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Short Stuff: Botox Brain · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and jar Jar Binks is here too, and
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: that makes this short stuff. She's sitting in for dave C.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Everybody say hi to dave C. He'll be glad to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: hear that later on.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, and this is not about Pinky in the brain.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: It's about Botox in the brain.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Because when I saw Botox in the brain, I was like,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: that sounds like a TV show, but I was like, no,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking Pinky in the brain.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now, Botox in the Brain is a cop show, not
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a cartoon.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Big thanks to Helio and Live Science very well, health
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: study findes, Neuroscience News and other sources. Take it away, Josh.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about botox, right. Botox, I believe is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: a brand name, but it's like Kleenex. It's become a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: proprietary eponym, is it really, Yes for sure. Yeah. There's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: all sorts of different brands of botox, like Disport and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of others, but what they all are is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: theinum toxin or BTX, and that is produced by Clostridium
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: boculinum and botulism. Anybody who's ever seen dead calm knows
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: what botulism is and how horrible it's supposed to be.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: But it's a bacteria that grows in the absence of air,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: typically on food. I think beef is like a real
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: big grower of botulism, which is why if you ever
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: have like a dented can of beef stew, just throw
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  Speaker 1: it away because it could kill you. Because bochulin or yeah,
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  Speaker 1: boculinum toxin is the most potent neurotoxin known to humans.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason it's so potent, chuck is it goes
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  Speaker 1: in there into your nerve cells and it binds to them,
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  Speaker 1: and in particular, it binds to nerve cells where your
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: blood and your muscles meat, which is usually fairly close
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  Speaker 1: to the skin, and it blocks the setylcholine from coming
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  Speaker 1: and getting into those the ends of those nerve cells,
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  Speaker 1: which means that those nerve cells just don't function, which
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  Speaker 1: means that your muscle are paralyzed, which is bad enough
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: when it starts in your mouth, but then it goes
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to your throat and eventually your lungs, and then you
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: die a really terrible death from botulism. So it's of
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  Speaker 1: course totally unsurprising that somebody figured out that you could
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  Speaker 1: use this incredibly potent neurotoxin to get rid of wrinkles.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, using botulism met I'm sorry, Well, I guess it
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: is bochlism. Using botox medically came around the seventies with
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  Speaker 2: doctor Alan B. Scott, who went to the FDA and said, Hey,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I think I can treat strabismus, which is I guess wandering.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I could be a lazy way of saying that or
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: lazy eye. Sure, and said I think I can treat
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: strabismus with this. FDA said, have at it. He would
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: inject it locally in the face. One thing that did
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: was prove that it was safe to do relatively speaking,
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: and it could treat muscle disorders. And then starting in
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the two thousands is when it really came on the
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: scene with setians doing what we all think of as
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: you know Botox's main function now, which is you get
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  Speaker 2: these injections locally and very specific places in your face usually,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: and it takes three or four days, and then all
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, for about three months, you will be
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  Speaker 2: walking around with a forehead smooth as a shiny apple
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  Speaker 2: and an expression that says nothing.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Right, you can really get a good poker face from
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: around a bowtox. Yeah, so, yeah, it just relaxes those
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: muscles that cause the wrinkles, say around your eyes, around
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  Speaker 1: your mouth, and your forehead in between your brow in particular,
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  Speaker 1: those are called your elevens, and by paralyzing those muscles,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it relaxes them and hence the wrinkles aren't there anymore.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: And like you said, it lasts for about three to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: four months. And because you can't, you have just like
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  Speaker 1: a blank face in a lot of ways, depending on
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  Speaker 1: where you get the botox injection. You can't really smile,
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  Speaker 1: like you physically are incapable of smiling because the muscles
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  Speaker 1: involved are paralyzed. More often, you can't really frown or
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  Speaker 1: furrow your brow because those muscles are paralyzed. And so right,
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  Speaker 1: like right off the bat, people started reporting that if
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  Speaker 1: you saw somebody with boatox, they couldn't express emotion using
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: their faces anymore for that three to four month period.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And to be clear, like you know, you can
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  Speaker 2: make the shape of a smile with your mouth and
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  Speaker 2: the shape of a smile or a frown with your mouth,
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  Speaker 2: but what people you know, I think people realize this
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: is about say what people don't realize, but when you
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: think about it, is what I meant to say. You
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  Speaker 2: express emotion with your faces. You smile and frown with
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  Speaker 2: your face, not just your mouth. Sure, your mouth may
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  Speaker 2: go up, your mouth may I guess, go down or
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  Speaker 2: express upsettedness, But it's really you know, people smile with
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  Speaker 2: their eyes and their faces and you know, like you said,
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  Speaker 2: your brow gets furrowed. It's a whole face experience, which
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: is a great album title. Yeah, and botox. That's what
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  Speaker 2: it cuts off. And that's what can be kind of
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  Speaker 2: creepy looking, is when someone is smiling with their mouth
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  Speaker 2: but the rest of their face is dead and it's
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  Speaker 2: a little strange.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, played a great effect in Insidious, Right, I love
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  Speaker 1: that stuff.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Should we take a break because this is where things
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  Speaker 2: get super interesting?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yes? I agree, Yes, all right, we'll be right back, so, Chuck.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: It makes sense that you can't really read someone's emotions
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  Speaker 1: through their face after they've gotten a pretty good round
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  Speaker 1: of botox. But there was something stranger that stood to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: come in as reports from people who got botox injections
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  Speaker 1: or other kinds of bachulin injections that they weren't experiencing
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  Speaker 1: emotions like they used to, and in particular, this showed
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: up most pronouncedly in people who suffered from depression. They
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: started to notice that after they got botox injections in
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  Speaker 1: certain parts of their face, especially around their forehead and
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  Speaker 1: their brows, called the glabular region, their depression symptoms, if
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  Speaker 1: they didn't, if they weren't alleviated totally, they were certainly
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: less pronounced than they have been before. And this was
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: a little odd.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely a little bit odd. But so again, we're
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: not talking about showing emotion, we're talking about actually feeling
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: the emotion. Right, But there's this thing and it all
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  Speaker 2: kind of makes sense when you look at the big
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  Speaker 2: picture called the facial feedback hypothesis. Yes, and a very
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: sh dumb down way of saying it is that the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: idea of like, hey, if you're feeling depressed, maybe just
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: try smiling more because that can actually work, and they've
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: done research on stuff like this. One way it can,
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  Speaker 2: you know, manifests itself is we have this tendency to
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  Speaker 2: mimic expressions of other people near us. And it's and
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  Speaker 2: it probably comes from just evolution of like wanting to
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: fit in in a group and like, maybe so you
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  Speaker 2: won't be killed like everyone else here is smiling it
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  Speaker 2: that guy's and laughing at his joke, so I'm gonna
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: do the same thing, so I just fit in better.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: And it's that facial feedback hypothesis at work, where it's
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: sort of this feedback loop of smiling from someone else
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  Speaker 2: will usually lend to a smile even if you're not
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  Speaker 2: feeling it especially happy. I'm not saying like everyone's in
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: a good mood so they're smiling, but literally just smiling
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: because someone else in is smiling, and then that will
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: in turn and generally make your emotions pick up as well.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the opposite can be true too. If you're
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: scowling or you see someone else scowling, you mimic their
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: scowl unconsciously, it will have a depressed state on your mood, right.
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  Speaker 1: And that's really interesting because people always thought that facial
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: expressions reflected what you felt inside, not vice versa. But
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: there's it definitely goes both ways, and that's the facial
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  Speaker 1: feedback hypothesis. So when people started saying, like, my depression
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: symptoms are kind of alleviated when I get botox, they
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: chalked it up to facial feedback, and in particular, what
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  Speaker 1: they suspected is that with your brow area, the glabular region,
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  Speaker 1: so it's like the area right above the bridge of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: your nose up to you know, and kind of spreading
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  Speaker 1: out like a Jonathan Adler fan above your eyebrows for
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  Speaker 1: a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's the you cut me off in traffic
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  Speaker 2: zone of my face exactly.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Well, put chuck, that's the new name of it. I
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  Speaker 1: would say, if you get injections in that area, it
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: actually has an effect on your amygdala. A migdala is
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  Speaker 1: the seed of your fight or flight just famous friend
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the podcast Fight or Flight, yeah response early days. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's the seed of negative emotions like anger, fear, anxiety,
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  Speaker 1: and if you have depression, your amygdala is overactive and
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  Speaker 1: it causes you to develop a bias toward interpreting the
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  Speaker 1: world negatively and yourself negatively. And what they posited was
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  Speaker 1: that botox short circuited that feedback loop by paralyzing the
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  Speaker 1: muscles that trigger your amygdala to experience negative emotions or
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: produce negative emotions.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and not necessarily that it can completely take away
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: those emotions, but it tamps it down and makes things
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  Speaker 2: less intense. And so they you know, they basically stumbled
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: upon this saying where they can actually treat depression through
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  Speaker 2: botox and checktions.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, which is it's huge because it's not directly it's
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: not like they're injecting the needle into your amygdala and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: inserting the botox. The botox is just acting on your muscles,
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  Speaker 1: but it's indirectly acting on your amygdala, which makes it
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  Speaker 1: a much safer treatment than save pharma that acts directly
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: on your amygdala chemically.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they've co this isn't just from talking to
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  Speaker 2: people and getting that kind of feedback. This has been
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: confirmed in the Wonder machine and the fMRI. They've confirmed
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: these findings. They basically the scan showed different kinds of
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: altered activity in the amygdala if you were a depressed
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  Speaker 2: patient who got those injections. And you know, they basically
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: are saying this is like a real thing now.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, So yes, they've they've shown that it alters the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: activity in the amygdala, and not just patients with depression,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: but people who have borderline personality disorder as well.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really interesting.
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  Speaker 1: I think they're amygdala is on hyperdrive and The thing
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that makes it different from Russian is that it's also
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: coupled with lower impulsivity threshold, so they're much more likely
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: to lash out at people around them with those negative emotions,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: which is what we talked about in our Emotional pain episode.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Why it's just such a terrible disorder to have. But
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: it's their amygdala being hyperactive as well. And so they've
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: found that botox injections in the right place can actually
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: reduce or eliminate BPD as well, at least for the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: three to four months until your muscles come back online
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: and are able to trigger those emotions again.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you're an adherent of acupuncture and you think, hey,
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: this sounds kind of familiar, it's sort of along the
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: same lines. They did comparison group treatments with acupuncture patients.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: In acupuncture, it did show improve clinical symptoms, but it
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: did not hold up under the Wonder machine examination.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: No, Like, it still had its effect, but it didn't
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: have a neurological EFFECTX has neurological effect. It's actually acting
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: on the amygdila. It's huge. It was a huge, huge
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: breakthrough when they figured this out, and then now that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: they've proved it It can also be used to treat
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: anxiety if you injected in your head and neck muscles.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: And you can use botox to treat migrains. Yeah, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: insurance has started to cover it for migrains, but they're
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: hoping that they'll start to cover it for things like
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: depression or borderline personality disorder or anxiety as well.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Cover it insurance if it helps people, cover it for sure.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: And my hat is off to my dear sweet wife.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You me who tipped me off to this one.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Oh nice, thanks yummy.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks Jumy, since we both thanked Youmy chuck. Wouldn't
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you say that short stuff is out? I would.
• 12:49
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• 12:52
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• 12:56
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