refrigerator, and I have a part that dispenses water, and I have a part that makes ice. And so I make this cup of ice water and it's cloudy. And I think, oh man, OK, something's wrong.

1:00:11 It's either the water or it's the ice. How can I get to the bottom of this? Well I can fill 1 cup with just water and I can fill 1 cup with just ice and wait for the ice to melt and see which of these cups is cloudy. Like yeah, this may be seem obvious but what's the reason I bring this up and explain this is because what empirical study and following the data does is it unlocks the ability to take your emotions out of it.

1:00:36 Because I, I may not want my ice dispenser to be making cloudy water, cloudy ice, because I want a pain in the ass. Now I have to fix my ice dispenser. I just call it a handyman. I have to come pay all this money to get it fixed. It would be much easier if if maybe you know, I accidentally the cup was dirty, it wasn't properly cleaned by the dishwasher or something that doesn't cost me money. It would be so much more convenient. But if I do this experiment and I get the answer, my emotions are out of it.

1:01:03 I'm not thinking about, oh, I really, I don't want it to be this. It's like, that's what it is and I just deal with it. And I think trying to just follow the evidence makes life so much easier because you're not like you're never, you're never living at a knowledge deficit. You're never trying to operate in circumstances where you don't know everything.

1:01:21 If you have a grip of what's going on, it just makes it much easier to make decisions and to, I don't know, move forward in whatever direction you're going, whether that's solving a problem or just trying to figure out which, you know, should I go to this school or should I go to this school? It's like, well, look at the data.

1:01:36 You know what, what's the percentage of people from that school who land the job that you're interested in? You know, like that kind of stuff is so important. And another thing that's happening in America is we're suffering from this truth decay. That's what people call it, where we're basically losing sight of what's true, right?

1:01:51 What is fact, What is information, what is reliable? What's fake news, right? We're, we're getting, it's really hard to know what's real. And that's real scary because how do you live a life and steer yourself and take care of your family if you can't trust information and we can't fundamentally agree on what is fact.

1:02:09 So search for fact wherever you can and and use it to your advantage because you'll be better. You'll be more advantage than a lot of people who who don't rely on fact these days. I very much appreciate what you've just said of a curse. Spent about 8 years of my life in accountancy practise and what was I doing?

1:02:30 I was an auditor and what the auditors do you know, verify information, you know, make professional decisions and opinions based on what and verified facts and you know, this has actually like followed me in my life and everything that I do. I followed the data and you know when the data you know, in order we say something.

1:02:56 The most compelling form of audit evidence is reliable third party evidence. It's not about me saying it when I reached out to you and you know was giving you updates, right? I give you the updates from where leasing Notes and Leasing Notes is the Google of podcasts, right? Listen, Notes is the world's number one podcasting database with a public verification and Leasing Notes says I am global to top 2.5%, right?

1:03:34 I did not state that claim. You could go verify it, right, Right. It was easy for you to believe, right? But if I came up and said I am global so and so you asked me, who gave you that certification? Yeah, based on what, right. So it's it's it's, you know, very important that, you know, we actually verify information.

1:03:58 People say, OK, somebody came and told me the other day and said Nigeria has so and so and so numbers. And I'm like, oh, where did you get that info from? Then they were like, I saw it on TikTok, like, OK, it, it's, it speaks to what I have said on this podcast before. We are in an age of the height of artificial intelligence, but unfortunately, we are also in the age of the height of human foolishness. So I am not the neuroscientist.

1:04:30 You're the neuroscientist. Why? Why is this happening? What? What's responsible for this? For for you mean for the lack of trust in data. No, no. So The thing is this, right, I'm 3033 years old, so I'm a millennial and I remember growing up, you know, back home in Nigeria, if wanted to get like important information, a lot of times you need to go to the library, dig into, you know, that rabbit hole of books and over time came Google, you search and search and search different, you know, databases, check for the ones that are reliable.

1:05:13 Now you have the likes of chat, cheapity, cloudy eye, perplexity, you know, on and on and on, right? And information is easily and widely available right now in this agent time. Yet people still easily spread false information, and people are easily misinformed. And people find it very easy right to spread information that is false. But why?

1:05:43 I mean, you got to look at the incentive structure, right? So back in, I don't know, let's say 2000, the year 2000, right? If a website comes out on the middle of whatever, you know, they can buy a URL and they post a website and it contains fake information, what's the point of doing that? You know, no one's going to read your website, no one's going to trust your website, right? There's no incentive to do that.

1:06:11 But now there's so many incentives built into misleading people. And one of those it starts with social media that the development of these recommendation algorithms where now if you post juicy enough content that gets people to feel some sort of emotion, that is probably going to be shown to people who don't follow you, right? We have this like TikTok start of this and now it's on Instagram and now it's on YouTube and all sorts of places where you just sit back, swipe and it just feeds you content that it thinks you're going to like. You don't have to follow them, right? And so for everybody on the other side of that equation, the person cooking up the meals that you're the, you know, the content that you're eating and,

1:06:51 and consuming, you have so much incentive to do whatever it takes to get in front of that person. Because if you get more followers and you get more likes, then you get brand deals and you get sponsorships and you get fame and you have all these incentives built into simply getting attention. And what's the best way to get people's attention to make them feel some sort of strong emotion? And oftentimes what we see nowadays is that strong emotion is shock or disbelief or rage, negative emotions and things that either fear exactly things that make you step back and say, whoa, wait a minute, you know, that person's doing something horrible.

1:07:28 I despise that person. Or you know, or what? Whatever it is, social media creators have every reason to say anything whatever, like where you can make up is always going to be more interesting than the truth. Because I could tell you, oh, you know, what's the prefrontal cortex? Well, as neurons, and they signal with glutamate and GABA, whatever, that's no one cares.

1:07:53 Or I can tell you in the prefrontal cortex, you know, your neurons send around sour cream. And so the more sour cream you eat, the more effective your brain works. Like you can say whatever. And if people believe it, then you will start getting attention. And that's really dangerous because there's also no fact checking online.

1:08:10 There's no sort of regulations around misinformation. And so, yeah, a big part of what I do is I actually try to go out and find videos that are spreading misinformation. And usually it's not very hard to find them because they have millions of views. And I can just, you know, people will often send them to me as well.

1:08:25 And if it's getting a lot of views, then I'll go out and I'll make a video where I or I debunk it where I explain, you know, here's what's wrong about this. And I, I always try and do it in a, a very polite and not condescending way. Nobody wants to hear a scientist in a white coat talk down to them and say you're wrong. And here's why.

1:08:43 And you know, neither do I I didn't want that when I was studying, you know, I wanted to be understood. And So what I try and do is just basically lay out the facts and I take my emotions out of it just like I do in my daily life and just explain, oh, here, this is not right in basically the heroes of studies and, you know, believe whatever you want to believe. But here's the real evidence on it. Here's what this what the evidence in the data say. And, you know, I've been really fortunate to see that catch on and people seem to really respect that and appreciate it. And it just speaks to how inaccessible good information is.

1:09:14 You know, the, the, the quality of the information that you get online about neuroscience and psychology. Speaking as a neuroscientist, it's horrible. It's garbage. There are some creators who you can trust that are real neuroscientists and, and researchers and they actually spread good information.

1:09:30 For every one person like that, there's, I don't know, 10,000 people who just start talking about neuroscience in the brain. And basically what they're saying is just not, it's not based on real science. It's based on something they read on a website or, you know, something that they misunderstood or whatever. And some of those people are just genuinely speaking from their heart and trying to help others and don't realise that they're wrong.

1:09:52 And some of those people are intentionally misleading you because it benefits them financially. And that's the that's the scary part. So fast. It's like the case of the blind leading the blind. But I'll just say one thing. I think it's the responsibility of anybody consuming information to verify the source of the information.

1:10:13 And it's really easy to know or to ascertain if the source is reliable or not reliable. So I think for the viewers, for the audience, it's something we should try consciously try to activate in terms of our attitude or our behaviour towards consuming information. And you talked about a prefront the, the, the cortex, right? I do have a friend, Maya.

1:10:41 It can go in Abu Dhabi. Very, very obsessed with the prefrontal context. But before I ask the questions that she has sent to you, I am going to ask you a question that was sent to you by my partner. And she says this. She says. From your perspective, what's the most exciting or surprising discovery about the brain in recent years? We think for a minute, Oh my gosh, there's so many. Let me give you 1 from my book that So you know, when I wrote this book, so I I've been studying social behaviour as a neuroscientist for a decade now.

1:11:12 But when I wrote Why Brains Need Friends, I was doing a bunch of research on, you know, what studies are out there and I learned a bunch of things. And this is one of the things that I learned that completely blew my mind. So when a mother is getting close to giving birth, she will produce pulses of oxytocin. And oxytocin is, maybe you've heard of it, the love hormone, right?

1:11:36 People think of oxytocin. They think of bonding and partnership. And so when you hear that this oxytocin is being produced by the mother, you probably think, oh, that's her body and her brain getting ready to meet the baby and form a connection with the baby. But it turns out that's actually not the purpose.

1:11:51 What's really happening is this oxytocin produced by the mother goes, flows into the baby and into the baby's brain and influences those brain cells and lowers their activity. And the reason that that's meaningful and that's that's happening is because when the baby is coming out of, you know, being born and it's passing through this tight canal, it's very likely that the baby is going to have to deal with some restricted blood flow and restricted oxygen.

1:12:21 And so when when you have oxygen not being delivered to brain cells, brain cells can die. That's what a stroke is. And so how do you protect the baby's brain to make sure that brain cells start don't start dying when there's little oxygen flowing? Well, you reduce the activity of the brain cells. You reduce their demand to how hungry they are. It's like if imagine if you're you're swimming, you're treading water or you're drowning and you could hold your breath for longer, right?

1:12:48 That's basically what it's doing. It's allowing these brain cells to stay alive for longer. And it's basically a neuroprotective system built into the mother, built into the bodies of human mothers and other animals too, to protect the baby and its brain on the way out. And I found that to be completely amazing because studying in this field, I had never heard about that fact before.

1:13:11 That's not actually that recent. You did ask me recent, but to me that one's just like every time I I think about it, it's like it's mind blowing. Like when we are born, we are already protected by the ancient wisdom of biology that's built into us. Just incredible. Wow, that is, it's not just mind blowing, that's brain blowing like this. And it's yeah and yeah, I am going to go into the prefrontal cortex.

1:13:34 Our questions shout out to Maya Ikango 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.

1:14:01 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 and questions. 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.

1:14:20 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 the answer like this. Absolutely. I only see something you know. I'm a professional, right? But I don't know all the answers. Yeah, I've had myself and that's OK. In knowing we had to get the answers if I need to. Exactly.

1:14:39 Exactly. Yeah, I could find that answer. Maybe I'll I'll check it out and I'll I'll. Send it. Yeah, of course. So that means that automatically we should book a Part 2 for this. We can. So now you're gonna come back. You can come back with an advanced. Cortex Edition. Yeah, Prefrontal cortex edition. You said you're ready.

1:14:58 So #2 is 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, which makes sense because you have to deal with some challenge.

1:15:36 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. 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.

1:16:06 And, and basically what that amounts to is that you're processing power and your computing power goes down South. Chronic stress is bad. As for the timing, I don't think it can, you know, impair, 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.

1:16:34 I believe there is evidence that that it does alter the the function of the prefrontal cortex. Interesting. 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 towards the front. 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

1:17:18 necessarily seen in the the frontal cortex, like much more higher level cognition and be 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. 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.

1:17:43 And you know, the brain is just immensely complicated. But without a prefrontal cortex, you know we would not be as high functioning animals. I like that. I always 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.

1:18:03 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? Interesting You could say that you, I guess, I mean there's a couple different CEOs of the brain and actually the nucleus accumbens that I mentioned earlier in the context of MDMA is also one of those.

1:18:29 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. 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 minute.

1:18:42 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. 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.

1:19:01 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. So is it the CEO or the CEO? I feel like the, the, the, the nucleus to Cummins 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.

1:19:28 I feel like that's sort of those two are combining to to make things work properly. 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's told me before that the prefrontal cortex actually fully develops at the age of 25.

1:20:01 Is is is that true? 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.

1:20:24 It means that unlike other brain areas, your Pfc remains flexible as you get older. 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's not like a firm thing that it's like boom, 25, you're done. So great news, we actually recently got the brand deal, the sponsorship and of course our partnership with Betterhelp, which is the world's leading online therapy brand.

1:21:01 So I'd like to real quick, when I say your brain, pick the brain of a neurosurgeon on the importance of therapy and what do you think about online therapy? Oh, I mean, I think like therapy is huge, you know, I, I see a therapist proudly. I think more people should be proud about the fact that they do see a therapist.

1:21:22 You know, it's like people are really eager to share that they go to the gym, right, 'cause it's like going to the gym is seen as this good thing. It's like, oh, you're working on your body. Like good for you. You know, therapy is working on your brain. It's like you're, you're going to the gym for your brain, right? You're working on your mood, you're trying to improve your well-being, you're trying to grow. And so, you know, I have no shame in sharing that I go to see a therapist and, you know, and some days I go and I'm like, honestly, I got nothing to talk about right now. Like everything's good.

1:21:48 I'm, I feel good and that's fine. You know, sometimes you go to the doctor and you're like, everything's cool. But other days I'm like, Oh my gosh, thank goodness I have this session because it's really important. So I, you know, I think, I think therapy is obviously important and there's obviously tonnes of research showing that it's effective and helpful.

1:22:03 Having a good therapist matters. And and also, you know, As for the online component, you know, I prefer generally, you know, when possible in person. But but for a lot of people in person has a bunch of problems. One, it's less accessible. Yeah, sometimes it's it's not easy to get to a place like, you know, you might not, you might be in the little in the middle of a therapy desert where you don't have access to a therapist. You know, if that if that's true or you have access to therapists, but you don't really enjoy any of the therapists nearby.

1:22:33 So that's another benefit. And the other thing too, is also when you have a therapist and you have to go into the office, you may not feel comfortable going into the office if you're if you're not a person who's proud to be in therapy and you're worried that you might see others. So I think, you know, what was it like?

1:22:46 Betterhelp are great. I mean, the fact that you can see a therapist online is like, that's a new thing for humanity. I think it's a good thing. I absolutely would. I say I appreciate the kind of work that better help out does. It's, it's interesting, you know, when I look at my body of work, I've seen a lot of videos wherein I have, you know, spoken very heavily and assessively about the importance of therapy and having better help reach out to me to, to be a brand ambassador or to be a partner feels like a validation for what I stand for. And you know, it's really great as a creator to, to represent a brand that aligns with your philosophy. I think that's the best form of partnership. Let's talk about your book.

1:23:32 It's, it's coming out very soon, right? And of course, again, I once assigned, you know, a copy of your book. It's interesting. You got a book that's similar to yours, right, Right here by Professor Bruno Signaco. He gave me this book and of course, he was on the podcast earlier this year and did sign the book. So I would appreciate your your autograph, you know, your celebrities of.

1:23:53 Course, I would love to. OK, yeah, your book, what is it about? And of course, what are you trying to achieve with it and why should the audience buy the book? Yeah, well, the book's called Why Brains Need Friends, and it's, as the title suggests, it's about the neuroscience of social interaction and basically what we get from social behaviour, social connection.

1:24:17 And you know, I think the reason I wrote the book is because there are all these stats out there that we're becoming more isolated. We're not spending time with others as much, and that's often framed as a very negative thing. And it is. But I don't think people fully appreciate the significance of what we actually stand to lose from being isolated and what we actually stand to gain from being socially connected. And so my goal with this book is to basically take all of this massive mounds of neuroscience research that has accumulated over decades and decades, including, I've been fortunate to contribute some of it myself and put it all in one place that the average person can read and

1:24:55 understand and walk away and say, OK, I actually need to consider socialising as a fundamental component of my well-being. And I, I think people don't really do that enough, but it's important. It really makes a difference. And it's, it's just like going to the gym or having a clean diet or getting enough sleep.

1:25:12 You know, it's one of those things that we really need to do. And, you know, I'm my goal with this book is, is that after reading this, people will appreciate that they will live healthier lives and they will live more connected lives. Because I am worried also about not just what the distance between us is doing for our health, but what it's doing for our societies.

1:25:30 And I think that, you know, maybe by by helping people appreciate the biological significance for you, right? You are, as I've discovered through my life of falling in love with neuroscience, you are the person housed within this organ, right? And this organ loves interacting with others. It needs interacting with others. And so, you know, if I can get people to understand that the way I learned about it as a neuroscientist and came to appreciate it, I think we would have a much healthier, happier society.

1:26:00 So I, I really, you know, and my, and my sort of secret quiet goal is I really, I want to sort of address this world that we find ourselves in where we do have less empathy. We're not really feeling disconnected with others. You know, I think if if people understood what it really means to be connected, then we wouldn't maybe be as quick to put our differences between us. Well, at this point, I feel like you should actually make me a brand ambassador for your book because it just completely aligns, You know, we are Nigeria. Big shout out to Nigeria.

1:26:35 There's a flag of Nigeria. I'll just have my flag handy. The Yoruba people say carrying carp or yeni yeni. It means when we walk in groups, right? It brings honour to us as a people. If you want to go far, I walk alone. But if you want to go further, move with people, right? And, you know, there's a reason why the brain, you know, is in the head, Tell people because it's, you know, it's meant to be the leader of the body. If you know, the creator of the universe, you know, wanted the brain to be somewhere else, he would have put it somewhere else.

1:27:12 So it's important that we ensure that we, you know, perform activities that would enhance that brain. Like you said, rightly said, we train our bodies, right? But a lot of times we don't do enough to train the brain. And I really appreciate your body of work. So the quick fire round are before we let you go, we, you don't get to see neurosciences every day.

1:27:36 So let's milk out everything we can milk out of you. Quick fire round. 5 sharp questions, 5 sharp answers. Are you ready to rumble? Let's do it. I'm ready. OK, number one, what's the most misunderstood fact about the brain you wish everyone knew? Left brain, right brain. People have differences in how they behave and stuff, but studies show that there is not actually like the average person.

1:28:04 You put them in a brain scanner, they don't have a dominant side of the brain. Yeah, I love that because I have personally been that person that has trained, you know, both sides, you know, and it's covered. It's it's kind of like a fallacy. It's basically how you train it. You can do anything you want to do and you can be anything you want to be.

1:28:27 TikTok or Stanford lecture hall. Where do you feel you make the bigger impact? Gosh, TikTok, honestly. Welcome to the TikTok Generation One book or paper that changed the way you see neuroscience. For me to publish or to read. All right, that changed your perspective on on neuroscience. A book that I oh I see Behaved by Robert Sapolsky and also Live Wired by David Eagleman. Both both really good.

1:29:00 Those are my top 2 favourite neuroscience books. Interests and stuff. I think we we should have that in the description section. Yeah. OK, so what's your go to practise for protecting your own mental health as a scientist creator? Exercise. Lifting weights. I love that. And of course, if you could collaborate with any scientist, past or present, who would it be and why? You know, I'm going to give a really kind of unexpected answer.

1:29:32 There's a researcher named Doctor Ronald Duman. I applied to his lab to do a postdoc, and he is an amazing scientist, neuroscientist. And he passed away of a heart attack the year that I applied to be in his lab. And so I never got to work with him. And I think, you know, I have a lot of respect for him and his work and was sad to see and learn of his passing.

1:29:54 And it would be awesome to collaborate with him. Rest his soul. Wow. And that is the end of today's session. There's something I always say, you know, gratitude is good attitude and when a person shares their life with you, the time with you, they share their life with you because the SI unit for measuring life is time. So for me, it's immense and intense gratitude, love and respect to you and of course to the audience. Guys, I have a neuroscientist here do the needful right? So go share like comments, you know, subscribe. If you don't do that, I think we'll we'll tell him to adjust your prefrontal cortex.

1:30:39 Guys, you know, conceive belief, strive to thrive, and of course, go achieve. Before you run, do you want to leave a shout out to anybody before we say goodbye? I just want to shout out all the mentors that I've had that have, you know, trained me and, and showed me the way when I had questions. I think and you know, to the younger people, the people arising through their careers, find those mentors, you know, find those people who will answer your questions because those are your guides.

1:31:02 Those are, you know, you will appreciate those people when you are in their seat helping the next generation. So I appreciate those who lend their hand to me. Wow, I love that curiosity. Curiosity to say it kill the cat. What satisfaction brought it back for me and Doctor Ben? It's goodbye and God bless you guys.