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#2085 You And Your Brain - Moheb Costandi · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's a bloody you project, of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: course it is. Moe is all the way from the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: UK joining us in a moment, but I'll say hello
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: to the girl who's not that far away. She's in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Elwood or somewhere elston Wick. Is it elston Wick or
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Elwood Elwood, Elwood just down the road? I should know.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Tiffany and Cook is the life force, of course of
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: t YP when when you know she allows me to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: be on the show. That is Hi, Tip, good morning Apps.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Are you all right?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I am, I'm very well.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Thanks.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Can I just point out to Moe, who's probably looking
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: at your right shoulder thinking, oh my god, that girl's
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: got leprosy.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I don't notice until you I want.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You to have a good look. Can I?
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: How is?
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Firstly, before we get into the real conversation with the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: actual grown up in the room, what is going on
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: with your right shoulder? Because from here it looks, well,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: it looks kind of like some disease that nobody wants.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Can you share with us what has been going on?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: I am using treatment on a basil cell superficial basil
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: cell carcininoma, so skin cancer, and the treatment is a
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: cream that sends a little message to your immune system
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: to say, hey, there's something going on here, can you
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: guys come and fix it. So I've been putting that
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: on for six weeks. It is quite sore and raw
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: now and I'm just waiting for my immune system to
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: do its job.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Did you go that option because you didn't want the
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: bloke or the blowcat to just slice into your deltoid
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and you didn't want to lose any muscle.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So well, it was actually quite a large lesion which
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: was going to require a large incision and a flap.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So he suggested that this route would mean that it
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: will either completely hopefully fingers crossed, get rid of the BCC,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: or if worst case scenario, it'll be a lot smaller
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and the incision will be a lot more manageable, which
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: he will not be touching.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: By the way, I will be.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Getting a much better surgeon to address that if that
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: is the case.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Well, as someone who's had about twenty bays will sell
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Carsinomas cut off, but would advise you come over to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: my joint later.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: I'll do it.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty handy. I mean I was not gonna ask.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I'm not fully qualified, but Moe probably is he could
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: talk me through it. I mean, we'll get some ice cubes,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we'll get something that's not very rusty and pretty sharp.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I'll turn on a video for you. You'll be distracted.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: Then, what's already going on on my shoulder?
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Can it? No?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Mo? Were you thinking what the fuck have I agreed
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to do? Are you thinking that right now?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Well? I've only agreed to a podcast so far. I
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: was just wondering, is this not because of this related
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: to having too many Christmas barbies on the beach or what.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: It's related to being a very pale, freckly Tasmanian that's
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: seen a little bit too much of Tassy has quite
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: harsh son actually Tazzy Son compared to Melbourne Son is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: very harsh.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well and also a treatment. Sorry. I hope it
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: goes as well as it can me.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, all of us, all of us. Hey Moe officially,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: part of the You project. I did a little bit
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of a I won't say deep dive because that would
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: take weeks on you and your books and your content
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and your videos and your appearances on podcasts and your
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: significant research. But I did somewhere between deep and shallow
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: dive in the last twenty four hours, and I literally
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: could do I won't burden you with ten, but I
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: could literally do ten podcasts with you. So I'm very
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: excited to talk to you. Could you, rather than me
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: read a bio which nobody wants, could you just tell
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: my audience who you are, what you do, and whatever
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it is you want them to know about you.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, thanks very much for inviting me
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: on your too kind really so, I actually left the
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: PhD in developmental neurobiology that was twenty five years ago
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: and without finishing it, and eventually started working as a
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: writer specializing in neuroscience. About it, really, Well.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: You've done a bit more than that, don't be too humble,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: but all right. So one of the things that this
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: is I've written a few books as well, and I
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: was looking at your book called Body Am I The
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Science The New Science of Self Consciousness. Do you realize
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that you wrote that ten years ago?
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: Now?
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Does it feel like a decade.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: I was just thinking about this the other day, and yes,
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: it occurred to me that no, hold on, that was
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the one before I wrote ten years ago, Body Am
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: I was published in twenty twenty two. But nevertheless I
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: quite remember but anything about it, So please don't ask
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: me any questions related to it.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: No, I'm definitely going to so you know, Yeah, all right,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: let me ask you this to start, So, I'm what
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: is Let's start with what is self consciousness? Then like,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: what what to me? When we in general terms? And
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: then I'll shut up when we go, oh, I'm self conscious?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: It kind of means I'm somewhat worried about what you
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: think of me, how you see me, what I look like,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: all that kind of what seems to be insecurity and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: fear based kind of stuff.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, self consciousness is really it's an aspect of consciousness,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: of course, which which we we still can't define consciousness.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: We've been trying to define consciousness itself for a for
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: a very long time, and we still can't reach a
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: consensus on exactly what consciousness is or or or how
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: it arises. But self consciousness is we could simply define
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: it as as awareness of one's self within one's environment.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: That's that's a very basic definition of self consciousness. And
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: in my last book that you just mentioned, I argue
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: that bodily awareness is a critical component of self consciousness.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Then you mentioned but being self conscious and worrying about
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: about what other people might think of us and other
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: people other people's perceptions do play some role in our
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: awareness of our selves, but but not not a really
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: huge one. I would argue two.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I know there's no number, but you know,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: generally speaking to what kind of extent do we identify
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: with or get our sense of self from our body?
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the role of the body in our
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: sense of self our self identity is really underappreciated. So
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: I think it plays It plays a huge role. The body,
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: that is, plays a huge role in our in our
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: sense of self identity. You mentioned obesity, that's a that's
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: a great example. There are there are numerous other examples
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: of how our awareness all or perception of our bodies
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: is crucial to our sense of self identity. And I'd
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: say perception, because our awareness of our bodies is nothing
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: is little more than a perception. You perceive your body
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: through the senses in the same way that you perceive
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: my voice, the computer screen in front of you. In
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: some sense, the body is just another object that the
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: brain perceives through sensory signals. But it's a very special
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: object because the result of that perception is what you
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: call me or or I. So the body and the
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: body and the brain, they're both the object and the subject.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. I feel like, you know,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: we say, oh, you know, I'm much more than a body,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: like in a pop culture, I'm not a body. I
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: just live in a body. I'm much more than that,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: you know. But at the same time, we so strongly
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: identify with that. And if you look at especially social media,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: you know, where so many people are looking for acceptance
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and approval and validation and love and connection and perhaps
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: fame popularity through their appearance. You know, it's like they
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: I guess, people's identity and sense of self varies wildly
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: person to person.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I think, well, I know, there are a
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: lot of studies showing that social media can be very
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: detrimental to how the a person perceives them selves. I think,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: you know, we think it's pretty clear now that no
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: one is who they really say they are on the Internet,
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: and of course, using social media, people put their best
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: image of themselves there. They use filters and manipulate the
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: photographs of themselves in various ways. Now that creates unrealistic
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: expectations I think in other users. But then you know,
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  Speaker 3: mass media has been doing that for decades anyway.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when you think about without trying to get too metacognitive,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: but when you think about how you think right and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: you think and you start to get curious around why
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: do I think this way? Where did this come from?
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Why do I see the world this way? Why do
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: I think this about that religion, or this about that politician,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: or this about this kind of nutritional paradigm. Don't eat this,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: do eat that. If you eat this, you're a bad person.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: If you eat that, you're a good person. If you
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: do these things, you're noble. If you don't do these,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: you know, all that kind of stuff. So we grow
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: up in this echo chamber quite often, I've thought and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: philosophy and ideology and depending on what context you grew
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: up in. But I grew up I basically was just
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a version of my parents and my peers and the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: religion that I grew up in, which was Catholicism, and
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: all of the ideas that I was exposed to. And
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: so you get to well, I got to a point
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: where I whatever, let's say I was thirteen fourteen, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I saw the world through this particular lens, which was
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: an intersection of different beliefs and ideas and values. But
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I didn't choose any of that. That was just a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: byproduct of growing up where I like, I didn't choose
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: my beliefs. I didn't go, you know what, here's what
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I believe about God. I just believed whatever. And I
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: never made a decision that I barracked for the team
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: I barracked for in the AFL. I just barracked for
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: them because Dad does. And I just eat the way
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  Speaker 1: that I eat, because that's the way we've always eaten.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 1: So how much of who we are is really self generated?
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  Speaker 1: And how much is just a byproduct of programming and
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: conditioning and proximity to everyone else's thoughts and philosophies and behaviors.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. I'm not really sure I can
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: give you a satisfactory answer. Personally, I'll try. These days,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: I try to avoid thinking at all costs. You know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: according to according to Taoism, thoughts weaken the mind. So
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: you know, it follows that the less the less one thinks,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: the stronger their mind will be. And that's what that's
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: what I'm going for. But I think I think that
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: our environment, our culture, socialization early in life, of course,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: they play huge roles in behaviors and thought processes and
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: beliefs and and values. But it's not it's not that
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that one can't realize that these are
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: behaviors and thoughts that that can change or can can
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: be changed. But I think I think that also requires
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: some degree of self for awareness and understanding of one's
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: self and to be able to question one's own deeply
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: hell beliefs. Yeah, yeah, one zone actions, it's I think
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: those are things that not enough people can actually manage
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's really hard when you've believed something
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: for a long time and your identity is intertwined with
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: that belief, because when you question my belief, you question
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: my identity, and so fuck you, you know what I mean.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: It's like that that it was really hard for me
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: when I grew up in a particular religious model. Two
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: one to question anything, just for the reason that I
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was indoctrinated. But two, whenever you do live in an
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: echo chamber, be it a theological, philosophical, nutritional, academic, whatever,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: echo chamber, you are very strongly within the group, discouraged
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: from thinking anything different because you basically, you know, a backslider,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you know, like, so it's this whole thing of we're
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: not taught what to or we're not taught how to think,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: we're taught what or we're told what to think, and
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: so then you go and then when you do try
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to think critically and independently, depending on you know, for me,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: I was very much discouraged, if not criticized, you.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, that's very true. The church that I was
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: born into, the Coptic Church, that's the Egyptian Orthodox Church.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: There are a lot of Copts in Sydney, in Australia.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Actually the largest Coptic community outside of Egypt is in Australia. Wow,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: or at least it used to be. That may have changed,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: but yeah, there are lots of us out there. The
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Coptic Church is very very strict and you're not supposed
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: to question anything. I mean, it's similar to Catholicism in
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: that respect.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I suppose, well, I guess, you know, how do you
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: control a group of people, you know, with fear, with threats,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: with intimidate if you do this, if you question that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you're bad, You're a sinner, You're going to hell, you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: pick your poison, Like, here are all of these things
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that are going to happen to you if you don't
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: conform in a line and just believe. And by the way,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: your job is not to think. Your job is just
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: to believe. I'm like, well, that's super fucking convenient, but
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really. How did that affect you then? Growing
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: up in cognitive kind of environment or a kind of
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: certain environment where you had to think and be and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: behave a certain way. That was that hard for you
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to step out of that and think independently.
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Not really, you know, I had it. I had it
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: thrilled into me still do for my for my whole life.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: That one parent is very say, fanatical, I suppose isn't
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: an exaggeration. The other was, let's say, open minded, So
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: there was there was room for me to to think independently.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: As you say, So it didn't a massive effect on me.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: I love having one. Having a parent that was so
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: we say, over zealous, just actually pushed me, pushed me
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: in the pushed me in the other direction.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's I don't know
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: if this is true. I feel like that's more common
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: with boys than girls, is to push back against that
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But that's just my my perspective, all right.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I want to change track a little bit. So you're
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: your original or not your original, but one of your
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: your undergrad was in neuroscience, am I correct?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: That's right? And the masters as well, and half a
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: PhD in developmental neurobiology. I feel you.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I've so many times, Nelly, Now go on, God, what
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: made you walk away halfway through your PhD?
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: I didn't have much choice. I actually got kicked off Craig.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: What did you do?
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Mo?
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Mo?
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: What did you do?
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: Well? It was more what I didn't do was my experiments.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: I lost motivation doing the same experiments over and over
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: again and not getting not getting results, and so it
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: was decided that I should leave the lab. That was
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: a long time ago now twenty five, twenty five years
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: ago in November, actually just gone.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: So it didn't hurt, it didn't hurt your career. You've
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: done okay?
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: So do you?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: How do you? I mean, I didn't intend to.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Ask this question.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever asked anyone this question, But
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: so you are an I mean you've got a master's degree,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: let's call it half a PhD. So you're a I mean,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: you're much more than an academic. You're like, for me,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you're more of a pro academic than an academic because
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you kind of teach high level science in a user friendly,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: you know, public friendly, understandable, practical, operationalizable way.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: I'll take that.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what you do. It's like I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: try to be a bit of that as well. It's like,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I think, what's the point of having a podcast or
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: a public platform if you're talking about concepts and using
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: language that is not familiar to most people, then you're
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: just pumping up your own ties. But how do you
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: feel about, you know, academic learning versus you know, self
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: research or independent research and experiential learning and not necessarily
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: what's better, but like the intersection of that, like being
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: at university doing all of these degrees. You know, I
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: did my first degree a long time ago and I'm
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: just finishing my doctorate now at the ripe old age
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of sixty two. And for me, it was kind of
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: a good I don't know, just a good fit because
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I've had a lot of real world experience around all
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: What about for you? Well, when I look at how
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: academia has changed in the twenty five years since I
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: left the lab, I'm glad I'm not in. I'm glad
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: I'm not there anymore. I mean, academia has basically turned
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: to shit in the twenty first century. There are a
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: lot of a lot of it is, you know, bureaucracy, funding,
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: funding cuts. There's no there's no room for what's called
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: blue sky research any anymore. Blue skies, blue blue blue
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: sky research. So an example of that is going back
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: to the nineteen sixties, Japanese researcher working at woods Hole
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: I think it's a lab in a labin on the
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: east coast of the United States somewhere and arbor, I think,
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: and he'd walk along the waterfront and he noticed these
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: jellyfish that fluoresce, They glow in the dark with this
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: brilliant green color, and decided that he wants to understand
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: and how this happened. So he spent years collecting millions
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: of specimens of these jellyfish from the harbor and eventually
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: isolated the green fluorescent protein, which eventually revolutionized all of
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: biology and medicine. I mean, virtually every every molecular biology
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: lab in the world uses GFP as a tool to
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: do all sorts of different things. And he shared a
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: Nobel Prize for his discovery. But you know, he spent
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: he spent years and years. He was given funding to
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: just collect these jellyfish day in, day out, and just
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: spent years studying this organism and eventually isolated the protein
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: for the hell of it, right, And that's that's Blue
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: Sky's research. And there's very little room for that in
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: in in academia today. And there seem to be much
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: more or many more constraints on the kind of the
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: kind of research that that you can do in your
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: in your lab unless you're you know, a superstar scientist
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: who's you know, won no prize or or something like that.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: You know, the most labs, I think there there's huge
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: competition for for for the funding, to the research funding
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: these days. So there are there are a lot of
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of constraints to being in in in academia.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not you know, I'm not an expert
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: in how these things work, but you know, I have
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: friends that that have their own labs. Now, you know,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: I follow lots of researchers or on media, not that
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: I use it that much any more, but there there
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: are lots of lots of problems with with the with
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: the academia. I mean, I don't really well, I don't
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: do any research myself. I just read a lot and
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: and and rite. But I still feel like, you know,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: I trained as a scientist. I still feel that I'm
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: a that I'm a scientist, and I can still think
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: about scientific ideas. There there might be one or two
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: original ideas in in my in my book about bodily awareness,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: that that researchers can couldn't go out there and test
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: if they yeah want to. I don't know if that.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: You're still a researcher. You're still a researcher. You just
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: kind of research the research, you know. It's like one
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: of the things I did in mind my PhD was
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a systematic literature review, and basically you're just looking at
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: everybody else's, you know, research around the thing that you're researching,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and then you you know, my initial search for my
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: topic and my for all the studies I.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Was doing it.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: It ended up being I think it was one one
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty papers that that came in and I
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: had to go through and then I ended up focusing
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: on ninety three different papers, and some of those, some
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: of those individual research kind of papers had you know, five, six,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: seven studies in them, and then, you know, so you're
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: basically analyzing what everyone else is doing and trying to
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: find threads and trying to find you know, what is
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: what is helpful, what is not. So I think you, yeah,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: you're not sitting in a lab and doing that ground
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: breaking necessarily new research, but you still and I think
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the beauty of it is like to have a really broad,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: deep understanding you need to know what everyone or at
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: least a lot of people are doing. I think one
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: of the you know, obviously there are pros and cons
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: for doing a master's or a PhD or whatever, but
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I think one of the pros of not doing it
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is that you can research or at least explore whatever
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you want however you want, on whatever timeline. You don't
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: need fucking ethical approval, you don't need somebody to give
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: you money, you don't need somebody to tell you it's
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: all right. You know, it's like, no, I'm just going
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: to open the door on this and I'll see what
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I find, you know, and then you know, my job,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: as I said to you before we started, is corporate speaking.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: So what I do is I take all of the
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: things that I learn and understand and I believe are
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: relevant for people in positions of leadership or management or
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: anyone within organizations, but it a business or not, and go, well,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: what matters well communication, problem solving, teamwork, leadership, conflict resolution,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: asking great questions, being present, Like all of my research
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: ties into that, so I don't need to talk to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: them like they're a room full of academics in a
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: lecture theater. I can explain something simply like I go, oh,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: there's this thing called the consensus effect, and they all go,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: we don't know what that is, and I go, all,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: it is the false consensus effect, I should say. All
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: it is is this thing where people think that other
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: people think like them. That's it, And they go, oh,
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I go. You know, most people when they're talking to
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a group, they think that the group think like them,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: so what makes sense to them will make sense to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the group. But that's really true, and they go, you know,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: so just understanding the only person who thinks like you,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: like truly is you, is you, So don't operate on
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the assumption that anybody fucking understands you, because that's a mistake.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Operate on the assumption that they might, but they more
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: than likely won't exactly connect with how you think or
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: why you think the way you do.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So I think that ability that you have, and I've
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: watched some of your stuff and listened to some of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: your stuff to be able to, you know, explain things
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: in a way which is actually helpful. All right, I
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: want to change tact If ten one to ten. If
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: ten is everything that we can know about the brain
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, how much do we know about
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the brain? If ten is everything zero point.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Far less than one, We've only just started to scratch
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: the surface. We basically know next to nothing.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: That is from someone who wrote a book called Neuroplasticity.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: That is quite the revelation. Okay, unpack that a little
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: bit for me. Why do you say that? And like, yeah,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: let's start there. Why do you say that?
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: Well, I think I read I read somewhere that we've
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: learned more about the brain in the past twenty years
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: than we did in in all of you know, in
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: all of history before that, you know, modern neurosciences. I
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: mean you know, it's barely is barely two hundred years old,
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: you know. And it's true that we we've learned a lot,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: quite a lot, or we think we've learned quite a
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: lot about how the brain works. Just in the in
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: the past couple of decades, there's there's been a lot
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: of technological advances that that enable us to to probe
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: the brain in more detail than than ever before, brain
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: imaging techniques, ways of mapping, mapping the connections between between neurons,
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: and that sort of thing. But at the same time,
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: it seems that discoveries, discoveries that make us question what
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: we thought to be the fundamental principles of brain functions,
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: seem to be happening more and more frequently, you know. So,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: for example, I just saw a paper the other day
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: about about cells called astrocytes. They're not neurons, they're glial cells, gleamines, glue.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: They get that. They're one type of gle or cell
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: in the brain, and glial cells get their name because
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: one hundred, one hundred and fifty years ago, when people
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: were looking at brain tissue under the microscope and examining,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: examining how it works, and so on, they thought that
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: gle or cells would just support cells. They hold the
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: neurons in place, and that is one of their functions.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: But we've always believed that it's that the neurons that play,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: is the neurons that process process information, is the neurons
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: that that communicate with each other. And so you know
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: that the predominant view of of how memory works, for example,
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: for the last twenty or so years, is that memories
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: form when by should I say, the formation of a
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: unique combination of synaptic connections within the brain, certain regions
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: of the brain, the hippocampus, that's crucial for memory formation.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: We know that, But we think that a memory formation
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: involves this creation of a unique, a unique set of
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: synaptic connections within a widely distributed network of neurons, possibly thousands,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: tens of thousands, we don't know, We can't really put
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: a figure. And of course each of each individual cell
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: is likely to contribute to the formation of countless other
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: memories as well. You know, if you think you've got
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: eighty six billion neurons and at least twice as many
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: gli or cells, you know, and we're talking quadrillions of connections,
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: and they can change, they constantly change anyway, I'm digressing.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: So the view of memory formation is that it involves
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: this creation of a unique neural network, and if you
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: reactivate that same network that was created during the formation
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: of the memory, then you will trigger recall of that memory.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: A paper published just a week or to ago that
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: provides evidence now that actually it might be the astrocites
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: that are surrounding the neurons and they outnumber the neurons
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: throughout the braid. It may actually be the astrocites that
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: that are that are encoding the memories. Wow, every it's
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: it just seems like these discoveries which make you scratch
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: your head and think, wow, this this idea that I've
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: learned or been been taught or come to accept mm
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: hmm for the past twenty years may actually be completely
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: uh completely wrong. And so there's always you know, the
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: brain is such a complex, mysterious organ. It's just I
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: personally don't think we'll ever fully understand it.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's so interesting, the like the complexity, but
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: also the like there's so much that we don't know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: but we we still have to teach about it, right,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: We still need to teach neuroscience. We still you know,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and we are. I wish that science would be more
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: open and honest. This is a dumb thing to say,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: but it's what I wish about the fact that we
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: really don't know a lot like and it's like we
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you know, we so many things that we get wrong
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: in science, like the design of the research, the interpretation
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: of the data, the way the data was collected, and
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: then you know, and then oh and by the way
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: this research is funded by that organization that wants a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: particular outcome, and you know. So it's it's definitely not
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: this faultless, flawless, pure kind of protocol, right, we know that.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: But it's just to say, look, we do our best
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and we this is what we believe at the moment,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: but we could be wrong, right, because so many times
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: science has been wrong about so many things. I don't
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: know if this is remotely interesting to you, but did
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you see that the in the US in the last
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: few days, they've been out the new food Pyramid. Did
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: you see that?
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: No? I haven't seen this now.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So they basically introduced the new food pyramid for
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: the US, and it's essentially an inversion of the old
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: food pyramid. So instead of lots of carbs and grains
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and whatever at the bottom, and minimal fat and protein,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: you know, in the top third of the pyramid. It's
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: been Yeah, but it's just funny how for I don't
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: know whatever, fifty years or something that a particular way
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: of you know, low fat eating equals low fat people.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: That was essentially the hypothesis. And then when you do
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: it without boring my audience who've heard this before, but
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: then when you do a deep dive into how that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: research came into being and who did it, and then
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: how the actual studies unfolded, and how they manipulated the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: data and omitted certain data and got funded by certain
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: groups that wanted certain outcomes, and that became the standard
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: for half a century, you know. But even with I think,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: was it Norman Deutsche who wrote the Brain that Changes Itself?
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Was that him?
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: Yes? It was?
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: And that was what was that in that?
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: There you go, right there? What was that about? I
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: don't know, ninety ninety or thereabouts.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. Let's see, actually it says first published
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: in two thousand and seven, now twenty years ago.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Now, really, tiff, can you look that up? I doubt
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: that I could be completely wrong. I'm mostly completely wrong
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: with the brain that changes itself first year of publication.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: But I'm sure that.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I was going to call you the prof.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: The would be prof. What I actually didn't read this
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: while I was writing my own book about plasticity.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: When did we first realize as a science community that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the brain was malleable, that it was you know, the neuroplastic.
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: Well, people have various investigators have been have been saying
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: it forever, but it wasn't. Actually, it didn't actually become
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: widely accepted until the nineteen the early nineteen nineties. Actually, right, right, although.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: It's very recent. Yes, sorry, got an answer.
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: For us to twy and seven?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, I stand corrected. Apologies prof questioning?
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: No, yeah, in fact finding skills there no, you fucking
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: you fucking geezer.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: I won't fucking think of it. What I No, You're right,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, which is pretty much standard for me. Yeah,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I remember reading.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: I think you were were actually thinking of when plasticity
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: was first widely accepted within the scientific community.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: So you were just trying to make it. You're just
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: trying to make me feel good. Do you don't have
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to do it? And you wrote a book just called Neuroplasticity. Yeah,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: and that sold pretty well. That went pretty well. How
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: is putting that together for you? Did you enjoy writing that?
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: I did, Yeah, enjoyed it very much. It's one of
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: the best selling in the series. Actually, it's it's one
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: of a series of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge books,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: and I think it's sold around thirty thousand copies so far,
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: which is fantastic. I really enjoyed writing that. It was
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: very straightforward I wrote that. I think it took me
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: about two months to write that book. I mean it's
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: quite a small book. Yeah, but one side, I figured
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: out the content of each the chapters that I wanted
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: to include and the content of each chapter. Then it
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: was just a matter of sitting down and writing it.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: And I did write it in in about eight or
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: ten weeks. I think it was much easier to write
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: than the last book about Bodily Awareness, which took several years.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: Think because the book about Neuroplasticity, there's no narrative arc.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: You know, you don't have to read it from cover
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: to cover. You can just every chapter is a standalone chapter.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: And it's the same with the first book. I wrote
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: fifty ideas about the Brain, which was also part of
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: a series, but the last one Body am I because
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: it was there is some sort of narrative in that book.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: It's and one chapter follows on from another, and I
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: really enjoyed writing that as well at times. At other
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: times it felt like really hard work. I would describe
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: that as having a million piece jigsaw puzzle. You've got
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: all the pieces in front of you, but you don't
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: have you don't have a picture of of what it
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: should look like at the end, So you have to
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: put each piece in its in its place as you
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: as you go along, without having without having a big
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: picture to to refer to.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a metaphor for life. Yeah, I suppose
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: it is, Yeah, my life anyway. Hey, we're going to
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: wind up and let you go, but I want to
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: throw one or two curly ones at you. Is the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: mind real?
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: No, it's an abstract concept. Yeah, so you've.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: But what why where does it come? Like? Has the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: idea of a mind been around forever? Like do we
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: not just go, Well, my brain does the thinking. So
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: the the the filter through which I process the world
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: as my brain or like what's the relationship or the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: space between the brain and the mind one's physical. It's
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: not like is it just a term that we use
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: to kind of make it more understandable for us.
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: Well, you know. Ambrose Pare wrote The Devil's Dictionary defined
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: the mind as the Oh No, he defined the brain
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: as the organ with which we think that we think,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and he defined the mind as a I think I'm
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: paraphrasing now, but he defined the mind as as a
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: mysterious substance secreted by the brain. I think of the
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: mind as as an emergent property of the brain. I think,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: you know, you can you can have a mind without
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: a brain. Sorry, you can have a You can have
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: a brain without a mind where you you most people
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: you know do. But you can't have a mind without
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: the brain. But is the brain. The brain is necessary
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: for the mind, but is it sufficient? That's another question.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: So one of the things I discuss in in my
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: last book is is that the body plays a big
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: role in in our emotions, in how we think, and
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: in how we feel. So, yeah, I view the mind
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: as an emergent property of the of the brain. The
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: brain generates the mind, but but not by itself. The
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: body and the environment also play important roles. It also
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: contribute to the generation, shall we say, of mental mental processes.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: I don't distinguish between mental and physical, right, you know
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: this goes back to Rene DCOs in this mind body dualism. Yeah,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I'm a monest. I would say suggest that most neuroscientists
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: are also monests. There is nothing mental, it's all all physical.
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: But how do physical processes in the brain generate conscious
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: subjective experiences? Or that's that's the big question.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's we're getting you back for that next episode. Hey,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: so you wrote a book called fifty Brain Idea or
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: fifty human Brain Ideas. You really need to know, which
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: was your first book? Am I correct?
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: That's right? Yeah, so twenty thirteen that came out.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: So one of the things, one of my favorite kind
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: of tidbits about the brain is that about twenty percent
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: of our energy or calories every day goes on the brain,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: this little one point three kilo thing sitting in our head.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, when you think about someone who weighs me,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: so me eighty kilos, so one point three is whatever
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: that is, you know, maybe one point four percent of
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: my body weight, but it uses twenty percent of my calories.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: So that fascinates me. So I need from you one
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: idea or one factoid about the brain that most of
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: us won't know that's really interesting, No pressure, And you've
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: got fifty in your book. So what's one you want
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: to share with us that we're going to go? I
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: did not fucking know that. I'm going to tell someone.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: All right, here's one. Did you know that a young
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: a young child can have an entire brain hemisphere removed
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: and live a perfectly normal life. No?
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I did not know that. So either side right or left?
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Or either side that this you know doesn't happen very often,
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: but in young children, say five six seven year olds
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: with with severe drug resistant epilepsy. Yeah, as a last resort,
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: can can have an entire brain hemisphere removed to to
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: alleviate the seizures or prevent prevent them all together. And
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: as they grow up, thanks to neuroplasticity, the the remaining
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: hemisphere can perform all of the functions that would normally
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: have been carried out by the other or both hemispheres.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I definitely don't want to be the person that they
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: discover that on imagine imagine ground zero for that.
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: But there was actually a very interesting case study about
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: i'll say fifteen or fifteen or twenty years ago of
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: a civil servant of all things. I don't know why.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: He went in for a brain scan, but they they
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: scanned his brain and discovered that actually half of it
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: was missing. Yeah, he'd he'd maybe I forget, I forget
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: the details. But I'm going to have to look this
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: up now because it was a fascinating study amid aged man.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, yeah, I think he was complaining of
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: headaches or or something, went to hospital, had a brain scan,
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: and they discovered that an entire hemisphere of his brain
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: was missing. And he'd lived his whole life completely for
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: that fact. Yeah, so he was born like that. Possibly.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: This is why I'm going to have to look up this, uh,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: this paper, because I've forgotten the details. I can't think of.
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, there may be very rare genetic mutations that
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: the result in half a brain forming during during development.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: I can't think of any. And of course, if if
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: an older person were to have half their brain removed,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: the older the person is, the far more severe would
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: be the consequences. Because the brains, the brain's capacity to
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: adapt to anything gradually decreases with age. A five six
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: year old's brain is much more malleable plastic than than
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: a fifty year old's brain.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: That's that's good mate, that's great. That's bloody interesting. Hey,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for coming to hang out on
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the You project.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: Thanks again. Yeah, say goodbye.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: We'll say goodbye off here, but for the moment, no,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: we appreciate you and have a good night.