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.
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.
Before we dive back into today's conversation, I want to share
something important. This episode includes a pay
partnership with Better Help, a platform designed to make
starting therapy easier. I know from my own journey as a
leader and entrepreneur that life can sometimes feel
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Therapy isn't only for people facing clinical challenges.
It's the space to reflect, grow, and find better ways to my
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It takes the courage to seek help, but it's also one of the
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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.
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.
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.
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
spans autism spectrum disorder, empathy, and the neurobiology of
social behavior, 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.
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 customized that and I
appreciate that. It means a lot, really.
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%.
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.
You know your journey and your vision.
What really you know initially treats you to neuroscience.
And how did empathy and social behavior 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
behavior. And, and you know, I, that's not
how I thought about it when I was like 7 years old.
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.
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 behavior.
It's about what's driving the behavior, right?
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.
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?
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. 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 behavior, 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. 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 behavior
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. 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. 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 favorite Bible verse is?
Philippians chapter 4, verse 13. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 traumatized me where that was the first time
I felt like my well-being, my, the sustainability of my career
was threatened. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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 Gray
and cloudy. And you don't get a lot of sun.
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? 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. 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. 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. And you're like, I've never been
in anyone like around these caliber 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. 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 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. 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. 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, 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? 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. And you know, I was noticing
because you're talking about this theme of.
Basically, I was realizing 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.
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.
I wasn't thinking about, Oh, I want to study social behavior
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 behavior without
even thinking about it. It was just like my gut and my
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
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.
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.
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.
Think about. It I'm honor 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.
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.
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.
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 realized, 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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 realize,
or I guess wise enough to realize that that's never gonna
happen. 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. 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? 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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 organization where I can never
rise to the top. 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.
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.
Your PhD identified neural systems are regulating social
behavior 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?
Yeah. So when it comes to autism
spectrum disorder, which is characterized 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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 behavior. 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,
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.
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.
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.
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
change social behavior 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.
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 socialize less.
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 behaviors.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah. I think part of that is because
we interact online a lot. I think part of that is because
we're super politically polarized.
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. That's significant.
And I think, you know, in a world that's very politically
polarized 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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. You know, psychology is the
study of the human mind and sociology is the study of human
social behavior, social interactions.
And it gave me that privilege to be able to, you know, stand back
and be objective, you know, to observe and analyze, 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? 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 I am privileged to have, it has made
me to be able to operate at a high level in in society.
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
walks 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 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 behaviors?
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.
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 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, 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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
favoring 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
within. And so it, 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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 realize that I
had made that conscious effort over time.
Oh, I, I think I left something out.
I was also involved in teaching. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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. 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. But there's also another point
that I wanted to comment on earlier.
You talking 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. 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. 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. 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. Because I I may not want my ice
dispenser to be making cloudy water cloudy ice because I want
a pain in the ass and 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.
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.
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.
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?
What is fact, What is information, what is reliable?
What's fake news, right? We, 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.
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 course I spent
about 8 years of my life in accountancy practice and what
was I doing? 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 follow the data.
And you know, when the data, you know, in order we say something.
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 obvious. From where?
Leasing. Notes and leasing notes is the
Google of podcasts, right? Listen notes is the world's
number one podcast and database with a public verification and
leasing notes says I am global to top 2.5% right?
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. 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. I'm like OK it.
Yeah, 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. You're the neuroscientist.
Why? Why is this happening?
What? What's responsible for this?
For, For. Do you mean for the lack of
trust in data? No, no.
So The thing is this right? I'm 33 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 digging to, you know that rabbit hole of boogs and.
Over time came. Google, you search and search
and search different, you know, databases, check for the ones
that are reliable. 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? 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. 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, 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 often times 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. I despise that person.
Or you know, or what? Whatever it is, social media.
Creators. Have every reason to say
anything whatever like or 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.
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.
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.
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. And you know, neither do I, I
didn't want that when I was studying, you know, I want it 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. 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. 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 realize that
they're wrong. And some of those people are
intentionally misleading you because it benefits them
financially. And that's the that's the scary
part so far. This is 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. 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 behavior towards consuming information.
And you talked about it prefront the the, the Cortex, right?
I do have a friend, Maya, 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 behavior as a
neuroscientist for a decade now 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? 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. 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. 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? 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. 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,
yeah, I am going to go into the prefrontal cortex.
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.
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. 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, exactly. Yeah, I could find that answer.
Maybe 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, 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.
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.
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, 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 for 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
necessarily seen in the the frontal cortex, like much more
higher level cognition and being able to understand people and do
things that make us human really.
But but The thing is the the prefrontal.
Cortex is also like every. Brain area, it's like very
distributed. There's all these different
nuclei and brain and sections, you know, within the prefrontal
cortex there's the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and all these
different subsets of areas that are all involved in different
things. And you know, the brain is just
immensely complicated. But without a prefrontal cortex,
you know, we would not be as high functioning animals.
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.
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 CE OS of the brain and actually the
nucleus accumbens that I mentioned earlier in the context
of MDMA is also one of those. But I would say, yeah, I guess
the way I kind of think about the prefrontal cortex is it's
like the babysitter of the brain.
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. 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, in many, many, it is
the CEO. But I like to think of the, the
CEO of the brain sort of as the nucleus accumbens.
Cause the nucleus accumbens is really in charge of like
decision making or not in charge of it, but it has a major role
in like deciding what things we pursue and what actions we do
based on how much they benefit us.
And you know, I think that's kind of like the role of the CEO
really. So is it the CEO?
Or the COO. I feel like 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. 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. 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. 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 will better help, which is the
world's leading online therapy brand.
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. You know, it's like people are
really eager to share that they go to the gym, right?
Because 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. 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 tons of research showing that it's
effective and helpful. 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 therapist, but you don't really enjoy any
of the therapist nearby. 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 to 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? Better help 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.
It's coming out very soon, right?
And of course, again, I want 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
Signako. He gave me this book.
And of course, he was on the podcast earlier this year and
he'd sign the book. So I would appreciate your your
autograph, you know, your celebrities.
Of 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 is 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
behavior, social connection. And you know, I think the reason
I wrote the book is because they're all these stats out
there that were 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 was 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 understand and walk
away and say, OK, I actually need to consider socializing 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. 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. 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 how is 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. 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. There's a flag of Nigeria.
I'll just have my flag handy. The Yoruba people say carrying
cap or yeni Yeni. It means when we walk in groups,
right? It brings honor 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. 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. 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. 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, as
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. 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. Or 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.
Those are my top two favorite neuroscience books.
Interests and stuff I think. We should have that in the.
Description section Yeah. OK, so what's your go to
practice 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.
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.
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.
Of course, 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. 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. 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.