Latest / King Dems Podcast | Growth Mindset, Leadership, AI and Business Insights / Neuroscience, Growth Mindset & AI Strategies w/ Dr. Anjani Chakrala

Transcript

Neuroscience, Growth Mindset & AI Strategies w/ Dr. Anjani Chakrala · King Dems Podcast | Growth Mindset, Leadership, AI and Business Insights

• 0:00
  Why should people listen to the episode?
• 0:03
  Yeah, I mean, if you are curious about a girl who just kind of
• 0:09
  left everything behind and moved across the country to study
• 0:13
  veins and later realise that she wants to bring it back to the
• 0:18
  society and maybe take it back home as well.
• 0:22
  That's, that's how, that's why you should listen to this and to
• 0:26
  all the women and people of colour too.
• 0:29
  I think this is I hope I I you are a presentational story here.
• 0:37
  That's interesting. You're actually a very, very
• 0:39
  big, I say figure inspiration, a beacon of hope, right?
• 0:46
  And yeah, I really think your story and your body of work is
• 0:51
  inspiring. That is from me to you, and that
• 0:54
  is actually as authentic as you can get.
• 0:57
  What you do is actually inspiring.
• 0:58
  And of course, I appreciate you very, very, very much before.
• 1:02
  We dive back into today's conversation.
• 1:03
  I want to share something important.
• 1:04
  This episode includes a pay partnership with Better Help, a
• 1:06
  platform designed to make starting therapy easier.
• 1:08
  I know from my own journey as a leader and entrepreneur, the
• 1:10
  life and sometimes feel overwhelming.
• 1:11
  There are seasons severe stress, uncertainty and pressure build
• 1:13
  up and you need a safe space to process it all that severe
• 1:16
  therapy comes in. Therapy isn't only for people
• 1:17
  facing clinical challenges. It's the space to reflect, grow
• 1:20
  and find better ways to manage stress relationships and has no
• 1:23
  goals. It takes courage to seek help,
• 1:25
  but it's also one of the smartest investments you can
• 1:27
  make in your mental and emotional well-being.
• 1:28
  That's why I'm proud to highlight Better Help.
• 1:30
  With Better help, you simply feel out of short question there
• 1:32
  and get match to the credential therapist in just a couple of
• 1:34
  days. If the first match doesn't feel
• 1:35
  like the right field, you can easily switch therapist at no
• 1:37
  actual cost until you find someone who connects with you.
• 1:39
  Inside the platform, you'll also find tools like Donnelly and
• 1:41
  group sessions on different topics that can support your
• 1:43
  growth. And with over 7000 reviews and
• 1:44
  4.5 trusted reason, Better Help is a platform that you can rely
• 1:47
  on. So if you feel like you'll
• 1:48
  benefit from talking to a therapist, visit
• 1:50
  datahelp.com/contains. That's dot com forward slash
• 1:53
  King James to get 10% off your fest mother 30.
• 1:56
  Once again, this is a key partnership with their help, and
• 1:58
  I encourage you to take that first step.
• 1:59
  If you've been thinking about it, Sometimes the best
• 2:00
  investment you can make easy yourself.
• 2:07
  Welcome to the King Dems Podcast, where we share the
• 2:10
  stories of extraordinary people and dissect hot, relevant topics
• 2:14
  that shape our world. From visionary leaders to
• 2:17
  trailblazing creatives, we uncover the mindset, strategy,
• 2:20
  and grit behind greatness. Whether it's business, culture,
• 2:23
  or personal growth, we ask the real questions.
• 2:26
  This isn't just conversation, it's transformation.
• 2:29
  The Kingdom's podcast, Your Next Breakthrough, starts here.
• 2:33
  Music licencing reimagined. Your life, ladies and gentlemen,
• 2:41
  will once again walk out to The Kingdom's podcast and today I
• 2:46
  have got with me Beauty and Brains and Mick Walker fighting
• 2:51
  out of Chicago, IL by Warrior Johnny the Super Euroscience
• 2:58
  journey to Crawler. How are you today, Doctor and
• 3:03
  Jenny? Wow, Yeah, thanks for that.
• 3:06
  That that sentence, right. That that definitely put a smile
• 3:09
  on my face. I am pretty good.
• 3:11
  How are you? All good, all good.
• 3:15
  We, we've been having, you know, a super wholesome conversation.
• 3:18
  And guys, you're gonna be jealous because this is just
• 3:21
  Part 2 of the podcast. We did not record Part 1 of the
• 3:24
  podcast. Exactly.
• 3:26
  Right, so hope you're not repeating ourselves here.
• 3:29
  I was telling you, and of course, you know, by the way, Dr
• 3:32
  Jenny, she is just like myself. She's not photogenic.
• 3:36
  She looks better in person that the pictures you'd ever see of
• 3:40
  par on social media. So just so you know, it's on the
• 3:44
  promise, but over the lever. Yeah.
• 3:47
  I like. That, you know, yeah.
• 3:49
  Like I like to do, you know, all the podcasts I love to give
• 3:52
  people their flowers. Your body of work is actually
• 3:55
  highly, highly impressive. I think impressive is an
• 3:58
  understatement. But in the absence of a word
• 4:02
  that is more impressive than impressive, let me just see that
• 4:05
  your body of work is impressive. I hope you accept that, so see
• 4:09
  back while I read your carefully curated introduction.
• 4:15
  So today on The Kingdom's podcast, we're joined by a super
• 4:19
  brilliant mind at the intersection of neuroscience, AI
• 4:23
  and human transformation. Doctor Anthony Chakrala with a
• 4:27
  pH D in Neuroscience, years of postdoctoral research on brain
• 4:32
  function, and her current work translating brain science into
• 4:36
  real world clinical tools. Her journey is on a mission to
• 4:41
  make neuroscience practical for everyday lives.
• 4:44
  From decoding neural networks to driving neurotech innovation,
• 4:49
  her work inspires hope that science can truly change the way
• 4:53
  we learn and heal. I'm honoured to Welcome to the
• 4:57
  Kingdom's broadcast Doctor Anjani Takala.
• 5:02
  Let's dive in. Wow, once again.
• 5:05
  Thank you. Thanks for that.
• 5:06
  I'm honoured as well. I think it's not oftentimes that
• 5:10
  scientists get to go on podcasts and talk about their science and
• 5:13
  their journey. And so this is very special for
• 5:16
  me. So this is actually my first
• 5:17
  podcast so. Wow, fantastic.
• 5:27
  So I'm really happy. I'm really happy to be the first
• 5:31
  you feels cool to be the first I want to be.
• 5:33
  I want to be #1 in a country someday.
• 5:35
  I said, well, we're speaking. I'm number 3IN Cyprus on the
• 5:40
  Apple broadcast ranking. Are you able to make me number
• 5:43
  one? Yeah, yeah.
• 5:46
  Let's try. Let's let us try we're.
• 5:49
  On to the mission. OK, OK, so yeah, let's start
• 5:53
  from the origin and of course your your motivation.
• 5:56
  So what first inspired you to pursue neuroscience and dedicate
• 6:00
  your career to understand how the brain really works?
• 6:05
  Yeah. So I would say it's mostly like
• 6:08
  curiosity. How did I get curious is through
• 6:13
  reading a Popular Science book. So it's funny.
• 6:17
  It was actually an assignment for one of the classes that I
• 6:20
  took in my undergrad in India at Indian Institute of Technology
• 6:24
  Madras. So the book is called Phantoms
• 6:26
  in the Brain by VS Ramachandran. So basically it has this bunch
• 6:32
  of like weird neurological cases like phantom limbs, like where
• 6:37
  the amputees have like sensations in their missing
• 6:40
  limbs and they're, they're like cases of these patients who they
• 6:45
  who thought their parents were imposters and then their other
• 6:49
  like out of body experiences. So basically what all of these
• 6:53
  cases kind of came together to show that what an astonishing
• 6:59
  role that the brain has in your sense of reality and in your
• 7:05
  sense of self. So that was like, that was very
• 7:09
  cool for me. I was just like this, you know,
• 7:11
  sophomore or like second year undergrad, like reading this
• 7:15
  book and it was just, it was mind boggling for me.
• 7:18
  And I was like, OK, let's. So it was one of those things I
• 7:21
  just everybody around me was, I think it was like the peak of
• 7:24
  the research, the undergrads going into research, wherever I
• 7:28
  was from. So I, I kind of got on that wave
• 7:32
  of research going into research after undergrad.
• 7:37
  So and then I just moved from India to the US to do my PhD at
• 7:43
  University of Wisconsin Madison. I was I was studying brain and
• 7:49
  behaviour. How does like brain contribute
• 7:52
  to what we do day-to-day? The specific question I was
• 7:56
  looking at was how does our brain help us see things and
• 8:00
  make sense of what we see? A lot of us think that seeing
• 8:04
  happens in the eye, but there is a lot of processing that happens
• 8:09
  in your brain that actually lets you see colours or recognise
• 8:15
  somebody's face and, you know, be able to absorb that
• 8:19
  information and act on it. So all of these processes are,
• 8:23
  we all know this, we all experience this day-to-day,
• 8:26
  right? But what we don't know is how
• 8:29
  does the brain do with it? So what are the mechanistic
• 8:33
  insights we can pull from looking inside the brain about
• 8:37
  some of these outside processes? How are they mapped into the
• 8:40
  brain? So those are the questions I was
• 8:42
  talking about. I was looking at when I was
• 8:45
  doing my pH D research. So that's kind of what inspired
• 8:51
  me really the reading and also kind of, you know, knowing about
• 8:54
  the research towards the end of my undergrad and like really
• 8:59
  kind of seeing some of the researchers do research in my
• 9:03
  own institution at Indian Institute of Technology.
• 9:05
  So it was kind of inspiring for me to take the next step and go
• 9:09
  to grad school. So what was that aha moment?
• 9:14
  The epiphany? You know what?
• 9:17
  You now realise that it is your calling to bridge science,
• 9:23
  right, with real world solutions instead of just staying purely
• 9:28
  in research. Because I I know you have a
• 9:30
  background in engineering and I always tell engineers on this
• 9:33
  podcast that engineers are solution oriented individuals.
• 9:38
  They bring real world solutions to real world problems.
• 9:44
  So would you say that engineering background also
• 9:47
  inspired you to be on this pathway?
• 9:51
  Absolutely. I think absolutely that is part
• 9:54
  of it. So I was like I was very
• 9:57
  entrepreneurially minded even in my undergrad.
• 10:00
  I just, I used to participate in like startup pitch competitions.
• 10:04
  I was doing my engineering training is in biotechnology,
• 10:09
  right? So it's a broader field.
• 10:11
  It includes neuroscience as well, but I was doing other
• 10:14
  aspects of biotechnology during my undergrad.
• 10:17
  So I would say when I moved to grad school, I'd really like for
• 10:21
  the first three years, right? It was intensely reading the
• 10:25
  literature and trying to pilot experiments as to kind of come
• 10:30
  up with hypothesis testing day to my day-to-day would look like
• 10:34
  I would, I would wake up, I would read scientific papers and
• 10:39
  I would I would have discussions with my team and then I would be
• 10:43
  trained on doing experiments. So most of the time was spent in
• 10:47
  the lab doing that. So what I was starting to miss
• 10:51
  really was the human interaction with outsiders.
• 10:56
  So then I found this opportunity of doing like community outreach
• 11:01
  about neuroscience. So we used to have science
• 11:05
  nights at these high schools in Madison.
• 11:08
  So and then we were from our university side, there's a team
• 11:13
  including me who would go there and have set up a booth and just
• 11:17
  to talk to public about neuroscience, talk to public
• 11:20
  about what we do in the lab, You know, just because these are.
• 11:23
  Yeah. So these are some of the things
• 11:25
  that are really important to create platforms for that
• 11:29
  dialogue to happen because you scientists are not just somebody
• 11:34
  who are like sitting in an ivory tower just doing their own
• 11:37
  isolated, siloed work, right. So I think that was that was
• 11:41
  when I had the aha moment. I would say that I actually like
• 11:46
  talking to people and bringing the science about science,
• 11:51
  right? I mean, I like people.
• 11:53
  I like talking to people about other things too.
• 11:55
  But talking to people about my life where like not many people
• 11:59
  are familiar about what is research, what do researchers do
• 12:03
  and things like that. So it was also like we got to do
• 12:07
  like some fun, you know, games that kind of for kids, right.
• 12:12
  So where we had like the drunk goggles, where you, if you put
• 12:16
  on the goggles, you, your vision is distorted and we would have a
• 12:21
  game for them to like eye to hand to eye coordination.
• 12:26
  What happens when you put on that those distorting goggles,
• 12:29
  right. So I'm kind of kind of making
• 12:31
  public think about the inner workings of if your senses were
• 12:35
  to be distorted, what really happens to your behaviour?
• 12:39
  So the sensing is so closely related to behaviour that we
• 12:44
  take it for granted a lot of us, right?
• 12:46
  So that was when I was like, OK, this is this is good.
• 12:49
  And then that after I graduated, I took on post and things like
• 12:54
  that. And then I got to work for
• 12:56
  another startup where I, I could develop like some kind of
• 13:01
  evaluating a scientific fit for a technology that can regenerate
• 13:06
  neurons in the eye to restore vision with the clinical need.
• 13:11
  What is the need in the clinic for a technology like that?
• 13:15
  So we have the and what can this technology do, but what is
• 13:19
  really needed by the people in the clinic?
• 13:21
  So those are two different things.
• 13:23
  A lot of times when you do cool things, develop cool technology,
• 13:28
  it's kind of developed just for the sake of the pureness of the
• 13:31
  technology, right? So you're trying to achieve
• 13:34
  something, but when you try to take it to the real world, it's
• 13:37
  a part that you have to go down where you do a lot of you try to
• 13:42
  fit this technology with what's actually needed in the clinic.
• 13:45
  What is the reality? There has to be a use case.
• 13:49
  Use. Case and really finding the use
• 13:51
  cases was what I was doing at that startup that I really
• 13:56
  enjoyed doing. So I was like, OK, this is this
• 13:59
  is cool. So this maybe this is what I
• 14:01
  want to do. So that's kind of where I'm at
• 14:04
  right now. So you have actually described
• 14:07
  yourself as driving where science meets strategy, right?
• 14:12
  So can you share like how you've been able to balance that deep
• 14:16
  research with the practical translation in biotech and of
• 14:22
  course, neurotech? Yeah, Yeah, I would say like,
• 14:25
  like I just mentioned my journey in like this tagline, right.
• 14:30
  Science meets strategy is relatively new, but so how do I
• 14:35
  balance deep research with practical translation, right.
• 14:40
  So I think it takes a team. So one person cannot do all of
• 14:44
  it. So when you are, it's a mindset
• 14:48
  shift when you're doing. Teamwork makes the dream work.
• 14:51
  Teamwork makes the dream work. Yes, exactly.
• 14:55
  So it is definitely a teamwork. So we need a lot of
• 15:00
  interdisciplinary collaborations and dialogues that need to
• 15:03
  happen for somebody. Because like, even for one
• 15:07
  person, when I'm on days that I'm really doing like deep
• 15:11
  research, right, like in the lab, testing out things, doing
• 15:15
  research, clear research, I really don't have the mental
• 15:20
  capabilities to be able to think about anything outside that
• 15:24
  because that's, that's the first step in the pipeline.
• 15:27
  So, but if you imagine a scenario where this person who's
• 15:32
  doing the deep, deep research can communicate with somebody
• 15:35
  who's also on the same team, but they're more interested in
• 15:39
  thinking about how does this fit in and how it's like a feedback
• 15:44
  loop, right? Like, hey, this is what
• 15:46
  researcher A goes and says, this is what I've found and this is
• 15:50
  where it's headed. But then there is a person that
• 15:53
  is actually doing the strategy side of things where trying to
• 15:58
  see where this actually fits in the real world scenario use
• 16:02
  case. But what's very important is
• 16:05
  this person, the second person we're talking about, the
• 16:07
  strategy person, I think it's important for them to have
• 16:10
  scientific training as well. That's, that's what was very
• 16:15
  unique about my experience working with this.
• 16:18
  The retinal neuron regeneration startup for vision restoration
• 16:22
  is all of us. There was one MBA on the team,
• 16:25
  so good for business fit. That's why I passed it.
• 16:29
  Yes, we need, we need business people too.
• 16:31
  We need business people too. So but I think.
• 16:34
  You need to bring out your team. Yes, yes.
• 16:38
  But if you put a business person with a purely research minded
• 16:41
  person, that's not gonna connect really well.
• 16:45
  So we need a third. I feel like we need a third
• 16:48
  entity that is kind of that understands that has the science
• 16:52
  background, but now is very interested in trying to bridge
• 16:56
  them together. I think that's kind of where I I
• 16:59
  see myself. I see myself as that entity so.
• 17:03
  So. That's yeah.
• 17:05
  So that's my experience. And now I am, I recently got
• 17:09
  this scientific advisor role at this eurotech company called
• 17:13
  Pinky Inc. So basically this company is has
• 17:17
  a product that lets you train your brain through games and
• 17:23
  neuro variable device. So you get neurofeedback as
• 17:28
  you're playing the games to real time feedback to show how much
• 17:32
  of cognitive load you're taking as you're doing.
• 17:35
  They have like variety of games to improve different things like
• 17:39
  processing speed, how quickly are you, how reactive are you
• 17:42
  and how your working memory and things like that.
• 17:45
  So, so they have a cool technology, but we still there's
• 17:50
  a lot to be done in terms of like bringing this to the
• 17:53
  public, making the message clear, making sure it's a
• 17:58
  scientifically grounded message, not over promising something,
• 18:02
  but also not understanding the potential of the technology,
• 18:06
  right. So all of these things is what
• 18:08
  I'm up to right now. So I'm also trying to make
• 18:11
  content for people to understand what when when you play a game
• 18:17
  like this, when you train your brain like this, what is really
• 18:20
  happening in your brain and like how, what is the mechanistic
• 18:24
  value that you get or changes that you get in your brain that
• 18:28
  might be important for, for your outcomes from doing this
• 18:32
  training. Oh, interesting stuff.
• 18:34
  You know, for me on a personal basis, I've noticed like playing
• 18:38
  certain games have actually helped me with like and eye
• 18:42
  coordination. Like playing these games
• 18:45
  consistently do help, but I don't know how it works out for
• 18:48
  other people. Playing word games, for example,
• 18:52
  like help me get sharper in terms of vocabulary, even
• 18:57
  reading speed and understanding, you know, verbal communication
• 19:04
  at a faster pace, right? So I would like to see
• 19:08
  neurological research that speaks to these, you know,
• 19:14
  observations that I've had. I've not been privileged to be
• 19:18
  on, you know, that research side.
• 19:20
  I have a science background. Actually, a lot of people do not
• 19:23
  realise the fact that in high school I was a science student
• 19:26
  and it gave me that empirical background, the physics,
• 19:30
  chemistry, biology and understanding, you know, the
• 19:34
  basics from a scientific perspective.
• 19:36
  Applying the empirical method helped me to smash the social
• 19:40
  sciences. Ended up starting economics, for
• 19:43
  example. But it is a social science.
• 19:46
  If you apply the science principle to the management
• 19:49
  sciences, to the social sciences, it helps you to excel,
• 19:52
  it helps you to be pragmatic, it helps you to be neutral right?
• 19:58
  And it helps you to have a higher level of an analytical
• 20:02
  mind. Right.
• 20:03
  Because when you follow the data points, you're able to make well
• 20:07
  informed observations and well informed conclusions, right?
• 20:12
  Just like we have in philosophy, your premises lead to all
• 20:16
  conclusion, right? So if your premises are
• 20:20
  logically valid, your conclusions will also be
• 20:24
  logically valid, right? And of course, with those
• 20:26
  conclusions, you're able to make resourceful recommendations,
• 20:31
  right? So yes, I'll talk about your
• 20:34
  research work, right? So in accounting, it's something
• 20:39
  that you, when it comes to accounting for research and
• 20:42
  development, R&D has become like a real buzzword.
• 20:46
  But a lot of people don't really realise what R&D is about,
• 20:48
  right? Research is different from
• 20:50
  development, but a lot of costs goes into research.
• 20:54
  A lot of research never even see the light of day.
• 20:57
  Parts of the difficulty in finding a use case for that
• 21:00
  researcher, It's very fancy. You document it, right?
• 21:04
  It might not even have a use case until years later.
• 21:08
  But from the business side, from the business side, you're like,
• 21:11
  OK, what does this do for us? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 21:16
  So it might be just like put on a back burner, right.
• 21:19
  Like it's so it's not relevant now, maybe let's revisit later.
• 21:23
  But it's one of those things like is it an incremental value
• 21:28
  that you're adding to your business or is it a completely
• 21:30
  revolutionary thing like Steve Jobs did, right.
• 21:33
  So, so you it's all about that mindset.
• 21:35
  And I think we need people who like MBAs, business minded
• 21:40
  people who have some science training as well.
• 21:44
  You're talking about me. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:47
  So definitely, I think I think it helps like like for all the
• 21:51
  reasons that you just mentioned, I think it's it's highly, it's
• 21:55
  highly important for all of us to acknowledge the importance of
• 21:58
  science to form the foundation of our decision making as well.
• 22:04
  So yeah. Absolutely.
• 22:08
  So for people outside of the lab, what does your science
• 22:13
  actually reveal about attention, memory, decision making that
• 22:19
  could help us in daily life? Yeah, yeah.
• 22:22
  I think that that's a loaded question, I would say.
• 22:24
  But my short answer to that is what has been happening is
• 22:31
  neuroscience has been largely confirming what we already know
• 22:36
  about human behaviour from psychology, right?
• 22:40
  But what is the value it's adding is it's bringing the
• 22:44
  crucial evidence about the brain activity and, and, and
• 22:49
  underlying mechanisms. So let me give you like an
• 22:52
  example, right? So we have known over like a
• 22:55
  century from behavioural studies that humans have severe
• 23:00
  information processing limits. Like for example, we cannot pay
• 23:04
  attention to everything at once. We can't remember everything we
• 23:08
  see, most of us anyway. So there are some gifted
• 23:11
  individuals who probably can do better than.
• 23:14
  Outliers, Outliers. Yeah, which is also, which is
• 23:18
  also so beautiful. All of us vary in this ability.
• 23:22
  So that itself, that's a whole different topic of discussion.
• 23:26
  But so what's happening is we know about our limitations
• 23:29
  behaviorally, but what we don't know is where or why there are
• 23:35
  these bottlenecks that occur. Just we are not able to tell
• 23:39
  from the behaviour alone, just from studying the behaviour, we
• 23:42
  are not able to tell where in the brain or why these
• 23:47
  bottlenecks are occurring, right.
• 23:49
  So, and this is exactly where neuroscience helps us in that it
• 23:53
  helps us localise these, these distinctive bottlenecks.
• 23:58
  It just uses like more mechanistic insight into these
• 24:01
  limitations. And what we do with those
• 24:04
  insights is, is when things breakdown, it is very important
• 24:08
  to well, you might say, why do I need to know why?
• 24:11
  I can see the behaviour, right? I can, I can learn everything
• 24:14
  just from the psychology side standpoint.
• 24:17
  Why do we need neuroscience? Why do we need to measure brain
• 24:20
  activity? So there's a whole debate on
• 24:23
  that front as well. But what where this is really
• 24:26
  crucial, this knowledge of knowing why what happens in the
• 24:30
  brain is when things breakdown, for example.
• 24:34
  So I have so we know there's like a perceptual like at the
• 24:39
  level of sensation, for example, when you see things.
• 24:44
  So you literally cannot process too many things in your in your
• 24:49
  field of vision, right? Like for example, you have a
• 24:51
  clutter. A lot of times it's hard to find
• 24:54
  something when the clutter is increasing.
• 24:56
  You're getting distracted by too many things at once, right?
• 24:59
  And there is, there is So there where when you think about it,
• 25:03
  maybe it's your attention that is actually failing, right?
• 25:07
  So at the level of the working memory might not yet come into
• 25:12
  play at this level. Does that make sense?
• 25:14
  What what I'm trying to say? So there is, there is, there is
• 25:17
  memory and there is like senses, the sensing, there are, there
• 25:22
  are there are some limitations on the sensing capabilities.
• 25:26
  And then once you have sensed everything, you something goes
• 25:30
  to your working memory. So you can actually access those
• 25:34
  objects and be able to address them.
• 25:37
  So so I hope I'm doing a good job explaining this.
• 25:41
  OK, let me try to, would I say break it down for the lead man,
• 25:45
  Right. So yeah, we'll talk about the
• 25:47
  senses. We're basically talking about
• 25:49
  the five senses. We talk about sights, feel,
• 25:52
  taste. Yeah.
• 25:54
  Touch. What else do you have?
• 25:57
  Hearing, right. So if you take a touch, for
• 26:00
  example, right, you touch something, you have nerves,
• 26:05
  right? You have neurons that are going
• 26:07
  to transmit that information, that data to the brain, right?
• 26:11
  However, for for like some individuals, due to certain
• 26:16
  sensory limitations that they have, right, they might not be
• 26:20
  able to transmit that to the brain or to the working memory
• 26:25
  in quick real time. So when I have a blocked nose,
• 26:29
  for example, right, my sense of smell is limited, right?
• 26:33
  So I'm not able to process the smell that I have in my
• 26:39
  environment as quick as what I would do on a normal day.
• 26:44
  Is that is that correct? Is that like a good?
• 26:47
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:48
  So, yeah, that's a good. So you're talking more about
• 26:51
  when the senses are gone wrong. Yes, that will put a lot of
• 26:55
  limitations on how much you can sense right, But even even you
• 27:00
  have a perfectly normal nose, you have a perfectly normal
• 27:05
  touch sensing, right. So, but when you're presented
• 27:09
  with too many sensing stimuli, I see, for example, when you're
• 27:14
  presented with too much information, maybe for vision,
• 27:17
  it's it's easier to explain as a vision case, right, because I
• 27:21
  I'm also biassed because I study vision.
• 27:23
  For example, you open a screen and like you these days, like
• 27:26
  there's just too many pop ups, let's say coming up, right, like
• 27:30
  ads or whatever. So there is there is a limit to
• 27:33
  how many you can sense at the level of the sensory part of the
• 27:38
  brain, if that makes sense. What yeah, what we experience is
• 27:45
  is a mixture of sensing attention and also memory.
• 27:50
  So inside our experience is just a mixture of everything.
• 27:54
  Like I'm. I'm saying this because your
• 27:56
  question goes back to attention, memory, and decision making.
• 28:00
  So our ability to make decisions is very, very much limited by
• 28:07
  how much we can absorb, how much information we can absorb, how
• 28:11
  much information we are able to pay attention to, and how much
• 28:15
  information we are able to put in the working memory.
• 28:19
  I think I was just trying to say where make an make a use case of
• 28:23
  neuroscience where it has provided some mechanistic
• 28:27
  insights and why that was important.
• 28:30
  So the example that I wanted to take was a clinical example.
• 28:34
  For example, you can take ADHD, right?
• 28:36
  ADHD. Whoa, you are entry by gadget?
• 28:39
  I'm actually an ADHD person. Are you wow, OK, so maybe you
• 28:46
  can correct me if anything I'm behaviorally what I'm saying is
• 28:50
  not, but from your subjective experience, I think but so I
• 28:55
  think what what people thought of ADHD as an attention deficit,
• 29:00
  right? So that's what it is famously
• 29:02
  known for. But is it so then there is there
• 29:08
  is a nuance to it, right? The picture is more nuanced
• 29:12
  where many individuals with ADHD don't have like pure perceptual
• 29:18
  bottleneck. Like they're able to perceive.
• 29:21
  For example, if you were to measure their brains and measure
• 29:24
  their vision, vision areas vision, yes yeah, just put on a
• 29:30
  EEG head cap or like put them in a F MRI machine, right.
• 29:35
  If you're able to measure their sensing brain areas, you're able
• 29:38
  you maybe they're able to see all of it.
• 29:41
  They're able to see it at that level, but what's really
• 29:44
  happening is they're not able to maybe put a lot of them into
• 29:48
  their working memory. Here is why working memory is
• 29:50
  important because whenever you have whenever you are like
• 29:55
  trying to do have a behaviour like trying to interact with
• 29:58
  information, you to pull the information from your sensing
• 30:02
  capabilities. But there's a filtering that
• 30:04
  happens by memory. So your memory, your working
• 30:07
  memory is able to only hold some of that information and then you
• 30:11
  need to pull that from the working memory.
• 30:14
  So do you, do you see what I mean by there's a sensing
• 30:17
  philtre, there is a working memory philtre, the sensing to
• 30:20
  working memory. Maybe it goes through attention.
• 30:23
  Attention is the one that is helping you philtre out what you
• 30:28
  want to hold in your working memory.
• 30:31
  So with neuroscience, because the brain is does everything in
• 30:35
  a modular way, because there's some areas of the brain that are
• 30:39
  dedicated for vision processing and there is the prefrontal
• 30:43
  cortex like we discussed and it seems.
• 30:46
  To be that's the favourite part of the brain.
• 30:50
  Yeah, that's your favourite part of the brain and that's many
• 30:53
  people's favourite part of the brain.
• 30:55
  I think because it's so interesting.
• 30:56
  It has, it does a lot of different things.
• 30:58
  It's it's for decision making. It has some, you know, attention
• 31:04
  related executive attention related signals.
• 31:07
  It has it also has some sensory signals it actually responds to.
• 31:12
  Yeah. So cuz I for my post doc work, I
• 31:15
  actually went inside this prefrontal cortex, put
• 31:18
  electrodes in it and recorded from it and actually got like
• 31:21
  the brain activity. So it has all of these sensory,
• 31:26
  whether you're seeing an apple or an orange, it might have a
• 31:29
  distinction between those two. So it has, so it's a, it's a
• 31:34
  very interesting and very complex area.
• 31:37
  So people are still trying to understand.
• 31:39
  I, I wouldn't say I have all the answers to it, but what I want
• 31:43
  to say is neuroscience really gives you the, the break from
• 31:48
  through the window of the brain activity.
• 31:50
  What can you tell about these different behavioural process
• 31:54
  that you already know through psychology or you just use every
• 31:58
  day, right? Like, hey, your memory is bad or
• 32:00
  your attention is bad. What does that really mean when
• 32:04
  it comes to the brain? So that's what neuroscience
• 32:06
  really use. And I, I wouldn't be able to
• 32:09
  answer what neuroscience has found uniquely about these
• 32:13
  processes. But behaviourally, I think we
• 32:16
  know about all of these things, but I think neuroscience kind of
• 32:20
  like hits the nail on the head with, with giving some clarity
• 32:25
  into what these processes. I I would say I want to end this
• 32:29
  question with one thing. One area where neuroscience has
• 32:33
  added a lot of value is sleep. Sleep.
• 32:36
  Wow, tell me about sleep. Yes, sleep is sleep is.
• 32:42
  I highly recommend the book Why We Sleep by the scientist called
• 32:45
  Matthew Walker. So it goes into the neuroscience
• 32:48
  of sleep as well. So anyway, so sleep, we know
• 32:52
  from the outside, we all know just from personal experiences
• 32:56
  that sleep improves memory, but we did not know exactly how it
• 33:00
  was done. We didn't know the states of the
• 33:03
  sleep or things like that. So it was with.
• 33:06
  There's a lot of attention on deep sleep lately.
• 33:10
  Deep sleep, yes exactly. And all of the what that what
• 33:14
  those stages of sleep mean to your day-to-day, like quality of
• 33:18
  life has not been known before, but I think neuroscience has
• 33:22
  helped us understand those stages of sleep and exactly what
• 33:26
  role they play in the memory consolidation.
• 33:29
  So, yeah, so I think that is one example where actually measuring
• 33:33
  brain activity has changed our point of view so much.
• 33:38
  I'm going to ask you the same questions that my friend Maya
• 33:41
  dropped for the neuroscientist from Stanford University with
• 33:46
  Doctor Parent Brain. SO the very first question is,
• 33:49
  does the prefrontal cortex develop differently depending on
• 33:54
  a gender? Gender I actually am not aware
• 33:59
  of this. I I haven't read any literature,
• 34:03
  any like research studies that is related to this.
• 34:05
  So I don't I don't want to give a wrong answer.
• 34:09
  So I'm not I'm not. And this is something that is a
• 34:12
  little like that we need to do consciously in the in, in whole
• 34:18
  of science is like being able to balance your sample sizes with
• 34:23
  both genders because yes, we don't completely understand the
• 34:27
  gender based differences in many, many aspects of biology.
• 34:31
  So that's something. All I know is I'm all up.
• 34:34
  I'm all for being able to study in both genders in a, in a
• 34:39
  equitable fashion, you know, but I don't.
• 34:41
  Know, I think, I think that would make sense, yeah, yeah.
• 34:44
  But that absolutely makes sense thinking about you from a data
• 34:47
  analytical, you know, perspective, you know, if the
• 34:51
  sample size is not large enough, you are not able to extrapolate,
• 34:56
  you're not able to perform that, you know, regression and
• 34:58
  correlation analysis, you know, that ascertain that OK, is there
• 35:03
  actually disparity? Are there variances between the
• 35:07
  patterns that are identified for the resource that we have based
• 35:13
  on gender, right? So we're just picking it based
• 35:16
  on humans, right? Or what happens to that sample
• 35:21
  size, right? And I think this is something
• 35:24
  the scientific community need to, you know, take up very
• 35:29
  seriously, ensure that there is gender balance in research work
• 35:34
  so we are able to identify the patterns, you know, across our
• 35:38
  genders. And yeah, I think that could
• 35:40
  make for some very important decision making.
• 35:44
  So #2 question is, does stress or trauma inhibit the function
• 35:51
  of the prefrontal cortex, particularly before it is really
• 35:55
  developed? Definitely yes I do.
• 35:59
  I do know this just from like my interest from my friends who
• 36:05
  work in like adolescent mental health area.
• 36:09
  I haven't done any research directly in this, but I do know
• 36:12
  that stress and trauma changes your brain.
• 36:15
  I think most of your brain. But like most likely these very
• 36:19
  executive function areas that are especially developing, still
• 36:24
  developing into late days, right?
• 36:26
  So I know that it's an S, but I am not aware of the mechanistic
• 36:31
  insights into how it does. OK.
• 36:35
  The third question is how is the prefrontal cortex different from
• 36:38
  other parts of the frontal lobe? The parts of the frontal lobe,
• 36:42
  yeah. So you want to you just want to
• 36:45
  talk about the function? How?
• 36:47
  Yeah. So, so basically you know, you
• 36:49
  have the the what I say the suborgans in the frontal lobe of
• 36:54
  the brain, right. But what is the differentiator
• 36:57
  of the prefrontal cortex? Prefrontal, what is the
• 37:00
  differentiator? OK.
• 37:02
  Yeah. So I would say prefrontal cortex
• 37:06
  of the other compared to the other parts of frontal lobe is
• 37:11
  more involved in like decision decision making.
• 37:14
  There is also something called like frontal eye feels that are
• 37:19
  very important for like movements because your your eye
• 37:24
  movements are really closely related to your decision making
• 37:29
  as well. So, so the frontal cortex has
• 37:32
  heavy connections to the motor part of the brain, part of the
• 37:36
  brain that gives you body movements because every time
• 37:40
  when a decision is made, it needs to be executed with a body
• 37:44
  movement most of the times, right?
• 37:46
  So now because of the digital age, maybe your decisions are
• 37:50
  just made with a click of a button, right?
• 37:52
  But for example, I see an apple, I want to make a decision
• 37:56
  whether I want to eat an apple or not.
• 37:58
  So how do I make a decision? I actually make a decision by
• 38:02
  making a motor movement, by moving my arm, reaching out for
• 38:06
  the apple and things like that. So what we really need to
• 38:09
  remember is like there is sensing.
• 38:11
  You see an apple. When you say you see an apple,
• 38:14
  your visual cortex is firing up and then it's sending signals to
• 38:19
  the prefrontal cortex. It's not just none of these
• 38:22
  brain parts are just acting in isolation, right?
• 38:24
  They're always talking to the other brain areas.
• 38:27
  I would say prefrontal cortex is one of those things that have,
• 38:31
  it's known in the literature that it sends out a lot of
• 38:33
  inhibitory signals to the rest of the brain as well.
• 38:38
  So that maybe comes into play into, you know, impulsion
• 38:42
  control or, you know, just kind of cutting down on unnecessary
• 38:47
  signals that might not need to be happening in the brain,
• 38:51
  things like that. So these are all the things that
• 38:53
  I am aware from my own research that it contributes to.
• 38:57
  One of the findings that I made in my own research is that when
• 39:01
  you disrupt the prefrontal cortex function, you for
• 39:06
  example, like somebody is doing a task and they're making
• 39:09
  decisions, right? They might still be able to make
• 39:12
  a decision correctly, but their response times are much slower.
• 39:18
  They might be slow in making a decision.
• 39:20
  So prefrontal cortex also heavily is involved in the
• 39:24
  processing. How sharp your brain is, like
• 39:27
  how how quickly you can make decisions.
• 39:29
  So when you think about decision making, these are all the things
• 39:32
  that you, it's not just about accurately making decisions,
• 39:36
  especially in like leadership positions or in sports, for
• 39:40
  example, a lot of people, a lot of athletes, they're so good at
• 39:44
  quickly making decisions. If they have a bad shot,
• 39:48
  basketball shot, they're they're moving ahead or moving on and
• 39:51
  trying to get the next best thing right.
• 39:53
  So how do you quickly make decisions is also there is
• 39:57
  prefrontal cortex has definitely a role in that?
• 40:01
  So, so how about your muscle memory?
• 40:04
  Is that linked to the free frontal cortex?
• 40:07
  You mentioned sports, right? So I believe muscle memory helps
• 40:11
  a lot, you know, in sports. I have been involved in sports
• 40:16
  at an amateur level but not at a professional level.
• 40:19
  And I understand from martial arts, for example, if you make
• 40:24
  certain repetitive moves, if you train certain repetitive moves,
• 40:28
  it comes to you very naturally. So making that decision are the
• 40:35
  beaks of the moves you want to make.
• 40:37
  Is that also links the prefrontal cortex or is it just
• 40:41
  a reflex? It's a very good question.
• 40:44
  Why you think about that? You know, you mentioned about
• 40:46
  the apple and reaching for the apple.
• 40:48
  This is the apple I have here, but I cannot eat this apple,
• 40:51
  that's what. That's what we all reach our
• 40:55
  rich for, right. These days, that's the apple we
• 40:57
  reach for. Yeah.
• 40:59
  Yeah. So to your question, I think so
• 41:02
  it might not be as whiter for those the way I imagine this is
• 41:07
  this is not so not that might not be accurate here.
• 41:10
  Don't take my word for it, right.
• 41:12
  So I'm just throwing out some ideas.
• 41:14
  It's like some of the ideas that I LED is it's about when you're
• 41:19
  having a reflex, it's about really short cutting a lot of
• 41:24
  circuits in your brain and going from sensation to motor movement
• 41:29
  quickly. So what does that mean is I
• 41:34
  would think 1 hypothesis we can make is like maybe if the
• 41:37
  prefrontal cortex is not no more involved because it's learnt,
• 41:41
  it's a response, right? So you're not, you know how I
• 41:45
  don't even think about it when I'm doing it.
• 41:47
  So people say things like that. You know, if you have to, if you
• 41:51
  have to map that phrase exactly to the brain activity, I would
• 41:55
  say prefrontal cortex would be less engaged when your muscle
• 41:58
  memory is formed. Is it important for forming the
• 42:01
  muscle memory? Yes, but once the muscle memory
• 42:04
  has been made, once you're the expert, you might actually
• 42:08
  engage less of prefrontal cortex.
• 42:10
  Yeah, it just cause the second nature.
• 42:12
  Yeah. So that's kind of the one part
• 42:14
  of line of thought, right. I think he's headband too.
• 42:18
  That's kind of what they're they're trying to show is like
• 42:22
  they have some research showing that.
• 42:24
  So they are mean the sensor is on the prefrontal cortex.
• 42:29
  So what they really measure is the node how much of blood flow
• 42:33
  is going to the prefrontal cortex when you're doing a
• 42:36
  certain task. And they have some research
• 42:39
  showing that with time as you're getting becoming an expert at
• 42:43
  the task, your node is actually going down.
• 42:47
  So your engagement of the prefrontal cortex is going down.
• 42:50
  So if that makes sense so. Yeah, that does make a lot of
• 42:56
  sense, but it makes me think about another thing, you know,
• 42:58
  from our scientific perspective. So what you look at athletics,
• 43:06
  you know, sports, it's something that's very close to my heart.
• 43:09
  Now, do you think that genetics, you know, plays a role in terms
• 43:15
  of the efficiency, the speed, you know, the acceleration of
• 43:20
  this, you know, reflex action? So for example, some people,
• 43:24
  especially like people from Eastern Africa have fast twitch
• 43:28
  muscles based on their genetic viewed up right and as against
• 43:35
  those supports from West Africa. So that's why they are more, you
• 43:39
  know, built for longer distance races and we are built for, you
• 43:45
  know, springs, right? So your genetic makeup actually
• 43:49
  does contribute to the kind of athletic abilities, right, or
• 43:55
  the sports you'd be properly conducive for to participate in.
• 44:00
  So in terms of the reflex, do you think fast tweets muscles is
• 44:04
  like the genetic cheats that code for you for the reflexes?
• 44:10
  Yeah, that is. That's a very interesting
• 44:13
  thought. I honestly don't really know
• 44:16
  what like what research is out there to test that.
• 44:20
  I'm not I'm not sure about that. But it, it is very interesting
• 44:26
  that you say so. So the the, the muscle itself,
• 44:31
  the nature of the muscle itself is sort of different based on
• 44:35
  what your origin is, I guess genetic origin is.
• 44:40
  So that's, that's very interesting.
• 44:41
  But then does it mean, does it also mean that because this
• 44:45
  muscle is fasted twitching, you have the you have the mechanism
• 44:50
  in place that actually gives you an advantage, right?
• 44:53
  So does that mean that can you learn more naturally?
• 44:56
  Can you be a natural at the sport?
• 44:59
  It's quite possible. But can you, can you beat
• 45:02
  somebody who's a natural with brain, with training, muscle
• 45:05
  training and body and brain training?
• 45:09
  Yeah, that's also possible. I would say so.
• 45:11
  I so, yeah. And that's that.
• 45:13
  I'll leave it at that. Yeah.
• 45:15
  Because you know when you think about it like when somebody
• 45:18
  who's a natural doubt puts it that consistent hard work into
• 45:23
  their training and you, that is not a natural.
• 45:26
  It's like it's an all fair competition already.
• 45:30
  Yes, yes. Yeah.
• 45:32
  That's how you keep seeing these guys are the Olympics.
• 45:36
  They keep winning, you know, the long distance races and like the
• 45:41
  rest of the world, you just give it to them.
• 45:43
  Let's focus on other things. I don't.
• 45:45
  Even want to try Hands down. This is getting interesting.
• 45:49
  Science is fun and you know, we need the persons like yourself
• 45:53
  and myself, you know, to make it highly relatable to to the
• 45:56
  public. And I think over time, people
• 45:59
  become more interested in science and, you know, how to
• 46:03
  study it. And that way we're able to have
• 46:06
  solution providers in the world at large.
• 46:09
  So talking about human transformation, like you've
• 46:12
  actually worked on brain reporting and, you know,
• 46:15
  neuromodulation platforms like how do these techniques help us
• 46:19
  understand or even reshape cognitive function?
• 46:24
  Yeah. So before I answer how or like
• 46:28
  how I think they have reshape cognitive function, I just
• 46:32
  wanted to show the distinction of what a brain recording
• 46:36
  platform is and what a neuromodulation platform is.
• 46:39
  OK, because you brought up two things, right?
• 46:42
  So brain recording platform is something that just records from
• 46:46
  the brain. It just records the neural
• 46:48
  activity and it's up to you to do whatever.
• 46:51
  You can do anything with that activity.
• 46:53
  You can analyse the data, see how it relates to the real time,
• 46:58
  real life behaviour of the person.
• 47:01
  On the other hand, well, with the brain activity, you can tell
• 47:04
  the correlations between the brain response and the
• 47:07
  behaviour. So that's that's where it stops.
• 47:10
  But if you really want to show causality of a brain area, for
• 47:13
  example, you asked me a bunch of questions, right?
• 47:16
  Like the questions that before this, does prefrontal cortex do
• 47:20
  this, you know? So for a question like this,
• 47:25
  well, if you record from the brain, most of the times you
• 47:28
  will get some signals from all of the brain areas.
• 47:31
  But if you want to pin down on the like how essential is a
• 47:37
  brain area for a particular function, that's when
• 47:40
  neuromodulation is important. So neuromodulation basically is
• 47:43
  you're modulating the neural activity using a certain
• 47:46
  technology. So there's a whole different way
• 47:49
  of gamut of ways of how you can modulate neural activity.
• 47:54
  There is invasive ways, there is non invasive ways.
• 47:58
  In the non invasive ways there is magnetic stimulation, there
• 48:02
  is electrical stimulation and there is more invasive you can
• 48:09
  have like D brain stimulation, but again electric stimulation I
• 48:13
  have done cooling of the brain, you can cool the brain area.
• 48:17
  So essentially what all of these modulations do is they either
• 48:21
  increase the brain activity or decrease the brain activity of a
• 48:24
  particular area. So what happens?
• 48:28
  So how do these shape cognitive? So once we have these
• 48:32
  technologies in place, we are able to study the importance of
• 48:36
  a brain area. And if I decrease the activity
• 48:40
  of brain area like prefrontal contacts using any of these
• 48:43
  technologies, what happens to the behaviour?
• 48:47
  What is the essential function that's getting, you know, that's
• 48:51
  for example, maybe you see the person doing the task wrong,
• 48:55
  accuracy is going down, or I mentioned that the reaction time
• 49:00
  is going up and I decrease the brain activity.
• 49:03
  So all of these things are something that we can study with
• 49:06
  these techniques and how do these technologies shape the way
• 49:11
  we understand cognitive function is we are able to accurately map
• 49:17
  breakdown the cognitive function into the whole process of having
• 49:23
  what does it mean to have be cognitively able, right like you
• 49:27
  have self. It's a gamut of behaviour.
• 49:29
  It's not just being smart, it's it's about paying attention to
• 49:33
  the right thing, making the right decisions, being able to
• 49:36
  have a good memory and all of these are part of cognitive
• 49:40
  functions. So we are able to in pointedly
• 49:43
  study which brain area maps to which function or is more
• 49:47
  essential for which function. And sometimes a lot of times the
• 49:51
  same brain area might map to different functions.
• 49:53
  So, but all of this is only possible when you have these
• 49:58
  technologies of being able to study the correlation of the
• 50:01
  brain activity with the behaviour and also the
• 50:04
  causation. When you disrupt, intervene and
• 50:09
  disrupt the brain activity, what happens?
• 50:13
  It just is tough. You talk about technology.
• 50:15
  The technology that is closest to my heart is AI, because I am
• 50:21
  AI and people, I only see that my parents.
• 50:24
  But first use something everybody did not know.
• 50:27
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 50:30
  You know, I talk about mental health, you know, cognitive
• 50:36
  performance. You know, these are global
• 50:40
  challenges. So how do you see AI, you know,
• 50:44
  combining your tech to play a role in tackling these issues?
• 50:49
  You know, like burnouts, memory decline, trauma.
• 50:53
  Yeah, AI, you know, tech so I so AI has been around.
• 51:00
  It depends on like all the ChatGPT, all the LLM stuff is is
• 51:05
  generative AI, right? That's a whole different thing.
• 51:08
  But AI, when you think about AI like machine learning and other
• 51:13
  computational techniques that you use to crunch data, crunch
• 51:17
  numbers and be able to get like insights from it.
• 51:21
  So that's a different side of AI and that has been around and
• 51:25
  that is something that I have used in my own research to be
• 51:29
  able to understand this neural data.
• 51:31
  Because when you think about this neural data, it's very
• 51:33
  complex. Like when you go and record from
• 51:36
  like, yeah, billions of neurons at once.
• 51:38
  Well, we don't really have that fancy technology, but we're able
• 51:43
  to record from like hundreds of neurons at once now as it stands
• 51:47
  now, Right? So and you have when you try to
• 51:50
  read like it's like a doctor reading EEG patterns, right?
• 51:54
  Like you go and like you have so many channels and like as a
• 51:58
  normal. So very moving lines.
• 52:01
  Yes, so many moving lines and it's changing with state with
• 52:04
  where you're in the brain and it's changing with time.
• 52:07
  It's rapidly, it's a dynamic system.
• 52:09
  It's not just sitting there, It's a lot of things are
• 52:12
  happening in there. So how do you make sense of
• 52:15
  something like this? You don't need methods like
• 52:18
  machine learning, you know, like the simpler methods of machine
• 52:21
  learning to the most complex ones.
• 52:23
  So we it's already been in the field.
• 52:26
  One of the things that I wanted to mention that is very side by
• 52:30
  side to AI deep learning and all of that is computational.
• 52:36
  The just modelling the brain, modelling the brain networks and
• 52:42
  in fact deep learning, you know, the deep learning that neural
• 52:46
  networks, the neural networks that we, you probably have heard
• 52:49
  about that actually run behind all of these like that are basis
• 52:54
  for LLMS as well. So they are all inspired by how
• 52:58
  brain networks are organised. The hierarchical, like if you
• 53:02
  learn, if you had taken anybody who is, who knows a little bit
• 53:06
  about neural networks, there's like layers of net neuronal
• 53:10
  layers that feed the feed inputs and get outputs and there's some
• 53:15
  learning happening and all of that.
• 53:16
  So all of this is inspired from neuroscience.
• 53:20
  So that's one side of it. So that I just thought I'd just
• 53:23
  like, I always thought that's a fun way.
• 53:25
  There's a two way connection. It's not just AI helping
• 53:28
  understand the neural neuroscience, but what we learn
• 53:32
  about the brain architecture. The structure of the brain is
• 53:36
  very, very, very amazing. That's a whole different.
• 53:39
  We can have a separate session on the structure of the brain.
• 53:42
  You read, you read, you read my mind.
• 53:44
  You read my mind because I was thinking about to like, OK, OK,
• 53:48
  It means we definitely need to have a Part 2.
• 53:51
  We definitely need to have a Part 2.
• 53:53
  You want to listen, hear about it.
• 53:55
  I can make it more fun to hear about as well.
• 53:58
  But but there is a hole. It's beautiful.
• 54:01
  You put like a brain slice under the microscope.
• 54:04
  You it's amazing to look at. Don't be spooked with.
• 54:07
  It's really pretty. But yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:12
  What was I saying? Yeah.
• 54:13
  So a lot of these things are like it's a two way
• 54:16
  communication. The more we learn about the
• 54:18
  brain because these LLMS are basically mimicking a person,
• 54:22
  right? They're mimicking somebody's
• 54:25
  brain. At a very fast rate.
• 54:27
  At a fast rate, at a very energy expensive rate, right?
• 54:31
  Our brain is doing all of this. You just eat 1 hamburger and
• 54:35
  you're good for a few hours and you can be like an LLM, but the
• 54:40
  LLM needs a lot of lot of lot of lot of energy that goes into it,
• 54:45
  right? So anyway, so I think there's A
• 54:48
  to answer your question about mental health and AI.
• 54:51
  So that's a whole different gamut, which I'm also kind of
• 54:56
  personally interested in building some digital tools for
• 54:59
  mental health. Wow.
• 55:03
  Speaking of Speaking of digital tools for better health, the
• 55:07
  best major sponsor of this podcast is Better Health, right,
• 55:11
  Better Health. And they're number one in the
• 55:13
  world when it comes to online therapy.
• 55:16
  So I'd really like to peak your brain on, you know, the digital
• 55:21
  mental health revolution, like giving your expertise in
• 55:25
  neuroscience and human transformation.
• 55:28
  So what do you see as the most important advantages of online
• 55:31
  therapy platforms like better health, right, in making mental
• 55:35
  health support more accessible, especially for underserved
• 55:39
  communities, right? And of course, those who might
• 55:43
  otherwise avoid the traditional therapy settings.
• 55:47
  Yeah, I would say like I am one of those people who used online
• 55:52
  therapy sessions and I was, I found a lot of value in that
• 55:56
  just from a personal experience. Yeah, it is nice because it was,
• 56:02
  it's always hard. It's it's so much easier.
• 56:05
  It's so accessible and you can do it from your living room,
• 56:08
  right. It's, it's also one of those
• 56:11
  things like you just maybe sometimes you feel more safe
• 56:15
  from speaking from your home. So that's, that's another
• 56:18
  concept of it. But some people might not have
• 56:21
  the privilege of it, right? Maybe home is not as safe as
• 56:24
  they think it is and things like that.
• 56:26
  And of course, like the fact that you can find a private
• 56:30
  space and be able to talk to somebody at your own convenience
• 56:33
  is, is pretty good. I'm hoping it also increases the
• 56:38
  the frequency of the visits because it's all about
• 56:40
  consistency. Mental health is a lot about
• 56:42
  consistency, how consistently you do the therapy sessions or
• 56:47
  how you do your homework well and things like that.
• 56:50
  So that's kind of my take on it. I think it's, it's very helpful.
• 56:53
  But there are there are in a low resource study, right?
• 56:58
  Then there is the Internet is not reliable.
• 57:02
  What do we do is still a question.
• 57:04
  And I did like I speak, I spoke to somebody who is a mental
• 57:09
  health care worker who's originally from Africa but now
• 57:13
  lives in the United Kingdom. And she had many.
• 57:17
  She had amazing ideas about how we can even bring this down to a
• 57:21
  level of text or in a very low resource setting where SMS to
• 57:27
  SMS or things like that. So those are all the things that
• 57:31
  are people are trying to innovate in a lower resource
• 57:35
  setting using community health workers and things like that.
• 57:39
  But I think at the end of the day, it's also important to
• 57:43
  speak to people in person and have real life connections.
• 57:48
  Absolutely, yeah, it's interesting, you know, better
• 57:52
  help. They're doing quite a great job
• 57:54
  in getting it as brand new as possible.
• 57:57
  The app is actually quite lightweight and doesn't consume
• 58:01
  so much on the Internet. And of course you can chat with
• 58:03
  your therapies. There are journaling sessions,
• 58:06
  there are group sessions, right. So it's, it's quite interesting.
• 58:10
  I, I really appreciate what what you're doing.
• 58:12
  And I was really glad when they reached out to me.
• 58:14
  I said I would like to partner with you.
• 58:18
  Like for me, it was like a validation of what I preach.
• 58:22
  So I'm this kind of content creator.
• 58:25
  I don't like to represent a brand that I don't believe in,
• 58:29
  right? So it's more about relationships
• 58:31
  over revenue. The money will always cost, but
• 58:35
  you have to stand for what you sincerely believe in.
• 58:40
  And that is what makes your authenticity to remain strong as
• 58:46
  as an individual. So talking about how
• 58:50
  neuroscience meets the digital Wellness, you know, from a brain
• 58:55
  science perspective, how can the convenience and of course, these
• 59:00
  reduced barriers of online therapy actually enhance the
• 59:04
  therapeutic outcomes? You know, it's not just about
• 59:07
  the activity, right? I like to say activity doesn't
• 59:11
  necessarily generate productivity, right?
• 59:14
  What we are most concerned about is the outcomes, just like a
• 59:18
  scientific research, what are the conclusions?
• 59:21
  What are the recommendations, right?
• 59:23
  So from that neuroscience perspective, how can that
• 59:26
  convenience, you know, help to enhance the therapeutic
• 59:31
  outcomes? And of course, are there like
• 59:33
  any specific neurological benefits to having consistent,
• 59:37
  accessible mental health support that people can access from the
• 59:42
  comfort of your devices? Yeah, I the immediate thing I
• 59:48
  can think about when I think about being consistent like
• 59:51
  online therapy being making it easier to be consistent with
• 59:55
  your therapy sessions, right. And what do you get out of that
• 59:59
  consistency if at a brain level would be like neuroplasticity?
• 1:00:04
  So you. Your brain is always like
• 1:00:07
  changing based on the environmental factors and
• 1:00:11
  therapy supposedly is, is, is to make changes at the neuronal
• 1:00:17
  level, right. So that's behaviorally things
• 1:00:19
  will change, but really a lot of would be wonderful to see the
• 1:00:23
  change at several different levels behaviour at the brain
• 1:00:27
  level. So to really make to really be
• 1:00:30
  able to penetrate with this intervention, right.
• 1:00:33
  So I think that's the consistency can map to
• 1:00:37
  neuroplasticity. But I that's, that's my
• 1:00:41
  hypothesis. But is there like real life
• 1:00:43
  evidence that I'm not aware of? But it would be interesting to
• 1:00:47
  see. I I would I would strongly think
• 1:00:49
  that this consistency is helping the brain to form the
• 1:00:53
  connections that you want to form in a quicker fashion
• 1:00:57
  probably. I think I strongly agree with
• 1:01:00
  that sentiment because you know, when you compare it to physical
• 1:01:04
  health, for example, we go to the gym, we work out that
• 1:01:07
  routine, right? We build our body consistently.
• 1:01:10
  How about building our minds as well consistently?
• 1:01:16
  That's a, that's a great analogy, yeah.
• 1:01:18
  Yeah, if you don't ever think about that, that parallel, you
• 1:01:21
  know, wow. I'm going to see the other
• 1:01:25
  questions I have for you for our Part 2, right?
• 1:01:28
  So I've got to jump right into the quick fire route.
• 1:01:31
  Are you ready to rumble? Yes.
• 1:01:36
  Of course. So it is five questions, quick
• 1:01:40
  answers, right? So one myth about the brain you
• 1:01:44
  wish people would stop believing.
• 1:01:48
  That brain doesn't develop after you're 21.
• 1:01:54
  That's a myth, yeah. I don't.
• 1:01:57
  I don't know what the exact myth is, but that it stops like in
• 1:02:02
  your 20s is not 100% true. Oh really?
• 1:02:06
  So the prefrontal cortex keeps developing over time way beyond
• 1:02:12
  your. Trances.
• 1:02:12
  Yeah, a prefrontal cortex keeps developing.
• 1:02:16
  And also you, it's like, it's not like your neurons are not.
• 1:02:19
  You know how there's another myth that you don't regenerate
• 1:02:23
  neurons after a certain age? But that's also not true.
• 1:02:27
  There is evidence that's coming up from research that you do.
• 1:02:31
  Adults do generate neurons near neurons.
• 1:02:34
  What does it slow down? What does the rate slow down?
• 1:02:37
  It, it, it does, it does slow down, I would imagine.
• 1:02:41
  But can the interventions like working out right and being
• 1:02:46
  mindful, being really taking care of your mental health, can
• 1:02:51
  it change this rate of development is different.
• 1:02:57
  So that's a whole different interesting area.
• 1:02:59
  Well. I guess we can delve into that
• 1:03:01
  in part too. So coffee, meditation or the
• 1:03:05
  brain game? What's your go to focus booster?
• 1:03:09
  I would say coffee, but. Coffee here.
• 1:03:15
  Yeah, actually the second one is focus.
• 1:03:18
  Sorry, music, not focus. Music too.
• 1:03:20
  Yeah, music. Music.
• 1:03:22
  Music is a big thing for me. I love that.
• 1:03:25
  Do do you ever use stuff like white noise or?
• 1:03:31
  No, no, I have. I've used but I've never.
• 1:03:35
  Tried one. Noise.
• 1:03:36
  But yeah, I love your eye. It's just that stuff.
• 1:03:39
  It's good. That's good.
• 1:03:41
  If you could collaborate with any scientist or entrepreneur in
• 1:03:45
  history, who would not be? That's a tough one.
• 1:03:47
  Maybe the old neuroscientist Ramoni Kahal.
• 1:03:51
  Yeah, he's like, he's from Spain and he's, he has done like
• 1:03:56
  really beautiful drawings of the neurons, the architecture within
• 1:04:00
  the brain slices, and he's done several other things in
• 1:04:04
  neuroscience. So yeah, he's, he's quite, his
• 1:04:07
  work is quite remarkable. So since this is a neuroscience
• 1:04:11
  podcast, I have other people too, but I'm I'm gonna keep it
• 1:04:14
  that way for now. Whoa, from Spain.
• 1:04:17
  Interestingly, we we are on the Apple podcast chats in Spain.
• 1:04:21
  I think we're in like the top 50 in Spain.
• 1:04:23
  Interesting shout out to our people from Spain.
• 1:04:27
  This is yeah, Como estas. Yeah, como estas the amigos.
• 1:04:31
  So a book of film or resource that changed how you think about
• 1:04:36
  the brain. Yeah, like I mentioned Phantoms
• 1:04:39
  in the Brain is a great book and thinking fast and slow from a
• 1:04:43
  psychology standpoint. 2 books. And of course, the very last one
• 1:04:49
  is in one word. What does a growth mindset mean
• 1:04:53
  to you? Neuroplasticity.
• 1:04:56
  It's just this stuff, you know, the, the Key Devs podcast,
• 1:04:59
  right, is about growth, mindsets, leadership, AI and
• 1:05:04
  business insights. So we are talking about the
• 1:05:07
  mindset. The mindset is the first thing.
• 1:05:10
  And you know, I, I tell people this, if you're hiring a person
• 1:05:13
  on your team, you need to go in this order.
• 1:05:17
  You need to evaluate their mindset, their skill set, and
• 1:05:21
  then the tool set. So if the mindset is right, you
• 1:05:26
  can always teach the skill sets easily, right?
• 1:05:30
  And of course, if the skill set is right easily, you can teach
• 1:05:34
  them how to use the tool sets. So the most difficult thing to
• 1:05:38
  teach, in my opinion, is the mindset about what?
• 1:05:40
  What are your thoughts? Yes, I, I completely agree.
• 1:05:46
  And this is something that I'm still learning as I grow evolved
• 1:05:50
  in my professional and like personal life, right.
• 1:05:54
  So I think to me, I, I just wanted to be snappy and like
• 1:05:59
  kind of fun to say neuroplasticity.
• 1:06:01
  But if I have to know, if I have to move away from, from
• 1:06:05
  neuroscience and say what growth mindset is, it's it's being open
• 1:06:10
  minded and being open minded to change.
• 1:06:15
  I think there won't be a growth if you're not open minded.
• 1:06:19
  Absolutely. So that's that's my take on
• 1:06:22
  that. Absolutely, I very much
• 1:06:24
  appreciate you. So from me to you, it is a very
• 1:06:28
  big thank you. I always say this that an
• 1:06:30
  attitude of gratitude is good attitude and when a person
• 1:06:33
  shares their time with you to share their life with you
• 1:06:35
  because the SI unit for measure and life is time.
• 1:06:38
  So love and respect to you for being on the Kingdom's podcast.
• 1:06:42
  And of course, I think I should share this and I obviously as
• 1:06:45
  well to the audience. Guys, always go for something in
• 1:06:48
  your lives, right? Conceive, believe, strive to
• 1:06:51
  thrive and achieve. For me, it's another goodbye.
• 1:06:55
  It's see you again because we're coming back with episode 2 of
• 1:07:00
  this series and of course, Dr and Journey.
• 1:07:03
  Do you want to leave a shout out to anybody?
• 1:07:05
  That, of course. What would your last words be
• 1:07:07
  before you say goodbye to the audience?
• 1:07:11
  Yeah, sure. I I just wanted to thank my
• 1:07:14
  parents for, for trusting in me to do to be a scientist and for
• 1:07:21
  be always being there for me. And I also want to thank Nick
• 1:07:25
  White, the CEO of Stinky Inc, who has encouraged me to be on
• 1:07:31
  this podcast. Yeah, I did.
• 1:07:33
  I did interact with Dick White. Shout out to you, brother.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah, we hope to to collaborate more into the future.
• 1:07:41
  Yeah. But yeah, just to audience,
• 1:07:44
  thank you for listening and feel free to reach out to me with any
• 1:07:48
  questions that I might be able to answer.
• 1:07:51
  OK, we have the best social media platform to reach out to
• 1:07:55
  your LinkedIn, Instagram. Yeah.
• 1:07:57
  LinkedIn would be good. OK, so we'll have your LinkedIn
• 1:08:00
  in the description section for the forecast.
• 1:08:04
  So once again, thank you and press love, respect and press
• 1:08:08
  goodbye.