Why should people listen to the episode?
Yeah, I mean, if you are curious about a girl who just kind of
left everything behind and moved across the country to study
veins and later realize that she wants to bring it back to the
society and maybe take it back home as well.
That's, that's how, that's why you should listen to this and to
all the women and people of color too.
I think this is I hope I I you are a presentational story here.
That's interesting. You're actually a very, very
big, I say figure inspiration, a beacon of hope, right?
And yeah, I really think your story and your body of work is
inspiring. That is from me to you, and that
is actually as authentic as you can get.
What you do is actually inspiring.
And of course, I appreciate you very, very, very much before.
We dive back into today's conversation.
I want to share something important.
This episode includes a pay partnership with Better Help, a
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life and sometimes feel overwhelming.
There are seasons severe stress, uncertainty and pressure build
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If you've been thinking about it, Sometimes the best
investment you can make easy yourself.
Welcome to the King Dems Podcast, where we share the
stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics
that shape our world. From visionary leaders to
trailblazing creatives, we uncover the mindset, strategy,
and grit behind greatness. Whether it's business, culture,
or personal growth, we ask the real questions.
This isn't just conversation, it's transformation.
The Kingdom's podcast, Your Next Breakthrough, starts here.
Music licensing reimagined. Your life, ladies and gentlemen,
will once again walk out to The Kingdom's podcast and today I
have got with me Beauty and Brains and Mick Walker fighting
out of Chicago, IL by Warrior Johnny the Super Euroscience
journey to Crawler. How are you today, Doctor and
Jenny? Wow, Yeah, thanks for that.
That that sentence, right. That that definitely put a smile
on my face. I am pretty good.
How are you? All good, all good.
We, we've been having, you know, a super wholesome conversation.
And guys, you're gonna be jealous because this is just
Part 2 of the podcast. We did not record Part 1 of the
podcast. Exactly.
Right, so hope you're not repeating ourselves here.
I was telling you, and of course, you know, by the way,
Dr. Jenny, she is just like myself.
She's not photogenic. She looks better in person that
the pictures you'd ever see of par on social media.
So just so you know, it's on the promise, but over the lever.
Yeah. I like.
That, you know, yeah. Like I like to do, you know, all
the podcasts I love to give people their flowers.
Your body of work is actually highly, highly impressive.
I think impressive is an understatement.
But in the absence of a word that is more impressive than
impressive, let me just see that your body of work is impressive.
I hope you accept that, so see back while I read your carefully
curated introduction. So today on The Kingdom's
podcast, we're joined by a super brilliant mind at the
intersection of neuroscience, AI and human transformation.
Doctor Anthony Chakrala with a pH D in neuroscience, years of
postdoctoral research on brain function, and her current work
translating brain science into real world clinical tools.
Her journey is on a mission to make neuroscience practical for
everyday lives. From decoding neural networks to
driving neurotech innovation, her work inspires hope that
science can truly change the way we learn and heal.
I'm honored to welcome to the Kingdom's broadcast doctor
Anjani Takala. Let's dive in.
Wow, once again. Thank you.
Thanks for that. I'm honored as well.
I think it's not oftentimes that scientists get to go on podcasts
and talk about their science and their journey.
And so this is very special for me.
So this is actually my first podcast so.
Wow, fantastic. So I'm really happy.
I'm really happy to be the first you feels cool to be the first I
want to be. I want to be #1 in a country
someday. I said, well, we're speaking.
I'm number 3IN Cyprus on the Apple broadcast ranking.
Are you able to make me number one?
Yeah, yeah. Let's try.
Let's let us try we're. On to the mission.
OK, OK, so yeah, let's start from the origin and of course
your your motivation. So what first inspired you to
pursue neuroscience and dedicate your career to understand how
the brain really works? Yeah.
So I would say it's mostly like curiosity.
How did I get curious is through reading a Popular Science book.
So it's funny. It was actually an assignment
for one of the classes that I took in my undergrad in India at
Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
So the book is called Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran.
So basically it has this bunch of like weird neurological cases
like phantom limbs, like where the amputees have like
sensations in their missing limbs and they're, they're like
cases of these patients who they who thought their parents were
imposters and then their other like out of body experiences.
So basically what all of these cases kind of came together to
show that what an astonishing role that the brain has in your
sense of reality and in your sense of self.
So that was like, that was very cool for me.
I was just like this, you know, sophomore or like second year
undergrad, like reading this book and it was just, it was
mind boggling for me. And I was like, OK, let's.
So it was one of those things I just everybody around me was, I
think it was like the peak of the research, the undergrads
going into research, wherever I was from.
So I, I kind of got on that wave of research going into research
after undergrad. So, and then I just moved from
India to the US to do my PhD at University of Wisconsin Madison.
I was, I was studying brain and behavior.
How does like brain contribute to what we do day-to-day?
The specific question I was looking at was how does our
brain help us see things and make sense of what we see?
A lot of us think that seeing happens in the eye, but there is
a lot of processing that happens in your brain that actually lets
you see colors or recognize somebody's face and, you know,
be able to absorb that information and act on it.
So all of these processes are, we all know this, we all
experience this day-to-day, right?
But what we don't know is how does the brain do with it?
So what are the mechanistic insights we can pull from
looking inside the brain about some of these outside processes?
How are they mapped into the brain?
So those are the questions I was talking about.
I was looking at when I was doing my pH D research.
So that's kind of what inspired me really the reading and also
kind of, you know, knowing about the research towards the end of
my undergrad and like really kind of seeing some of the
researchers do research in my own institution at Indian
Institute of Technology. So it was kind of inspiring for
me to take the next step and go to grad school.
So what was that aha moment? The epiphany?
You know what, you now realize that it is your calling to
bridge science, right, with real world solutions instead of just
staying purely in research. Because I I know you have a
background in engineering and I always tell engineers on this
podcast that engineers are solution oriented individuals.
They bring real world solutions to real world problems.
So would you say that engineering background also
inspired you to be on this pathway?
Absolutely. I think absolutely that is part
of it. So I was like I was very
entrepreneurially minded even in my undergrad.
I just, I used to participate in like startup pitch competitions.
I was doing my engineering training is in biotechnology,
right? So it's a broader field.
It includes neuroscience as well, but I was doing other
aspects of biotechnology during my undergrad.
So I would say when I moved to grad school, I'd really like for
the first three years, right? It was intensely reading the
literature and trying to pilot experiments as to kind of come
up with hypothesis testing day to my day-to-day would look like
I would, I would wake up, I would read scientific papers and
I would I would have discussions with my team and then I would be
trained on doing experiments. So most of the time was spent in
the lab doing that. So what I was starting to miss
really was the human interaction with outsiders.
So then I found this opportunity of doing like community outreach
about neuroscience. So we used to have science
nights at these high schools in Madison.
So and then we were from our university side, there's a team
including me who would go there and have set up a booth and just
to talk to public about neuroscience, talk to public
about what we do in the lab, You know, just because these are.
Yeah. So these are some of the things
that are really important to create platforms for that
dialogue to happen because you scientists are not just somebody
who are like sitting in an ivory tower just doing their own
isolated, siloed work, right. So I think that was that was
when I had the aha moment. I would say that I actually like
talking to people and bringing the science about science,
right? I mean, I like people.
I like talking to people about other things too.
But talking to people about my life where like not many people
are familiar about what is research, what do researchers do
and things like that. So it was also like we got to do
like some fun, you know, games that kind of for kids, right.
So where we had like the drunk goggles, where you, if you put
on the goggles, you, your vision is distorted and we would have a
game for them to like eye to hand to eye coordination.
What happens when you put on that those distorting goggles,
right? So I'm kind of kind of making
public think about the inner workings of if your senses were
to be distorted, what really happens to your behavior?
So the sensing is so closely related to behavior that we take
it for granted a lot of us, right?
So that was when I was like, OK, this is this is good.
And then that after I graduated, I took on post and things like
that. And then I got to work for
another startup where I, I could develop like some kind of
evaluating a scientific fit for a technology that can regenerate
neurons in the eye to restore vision with the clinical need.
What is the need in the clinic for a technology like that?
So we have the and what can this technology do, but what is
really needed by the people in the clinic?
So those are two different things.
A lot of times when you do cool things, develop cool technology,
it's kind of developed just for the sake of the pureness of the
technology, right? So you're trying to achieve
something, but when you try to take it to the real world, it's
a part that you have to go down where you do a lot of you try to
fit this technology with what's actually needed in the clinic.
What is the reality? There has to be a use case.
Use. Case and really finding the use
cases was what I was doing at that startup that I really
enjoyed doing. So I was like, OK, this is this
is cool. So this maybe this is what I
want to do. So that's kind of where I'm at
right now. So you have actually described
yourself as driving where science meets strategy, right?
So can you share like how you've been able to balance that deep
research with the practical translation in biotech and of
course, neurotech? Yeah, Yeah, I would say like,
like I just mentioned my journey in like this tagline, right.
Science meets strategy is relatively new, but so how do I
balance deep research with practical translation, right.
So I think it takes a team. So one person cannot do all of
it. So when you are, it's a mindset
shift when you're doing. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Yes, exactly.
So it is definitely a teamwork. So we need a lot of
interdisciplinary collaborations and dialogues that need to
happen for somebody. Because like, even for one
person, when I'm on days that I'm really doing like deep
research, right, like in the lab, testing out things, doing
research, clear research, I really don't have the mental
capabilities to be able to think about anything outside that
because that's, that's the first step in the pipeline.
So, but if you imagine a scenario where this person who's
doing the deep, deep research can communicate with somebody
who's also on the same team, but they're more interested in
thinking about how does this fit in and how it's like a feedback
loop, right? Like, hey, this is what
researcher A goes and says, this is what I've found and this is
where it's headed. But then there is a person that
is actually doing the strategy side of things where trying to
see where this actually fits in the real world scenario use
case. But what's very important is
this person, the second person we're talking about, the
strategy person, I think it's important for them to have
scientific training as well. That's, that's what was very
unique about my experience working with this.
The retinal neuron regeneration startup for vision restoration
is all of us. There was one MBA on the team,
so good for business fit. That's why I passed it.
Yes, we need, we need business people too.
We need business people too. So but I think.
You need to bring out your team. Yes, yes.
But if you put a business person with a purely research minded
person, that's not gonna connect really well.
So we need a third. I feel like we need a third
entity that is kind of that understands that has the science
background, but now is very interested in trying to bridge
them together. I think that's kind of where I I
see myself. I see myself as that entity so.
So. That's yeah.
So that's my experience. And now I am, I recently got
this scientific advisor role at this eurotech company called
Pinky Inc. So basically this company is has
a product that lets you train your brain through games and
neuro variable device. So you get neurofeedback as
you're playing the games to real time feedback to show how much
of cognitive load you're taking as you're doing.
They have like variety of games to improve different things like
processing speed, how quickly are you, how reactive are you
and how your working memory and things like that.
So, so they have a cool technology, but we still there's
a lot to be done in terms of like bringing this to the
public, making the message clear, making sure it's a
scientifically grounded message, not over promising something,
but also not understanding the potential of the technology,
right. So all of these things is what
I'm up to right now. So I'm also trying to make
content for people to understand what when when you play a game
like this, when you train your brain like this, what is really
happening in your brain and like how, what is the mechanistic
value that you get or changes that you get in your brain that
might be important for, for your outcomes from doing this
training. Oh, interesting stuff.
You know, for me on a personal basis, I've noticed like playing
certain games have actually helped me with like and eye
coordination. Like playing these games
consistently do help, but I don't know how it works out for
other people. Playing word games, for example,
like help me get sharper in terms of vocabulary, even
reading speed and understanding, you know, verbal communication
at a faster pace, right? So I would like to see
neurological research that speaks to these, you know,
observations that I've had. I've not been privileged to be
on, you know, that research side.
I have a science background. Actually, a lot of people do not
realize the fact that in high school I was a science student
and it gave me that empirical background, the physics,
chemistry, biology, and understanding, you know, the
basics from a scientific perspective.
Applying the empirical method helped me to smash the social
sciences. Ended up starting economics, for
example. But it is a social science.
If you apply the science principle to the management
sciences, to the social sciences, it helps you to excel,
it helps you to be pragmatic, it helps you to be neutral right?
And it helps you to have a higher level of an analytical
mind. Right.
Because when you follow the data points, you're able to make well
informed observations and well informed conclusions, right?
Just like we have in philosophy, your premises lead to all
conclusion, right? So if your premises are
logically valid, your conclusions will also be
logically valid, right? And of course, with those
conclusions, you're able to make resourceful recommendations,
right? So yes, I'll talk about your
research work, right? So in accounting, it's something
that you, when it comes to accounting for research and
development, R&D has become like a real buzzword.
But a lot of people don't really realize what R&D is about,
right? Research is different from
development, but a lot of costs goes into research.
A lot of research never even see the light of day.
Parts of the difficulty in finding a use case for that
researcher, It's very fancy. You document it, right?
It might not even have a use case until years later.
But from the business side, from the business side, you're like,
OK, what does this do for us? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So it might be just like put on a back burner, right.
Like it's so it's not relevant now, maybe let's revisit later.
But it's one of those things like is it an incremental value
that you're adding to your business or is it a completely
revolutionary thing like Steve Jobs did, right.
So, so you it's all about that mindset.
And I think we need people who like MBAs, business minded
people who have some science training as well.
You're talking about me. Yeah, yeah.
So definitely, I think I think it helps like like for all the
reasons that you just mentioned, I think it's it's highly, it's
highly important for all of us to acknowledge the importance of
science to form the foundation of our decision making as well.
So yeah. Absolutely.
So for people outside of the lab, what does your science
actually reveal about attention, memory, decision making that
could help us in daily life? Yeah, Yeah, I think that that's
a loaded question, I would say. But my short answer to that is
what has been happening is neuroscience has been largely
confirming what we already know about human behavior from
psychology, right? But what is the value it's
adding is it's bringing the crucial evidence about the brain
activity and, and, and underlying mechanisms.
So let me give you like an example, right?
So we have known over like a century from behavioral studies
that humans have severe information processing limits.
Like, for example, we cannot pay attention to everything at once.
We can't remember everything we see, most of us anyway.
So there are some gifted individuals who probably can do
better than. Outliers, Outliers.
Yeah, which is also, which is also so beautiful.
All of us vary in this ability. So that itself, that's a whole
different topic of discussion. But so what's happening is we
know about our limitations behaviorally, but what we don't
know is where or why there are these bottlenecks that occur.
Just we are not able to tell from the behavior alone, just
from studying the behavior, we are not able to tell where in
the brain or why these bottlenecks are occurring,
right? So, and this is exactly where
neuroscience helps us in that it helps us localize these, these
distinctive bottlenecks. It just uses like more
mechanistic insight into these limitations.
And what we do with those insights is, is when things
breakdown, it is very important to, well, you might say, why do
I need to know why? I can see the behavior, right?
I can, I can learn everything just from the psychology side
standpoint. Why do we need neuroscience?
Why do we need to measure brain activity?
So there's a whole debate on that front as well.
But what where this is really crucial, this knowledge of
knowing why what happens in the brain is when things breakdown,
for example. So I have so we know there's
like a perceptual like at the level of sensation, for example,
when you see things. So you literally cannot process
too many things in your in your field of vision, right?
Like for example, you have a clutter.
A lot of times it's hard to find something when the clutter is
increasing. You're getting distracted by too
many things at once, right? And there is, there is So there
where when you think about it, maybe it's your attention that
is actually failing, right? So at the level of the working
memory might not yet come into play at this level.
Does that make sense? What what I'm trying to say?
So there is, there is, there is memory and there is like senses,
the sensing, there are, there are there are some limitations
on the sensing capabilities. And then once you have sensed
everything, you something goes to your working memory.
So you can actually access those objects and be able to address
them. So so I hope I'm doing a good
job explaining this. OK, let me try to, would I say
break it down for the lead man, Right.
So yeah, we'll talk about the senses.
We're basically talking about the five senses.
We talk about sights, feel, taste.
Yeah. Touch.
What else do you have? Hearing, right.
So if you take a touch, for example, right, you touch
something, you have nerves, right?
You have neurons that are going to transmit that information,
that data to the brain, right? However, for for like some
individuals, due to certain sensory limitations that they
have, right, they might not be able to transmit that to the
brain or to the working memory in quick real time.
So when I have a blocked nose, for example, right, my sense of
smell is limited, right? So I'm not able to process the
smell that I have in my environment as quick as what I
would do on a normal day. Is that is that correct?
Is that like a good? Yeah.
So, yeah, that's a good.
So you're talking more about when the senses are gone wrong.
Yes, that will put a lot of limitations on how much you can
sense, right? But even even you have a
perfectly normal nose, you have a perfectly normal touch
sensing, right. So, but when you're presented
with too many sensing stimuli, I see, for example, when you're
presented with too much information, maybe for vision,
it's it's easier to explain as a vision case, right, Because I
I'm also biased because I study vision.
For example, you open a screen and like you these days, like
there's just too many pop ups, let's say coming up, right, like
ads or whatever. So there is there is a limit to
how many you can sense at the level of the sensory part of the
brain, if that makes sense. What yeah, what we experience is
is a mixture of sensing attention and also memory.
So inside our experience is just a mixture of everything.
Like I'm. I'm saying this because your
question goes back to attention, memory, and decision making.
So our ability to make decisions is very, very much limited by
how much we can absorb, how much information we can absorb, how
much information we are able to pay attention to, and how much
information we are able to put in the working memory.
I think I was just trying to say where make an make a use case of
neuroscience where it has provided some mechanistic
insights and why that was important.
So the example that I wanted to take was a clinical example.
For example, you can take ADHD, right?
ADHD. Whoa, you are entry by gadget?
I'm actually an ADHD person. Are you wow, OK, so maybe you
can correct me if anything I'm behaviorally what I'm saying is
not, but from your subjective experience, I think but so I
think what what people thought of ADHD as an attention deficit,
right? So that's what it is famously
known for. But is it so then there is there
is a nuance to it, right? The picture is more nuanced
where many individuals with ADHD don't have like pure perceptual
bottleneck. Like they're able to perceive.
For example, if you were to measure their brains and measure
their vision, vision areas vision, yes yeah, just put on a
EEG head cap or like put them in a F MRI machine, right.
If you're able to measure their sensing brain areas, you're able
you maybe they're able to see all of it.
They're able to see it at that level, but what's really
happening is they're not able to maybe put a lot of them into
their working memory. Here is why working memory is
important because whenever you have, whenever you are like
trying to do have a behavior like trying to interact with
information, you to pull the information from your sensing
capabilities. But there's a filtering that
happens by memory. So your memory, your working
memory is able to only hold some of that information and then you
need to pull that from the working memory.
So do you, do you see what I mean by there's a sensing
filter, There is a working memory filter, the sensing to
working memory. Maybe it goes through attention.
Attention is the one that is helping you filter out what you
want to hold in your working memory.
So with neuroscience, because the brain is does everything in
a modular way, because there's some areas of the brain that are
dedicated for vision processing and there is the prefrontal
cortex like we discussed and it seems.
To be that's the favorite part of the brain.
Yeah, that's your favorite part of the brain, and that's many
people's favorite part of the brain.
I think because it's so interesting.
It has, it does a lot of different things.
It's it's for decision making. It has some, you know, attention
related executive attention related signals.
It has it also has some sensory signals it actually responds to.
Yeah. So cuz I for my post doc work, I
actually went inside this prefrontal cortex, put
electrodes in it and recorded from it and actually got like
the brain activity. So it has all of these sensory,
whether you're seeing an apple or an orange, it might have a
distinction between those two. So it has, so it's a, it's a
very interesting and very complex area.
So people are still trying to understand.
I, I wouldn't say I have all the answers to it, but what I want
to say is neuroscience really gives you the, the break from
through the window of the brain activity.
What can you tell about these different behavioral process
that you already know through psychology or you just use every
day, right? Like, hey, your memory is bad or
your attention is bad. What does that really mean when
it comes to the brain? So that's what neuroscience
really use. And I, I wouldn't be able to
answer what neuroscience has found uniquely about these
processes. But behaviourally, I think we
know about all of these things, but I think neuroscience kind of
like hits the nail on the head with, with giving some clarity
into what these processes. I I would say I want to end this
question with one thing. One area where neuroscience has
added a lot of value is sleep. Sleep.
Wow, tell me about sleep. Yes, sleep is sleep is.
I highly recommend the book Why We Sleep by the scientist called
Matthew Walker. So it goes into the neuroscience
of sleep as well. So anyway, so sleep, we know
from the outside, we all know just from personal experiences
that sleep improves memory, but we did not know exactly how it
was done. We didn't know the states of the
sleep or things like that. So it was with.
There's a lot of attention on deep sleep lately.
Deep sleep, yes exactly. And all of the what that what
those stages of sleep mean to your day-to-day, like quality of
life has not been known before, but I think neuroscience has
helped us understand those stages of sleep and exactly what
role they play in the memory consolidation.
So, yeah, so I think that is one example where actually measuring
brain activity has changed our point of view so much.
I'm going to ask you the same questions that my friend Maya
dropped for the neuroscientist from Stanford University with
Doctor Parent Brain. SO the very first question is,
does the prefrontal cortex develop differently depending on
a gender? Gender I actually am not aware
of this. I I haven't read any literature,
any like research studies that is related to this.
So I don't I don't want to give a wrong answer.
So I'm not I'm not. And this is something that is a
little like that we need to do consciously in the in, in whole
of science is like being able to balance your sample sizes with
both genders because yes, we don't completely understand the
gender based differences in many, many aspects of biology.
So that's something. All I know is I'm all up.
I'm all for being able to study in both genders in a, in a
equitable fashion, you know, but I don't.
Know, I think, I think that would make sense, yeah, yeah.
But that absolutely makes sense thinking about you from a data
analytical, you know, perspective, you know, if the
sample size is not large enough, you are not able to extrapolate,
you're not able to perform that, you know, regression and
correlation analysis, you know, that ascertain that OK, is there
actually disparity? Are there variances between the
patterns that are identified for the resource that we have based
on gender, right? So we're just picking it based
on humans, right? Or what happens to that sample
size, right? And I think this is something
the scientific community need to, you know, take up very
seriously, ensure that there is gender balance in research work
so we are able to identify the patterns, you know, across our
genders. And yeah, I think that could
make for some very important decision making.
So #2 question is, does stress or trauma inhibit the function
of the prefrontal cortex, particularly before it is really
developed? Definitely yes I do.
I do know this just from like my interest from my friends who
work in like adolescent mental health area.
I haven't done any research directly in this, but I do know
that stress and trauma changes your brain.
I think most of your brain. But like most likely these very
executive function areas that are especially developing, still
developing into late days, right?
So I know that it's an S, but I am not aware of the mechanistic
insights into how it does. OK.
The third question is how is the prefrontal cortex different from
other parts of the frontal lobe? The parts of the frontal lobe,
yeah. So you want to you just want to
talk about the function? How?
Yeah. So, so basically you know, you
have the the what I say the suborgans in the frontal lobe of
the brain, right. But what is the differentiator
of the prefrontal cortex? Prefrontal, what is the
differentiator? OK.
Yeah. So I would say prefrontal cortex
of the other compared to the other parts of frontal lobe is
more involved in like decision decision making.
There is also something called like frontal eye feels that are
very important for like movements because your your eye
movements are really closely related to your decision making
as well. So, so the frontal cortex has
heavy connections to the motor part of the brain, part of the
brain that gives you body movements because every time
when a decision is made, it needs to be executed with a body
movement most of the times, right?
So now because of the digital age, maybe your decisions are
just made with a click of a button, right?
But for example, I see an apple, I want to make a decision
whether I want to eat an apple or not.
So how do I make a decision? I actually make a decision by
making a motor movement, by moving my arm, reaching out for
the apple and things like that. So what we really need to
remember is like there is sensing.
You see an apple. When you say you see an apple,
your visual cortex is firing up and then it's sending signals to
the prefrontal cortex. It's not just none of these
brain parts are just acting in isolation, right?
They're always talking to the other brain areas.
I would say prefrontal cortex is one of those things that have,
it's known in the literature that it sends out a lot of
inhibitory signals to the rest of the brain as well.
So that maybe comes into play into, you know, impulsion
control or, you know, just kind of cutting down on unnecessary
signals that might not need to be happening in the brain,
things like that. So these are all the things that
I am aware from my own research that it contributes to.
One of the findings that I made in my own research is that when
you disrupt the prefrontal cortex function, you for
example, like somebody is doing a task and they're making
decisions, right? They might still be able to make
a decision correctly, but their response times are much slower.
They might be slow in making a decision.
So prefrontal cortex also heavily is involved in the
processing. How sharp your brain is, like
how how quickly you can make decisions.
So when you think about decision making, these are all the things
that you, it's not just about accurately making decisions,
especially in like leadership positions or in sports, for
example, a lot of people, a lot of athletes, they're so good at
quickly making decisions. If they have a bad shot,
basketball shot, they're they're moving ahead or moving on and
trying to get the next best thing right.
So how do you quickly make decisions is also there is
prefrontal cortex has definitely a role in that?
So, so how about your muscle memory?
Is that linked to the free frontal cortex?
You mentioned sports, right? So I believe muscle memory helps
a lot, you know, in sports. I have been involved in sports
at an amateur level but not at a professional level.
And I understand from martial arts, for example, if you make
certain repetitive moves, if you train certain repetitive moves,
it comes to you very naturally. So making that decision are the
beaks of the moves you want to make.
Is that also links the prefrontal cortex or is it just
a reflex? It's a very good question.
Why you think about that? You know, you mentioned about
the apple and reaching for the apple.
This is the apple I have here, but I cannot eat this apple,
that's what. That's what we all reach our
rich for, right. These days, that's the apple we
reach for. Yeah.
So to your question, I think so
it might not be as whiter for those the way I imagine this is
this is not so not that might not be accurate here.
Don't take my word for it, right.
So I'm just throwing out some ideas.
It's like some of the ideas that I LED is it's about when you're
having a reflex, it's about really short cutting a lot of
circuits in your brain and going from sensation to motor movement
quickly. So what does that mean is I
would think 1 hypothesis we can make is like maybe if the
prefrontal cortex is not no more involved because it's learnt,
it's a response, right? So you're not, you know how I
don't even think about it when I'm doing it.
So people say things like that. You know, if you have to, if you
have to map that phrase exactly to the brain activity, I would
say prefrontal cortex would be less engaged when your muscle
memory is formed. Is it important for forming the
muscle memory? Yes, but once the muscle memory
has been made, once you're the expert, you might actually
engage less of prefrontal cortex.
Yeah, it just cause the second nature.
Yeah. So that's kind of the one part
of line of thought, right. I think he's headband too.
That's kind of what they're they're trying to show is like
they have some research showing that.
So they are mean the sensor is on the prefrontal cortex.
So what they really measure is the node how much of blood flow
is going to the prefrontal cortex when you're doing a
certain task. And they have some research
showing that with time as you're getting becoming an expert at
the task, your node is actually going down.
So your engagement of the prefrontal cortex is going down.
So if that makes sense so. Yeah, that does make a lot of
sense, but it makes me think about another thing, you know,
from our scientific perspective. So what you look at athletics,
you know, sports, it's something that's very close to my heart.
Now, do you think that genetics, you know, plays a role in terms
of the efficiency, the speed, you know, the acceleration of
this, you know, reflex action? So for example, some people,
especially like people from Eastern Africa have fast twitch
muscles based on their genetic viewed up right and as against
those supports from West Africa. So that's why they are more, you
know, built for longer distance races and we are built for, you
know, springs, right? So your genetic makeup actually
does contribute to the kind of athletic abilities, right, or
the sports you'd be properly conducive for to participate in.
So in terms of the reflex, do you think fast tweets muscles is
like the genetic cheats that code for you for the reflexes?
Yeah, that is. That's a very interesting
thought. I honestly don't really know
what like what research is out there to test that.
I'm not I'm not sure about that. But it, it is very interesting
that you say so. So the the, the muscle itself,
the nature of the muscle itself is sort of different based on
what your origin is, I guess genetic origin is.
So that's, that's very interesting.
But then does it mean, does it also mean that because this
muscle is fasted twitching, you have the you have the mechanism
in place that actually gives you an advantage, right?
So does that mean that can you learn more naturally?
Can you be a natural at the sport?
It's quite possible. But can you, can you beat
somebody who's a natural with brain, with training, muscle
training and body and brain training?
Yeah, that's also possible. I would say so.
I so, yeah. And that's that.
I'll leave it at that. Yeah.
Because you know when you think about it like when somebody
who's a natural doubt puts it that consistent hard work into
their training and you, that is not a natural.
It's like it's an all fair competition already.
Yes, yes. Yeah.
That's how you keep seeing these guys are the Olympics.
They keep winning, you know, the long distance races and like the
rest of the world, you just give it to them.
Let's focus on other things. I don't.
Even want to try Hands down. This is getting interesting.
Science is fun and you know, we need the persons like yourself
and myself, you know, to make it highly relatable to to the
public. And I think over time, people
become more interested in science and, you know, how to
study it. And that way we're able to have
solution providers in the world at large.
So talking about human transformation, like you've
actually worked on brain reporting and, you know,
neuromodulation platforms like how do these techniques help us
understand or even reshape cognitive function?
Yeah. So before I answer how or like
how I think they have reshape cognitive function, I just
wanted to show the distinction of what a brain recording
platform is and what a neuromodulation platform is.
OK, because you brought up two things, right?
So brain recording platform is something that just records from
the brain. It just records the neural
activity and it's up to you to do whatever.
You can do anything with that activity.
You can analyze the data, see how it relates to the real time,
real life behavior of the person.
On the other hand, well, with the brain activity, you can tell
the correlations between the brain response and the behavior.
So that's that's where it stops. But if you really want to show
causality of a brain area, for example, you asked me a bunch of
questions, right? Like the questions that before
this, does prefrontal cortex do this, you know?
So for a question like this, well, if you record from the
brain, most of the times you will get some signals from all
of the brain areas. But if you want to pin down on
the like how essential is a brain area for a particular
function, that's when neuromodulation is important.
So neuromodulation basically is you're modulating the neural
activity using a certain technology.
So there's a whole different way of gamut of ways of how you can
modulate neural activity. There is invasive ways, there is
non invasive ways. In the non invasive ways there
is magnetic stimulation, there is electrical stimulation and
there is more invasive you can have like D brain stimulation,
but again electric stimulation I have done cooling of the brain,
you can cool the brain area. So essentially what all of these
modulations do is they either increase the brain activity or
decrease the brain activity of a particular area.
So what happens? So how do these shape cognitive?
So once we have these technologies in place, we are
able to study the importance of a brain area.
And if I decrease the activity of brain area like prefrontal
contacts using any of these technologies, what happens to
the behavior? What is the essential function
that's getting, you know, that's for example, maybe you see the
person doing the task wrong, accuracy is going down, or I
mentioned that the reaction time is going up and I decrease the
brain activity. So all of these things are
something that we can study with these techniques and how do
these technologies shape the way we understand cognitive function
is we are able to accurately map breakdown the cognitive function
into the whole process of having what does it mean to have be
cognitively able, right like you have self.
It's a gamut of behavior. It's not just being smart.
It's it's about paying attention to the right thing, making the
right decisions, being able to have a good memory and all of
these are part of cognitive functions.
So we are able to in pointedly study which brain area maps to
which function or is more essential for which function.
And sometimes a lot of times the same brain area might map to
different functions. So, but all of this is only
possible when you have these technologies of being able to
study the correlation of the brain activity with the behavior
and also the causation. When you disrupt, intervene and
disrupt the brain activity, what happens?
It just is tough. You talk about technology.
The technology that is closest to my heart is AI, because I am
AI and people, I only see that my parents.
But first use something everybody did not know.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
You know, I talk about mental health, you know, cognitive
performance. You know, these are global
challenges. So how do you see AI, you know,
combining your tech to play a role in tackling these issues?
You know, like burnouts, memory decline, trauma.
Yeah, AI, you know, tech so I so AI has been around.
It depends on like all the ChatGPT, all the LLM stuff is is
generative AI, right? That's a whole different thing.
But AI, when you think about AI like machine learning and other
computational techniques that you use to crunch data, crunch
numbers and be able to get like insights from it.
So that's a different side of AI and that has been around and
that is something that I have used in my own research to be
able to understand this neural data.
Because when you think about this neural data, it's very
complex. Like when you go and record from
like, yeah, billions of neurons at once.
Well, we don't really have that fancy technology, but we're able
to record from like hundreds of neurons at once now as it stands
now, Right? So and you have when you try to
read like it's like a doctor reading EEG patterns, right?
Like you go and like you have so many channels and like as a
normal. So very moving lines.
Yes, so many moving lines and it's changing with state with
where you're in the brain and it's changing with time.
It's rapidly, it's a dynamic system.
It's not just sitting there, It's a lot of things are
happening in there. So how do you make sense of
something like this? You don't need methods like
machine learning, you know, like the simpler methods of machine
learning to the most complex ones.
So we it's already been in the field.
One of the things that I wanted to mention that is very side by
side to AI deep learning and all of that is computational.
The just modeling the brain, modeling the brain networks and
in fact deep learning, you know, the deep learning that neural
networks, the neural networks that we, you probably have heard
about that actually run behind all of these like that are basis
for LLMS as well. So they are all inspired by how
brain networks are organized. The hierarchical, like if you
learn, if you had taken anybody who is, who knows a little bit
about neural networks, there's like layers of net neuronal
layers that feed the feed inputs and get outputs and there's some
learning happening and all of that.
So all of this is inspired from neuroscience.
So that's one side of it. So that I just thought I'd just
like, I always thought that's a fun way.
There's a two way connection. It's not just AI helping
understand the neural neuroscience, but what we learn
about the brain architecture. The structure of the brain is
very, very, very amazing. That's a whole different.
We can have a separate session on the structure of the brain.
You read, you read, you read my mind.
You read my mind because I was thinking about to like, OK, OK,
It means we definitely need to have a Part 2.
We definitely need to have a Part 2.
You want to listen, hear about it.
I can make it more fun to hear about as well.
But but there is a hole. It's beautiful.
You put like a brain slice under the microscope.
You it's amazing to look at. Don't be spooked with.
It's really pretty. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
What was I saying? Yeah.
So a lot of these things are like it's a two way
communication. The more we learn about the
brain because these LLMS are basically mimicking a person,
right? They're mimicking somebody's
brain. At a very fast rate.
At a fast rate, at a very energy expensive rate, right?
Our brain is doing all of this. You just eat 1 hamburger and
you're good for a few hours and you can be like an LLM, but the
LLM needs a lot of lot of lot of lot of energy that goes into it,
right? So anyway, so I think there's A
to answer your question about mental health and AI.
So that's a whole different gamut, which I'm also kind of
personally interested in building some digital tools for
mental health. Wow.
Speaking of Speaking of digital tools for better health, the
best major sponsor of this podcast is Better Health, right,
Better Health. And they're number one in the
world when it comes to online therapy.
So I'd really like to peak your brain on, you know, the digital
mental health revolution, like giving your expertise in
neuroscience and human transformation.
So what do you see as the most important advantages of online
therapy platforms like better health, right, in making mental
health support more accessible, especially for underserved
communities, right? And of course, those who might
otherwise avoid the traditional therapy settings.
Yeah, I would say like I am one of those people who used online
therapy sessions and I was, I found a lot of value in that
just from a personal experience. Yeah, it is nice because it was,
it's always hard. It's it's so much easier.
It's so accessible and you can do it from your living room,
right. It's, it's also one of those
things like you just maybe sometimes you feel more safe
from speaking from your home. So that's, that's another
concept of it. But some people might not have
the privilege of it, right? Maybe home is not as safe as
they think it is and things like that.
And of course, like the fact that you can find a private
space and be able to talk to somebody at your own convenience
is, is pretty good. I'm hoping it also increases the
the frequency of the visits because it's all about
consistency. Mental health is a lot about
consistency, how consistently you do the therapy sessions or
how you do your homework well and things like that.
So that's kind of my take on it. I think it's, it's very helpful.
But there are there are in a low resource study, right?
Then there is the Internet is not reliable.
What do we do is still a question.
And I did like I speak, I spoke to somebody who is a mental
health care worker who's originally from Africa but now
lives in the United Kingdom. And she had many.
She had amazing ideas about how we can even bring this down to a
level of text or in a very low resource setting where SMS to
SMS or things like that. So those are all the things that
are people are trying to innovate in a lower resource
setting using community health workers and things like that.
But I think at the end of the day, it's also important to
speak to people in person and have real life connections.
Absolutely, yeah, it's interesting, you know, better
help. They're doing quite a great job
in getting it as brand new as possible.
The app is actually quite lightweight and doesn't consume
so much on the Internet. And of course you can chat with
your therapies. There are journaling sessions,
there are group sessions, right. So it's, it's quite interesting.
I, I really appreciate what what you're doing.
And I was really glad when they reached out to me.
I said I would like to partner with you.
Like for me, it was like a validation of what I preach.
So I'm this kind of content creator.
I don't like to represent a brand that I don't believe in,
right? So it's more about relationships
over revenue. The money will always cost, but
you have to stand for what you sincerely believe in.
And that is what makes your authenticity to remain strong as
as an individual. So talking about how
neuroscience meets the digital Wellness, you know, from a brain
science perspective, how can the convenience and of course, these
reduced barriers of online therapy actually enhance the
therapeutic outcomes? You know, it's not just about
the activity, right? I like to say activity doesn't
necessarily generate productivity, right?
What we are most concerned about is the outcomes, just like a
scientific research, what are the conclusions?
What are the recommendations, right?
So from that neuroscience perspective, how can that
convenience, you know, help to enhance the therapeutic
outcomes? And of course, are there like
any specific neurological benefits to having consistent,
accessible mental health support that people can access from the
comfort of your devices? Yeah, I the immediate thing I
can think about when I think about being consistent like
online therapy being making it easier to be consistent with
your therapy sessions, right. And what do you get out of that
consistency if at a brain level would be like neuroplasticity?
So you. Your brain is always like
changing based on the environmental factors and
therapy supposedly is, is, is to make changes at the neuronal
level, right. So that's behaviorally things
will change, but really a lot of would be wonderful to see the
change at several different levels behavior at the brain
level. So to really make to really be
able to penetrate with this intervention, right.
So I think that's the consistency can map to
neuroplasticity. But I that's, that's my
hypothesis. But is there like real life
evidence that I'm not aware of? But it would be interesting to
see. I I would I would strongly think
that this consistency is helping the brain to form the
connections that you want to form in a quicker fashion
probably. I think I strongly agree with
that sentiment because you know, when you compare it to physical
health, for example, we go to the gym, we work out that
routine, right? We build our body consistently.
How about building our minds as well consistently?
That's a, that's a great analogy, yeah.
Yeah, if you don't ever think about that, that parallel, you
know, wow. I'm going to see the other
questions I have for you for our Part 2, right?
So I've got to jump right into the quick fire route.
Are you ready to rumble? Yes.
Of course. So it is five questions, quick
answers, right? So one myth about the brain you
wish people would stop believing.
That brain doesn't develop after you're 21.
That's a myth, yeah. I don't.
I don't know what the exact myth is, but that it stops like in
your 20s is not 100% true. Oh really?
So the prefrontal cortex keeps developing over time way beyond
your. Trances.
Yeah, a prefrontal cortex keeps developing.
And also you, it's like, it's not like your neurons are not.
You know how there's another myth that you don't regenerate
neurons after a certain age? But that's also not true.
There is evidence that's coming up from research that you do.
Adults do generate neurons near neurons.
What does it slow down? What does the rate slow down?
It, it, it does, it does slow down, I would imagine.
But can the interventions like working out right and being
mindful, being really taking care of your mental health, can
it change this rate of development is different.
So that's a whole different interesting area.
Well. I guess we can delve into that
in part too. So coffee, meditation or the
brain game? What's your go to focus booster?
I would say coffee, but. Coffee here.
Yeah, actually the second one is focus.
Sorry, music, not focus. Music too.
Yeah, music. Music.
Music is a big thing for me. I love that.
Do do you ever use stuff like white noise or?
No, no, I have. I've used but I've never.
Tried one. Noise.
But yeah, I love your eye. It's just that stuff.
It's good. That's good.
If you could collaborate with any scientist or entrepreneur in
history, who would not be? That's a tough one.
Maybe the old neuroscientist Ramoni Kahal.
Yeah, he's like, he's from Spain and he's, he has done like
really beautiful drawings of the neurons, the architecture within
the brain slices, and he's done several other things in
neuroscience. So yeah, he's, he's quite, his
work is quite remarkable. So since this is a neuroscience
podcast, I have other people too, but I'm I'm gonna keep it
that way for now. Whoa, from Spain.
Interestingly, we we are on the Apple podcast chats in Spain.
I think we're in like the top 50 in Spain.
Interesting shout out to our people from Spain.
This is yeah, Como estas. Yeah, como estas the amigos.
So a book of film or resource that changed how you think about
the brain. Yeah, like I mentioned Phantoms
in the Brain is a great book and thinking fast and slow from a
psychology standpoint. 2 books. And of course, the very last one
is in one word. What does a growth mindset mean
to you? Neuroplasticity.
It's just this stuff, you know, the, the Key Devs podcast,
right, is about growth, mindsets, leadership, AI and
business insights. So we are talking about the
mindset. The mindset is the first thing.
And you know, I, I tell people this, if you're hiring a person
on your team, you need to go in this order.
You need to evaluate their mindset, their skill set, and
then the tool set. So if the mindset is right, you
can always teach the skill sets easily, right?
And of course, if the skill set is right easily, you can teach
them how to use the tool sets. So the most difficult thing to
teach, in my opinion, is the mindset about what?
What are your thoughts? Yes, I, I completely agree.
And this is something that I'm still learning as I grow evolved
in my professional and like personal life, right.
So I think to me, I, I just wanted to be snappy and like
kind of fun to say neuroplasticity.
But if I have to know, if I have to move away from, from
neuroscience and say what growth mindset is, it's it's being open
minded and being open minded to change.
I think there won't be a growth if you're not open minded.
Absolutely. So that's that's my take on
that. Absolutely, I very much
appreciate you. So from me to you, it is a very
big thank you. I always say this that an
attitude of gratitude is good attitude and when a person
shares their time with you to share their life with you
because the SI unit for measure and life is time.
So love and respect to you for being on the Kingdom's podcast.
And of course, I think I should share this and I obviously as
well to the audience. Guys, always go for something in
your lives, right? Conceive, believe, strive to
thrive and achieve. For me, it's another goodbye.
It's see you again because we're coming back with episode 2 of
this series and of course, Dr. and Journey.
Do you want to leave a shout out to anybody?
That, of course. What would your last words be
before you say goodbye to the audience?
Yeah, sure. I I just wanted to thank my
parents for, for trusting in me to do to be a scientist and for
be always being there for me. And I also want to thank Nick
White, the CEO of Stinky Inc, who has encouraged me to be on
this podcast. Yeah, I did.
I did interact with Dick White. Shout out to you, brother.
Yeah, we hope to to collaborate more into the future.
Yeah. But yeah, just to audience,
thank you for listening and feel free to reach out to me with any
questions that I might be able to answer.
OK, we have the best social media platform to reach out to
your LinkedIn, Instagram. Yeah.
LinkedIn would be good. OK, so we'll have your LinkedIn
in the description section for the forecast.
So once again, thank you and press love, respect and press
goodbye.