Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / The Hidden Forces That Shape Your Behaviour, With Professor Bill Sullivan

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The Hidden Forces That Shape Your Behaviour, With Professor Bill Sullivan · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:09
Speaker 1: Professor Bill Sullivan. Welcome to the podcast.
0:13
Speaker 2: Hi Paul, it's great to be here.
0:15
Speaker 3: And I think this is going to be the first
0:17
Speaker 3: podcast Bill that my daughter is excited about.
0:22
Speaker 1: I haven't that lot. Yes, I have an eighteen.
0:26
Speaker 3: Year old daughter who is in her last year of
0:30
Speaker 3: high school and is about to go to university.
0:33
Speaker 1: And she is obsessed with biology to.
0:37
Speaker 3: The point where she did her exams early in year
0:41
Speaker 3: eleven rather than year twelve. We've got a slightly different
0:43
Speaker 3: system than you guys, and in her last biology class
0:47
Speaker 3: she cried, it was that upset. And she's off the
0:53
Speaker 3: university to study microbiology. And you have a PhD in
0:57
Speaker 3: sale and molecular biology.
0:59
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
1:00
Speaker 2: That's right, it's in selling molecular biology. But I am
1:05
Speaker 2: in a microbiology department, so you know that knowledge from
1:10
Speaker 2: my PhD has extended itself into looking into microbiology. And
1:14
Speaker 2: it sounds like that's exactly what your daughter is interested in.
1:17
Speaker 2: So good luck to her. I can tell her that
1:19
Speaker 2: it's been fascinating field for me for decades, and I
1:23
Speaker 2: hope she gets as much joy from it as I did.
1:26
Speaker 3: And so tell me what do you used to currently teach?
1:28
Speaker 3: What sort of classes? Do you teach at the university,
1:30
Speaker 3: And I.
1:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I teach a lot of microbiology, so we deal
1:34
Speaker 2: with a lot of microbes, everything from viruses to bacteria
1:38
Speaker 2: to parasites. And I also teach lectures on the pharmacological
1:45
Speaker 2: aspect of that, so how we utilize drugs and develop
1:49
Speaker 2: new drugs to combat some of these infections that are
1:52
Speaker 2: caused by the various germs we talked.
1:54
Speaker 3: About, ah, and it must have been in a very
1:56
Speaker 3: exciting time whenever COVID kit might you're to follow, were.
2:01
Speaker 2: We were very very busy, not in the sense that
2:03
Speaker 2: we were working in the lab because those were shut
2:05
Speaker 2: down for some time, but infectious disease, which generally doesn't
2:11
Speaker 2: get a lot of attention in a country like the US,
2:14
Speaker 2: and I imagine Australia as well, it suddenly was on
2:18
Speaker 2: everybody's radar for obvious reasons, and we were fielding all
2:21
Speaker 2: sorts of calls and requests for information to help navigate
2:27
Speaker 2: people through this terribly uncertain time. So yeah, absolutely absolutely.
2:33
Speaker 3: And you so, you know, you did a lot of
2:35
Speaker 3: science outreach, and so what inspired you to move out
2:40
Speaker 3: of the lab and move out of the classroom to
2:44
Speaker 3: start talking more to the general public about science and
2:49
Speaker 3: science communication.
2:51
Speaker 2: Well that's what got me interested in science when I
2:54
Speaker 2: was a young kid and adolescent. Were these science communicators
2:58
Speaker 2: like you know Carl Sagan for example. He's the one
3:01
Speaker 2: that my generation is familiar with, and he was just
3:04
Speaker 2: a brilliant communicator explaining principles that are quite complicated in
3:11
Speaker 2: very poetic and understandable terms. And then Bill Nye came
3:15
Speaker 2: along and some others as well that were kind of
3:19
Speaker 2: inspirations to step out of the Ivory tower once in
3:23
Speaker 2: a while and tell people what you're working on. Especially
3:26
Speaker 2: when you're dealing with public health items like infectious disease,
3:31
Speaker 2: that information has to be communicated to the public so
3:35
Speaker 2: that we can ensure our society doesn't implode and have
3:40
Speaker 2: dramatically bad consequences from some pandemic. So it also feeds
3:46
Speaker 2: back when the work we do. We have to remind
3:51
Speaker 2: the public and the government officials that funding basic science
3:55
Speaker 2: research is critically important. It is fueling the pipeline for
3:59
Speaker 2: the discovery that are going to be coming down the
4:01
Speaker 2: road to cure all sorts of diseases or at least
4:04
Speaker 2: get some better treatments for them. And if we don't
4:07
Speaker 2: have that revenue invested in the process, which, believe it
4:11
Speaker 2: or not, is really difficult to do. There's not a
4:13
Speaker 2: lot of money being invested in diseases and disorders and
4:18
Speaker 2: research for it. So that component also plays into my
4:23
Speaker 2: motivation for getting out there and explaining why it is
4:28
Speaker 2: so critically important to engage in scientific research.
4:33
Speaker 1: Now, let's talk about human behavior.
4:37
Speaker 2: So my favorite subject.
4:38
Speaker 3: The psychologists would tell you that they've got human behavior neiled.
4:42
Speaker 3: But you've written a book called Police to Meet Me,
4:46
Speaker 3: and you talk about a lot of hidden forces that
4:50
Speaker 3: kind of underpin what we do, what we feel, how
4:54
Speaker 3: we believe, and what are some of those hidden forces
4:59
Speaker 3: that a sheep who we are with our us really
5:02
Speaker 3: knowing about it.
5:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that actually stems from the research that's been
5:07
Speaker 2: ongoing in my lab for years now. We study this
5:11
Speaker 2: parasite called toxoplasma gandhia.
5:14
Speaker 1: Oh that's an interesting parasite.
5:17
Speaker 2: Ah, you've heard of it?
5:18
Speaker 1: Yes, And can you tell our listeners about this?
5:21
Speaker 2: And I'm not trying to evade your question. I will
5:23
Speaker 2: certainly get to the hidden forces, but to better understand them.
5:27
Speaker 2: It was this toxoplasma parasite and our research on it
5:31
Speaker 2: that ultimately led to the ideas behind the book. So
5:35
Speaker 2: why in the world would I mentioned this crazy parasite
5:38
Speaker 2: in the context of human behavior. Several reasons. Toxoplasma is
5:43
Speaker 2: an extremely common parasite of all animals, including human beings,
5:48
Speaker 2: and it's actually present in the brains of one third
5:52
Speaker 2: of the human population, which is just staggering number of people,
5:57
Speaker 2: right like three billion people if those ass you know
6:00
Speaker 2: are accurate, And it's all around the world. You know,
6:03
Speaker 2: there's not like any corner of the globe where this
6:05
Speaker 2: parasite hasn't gotten into And the reason why is because
6:10
Speaker 2: it is transmitted through multiple different mechanisms. The first one
6:15
Speaker 2: is the cat. So any kind of cat, when it's
6:19
Speaker 2: infected with this toxoplasma parasite, will shed the parasite eggs
6:25
Speaker 2: into the litter box or the garden, the sandbox, anywhere
6:29
Speaker 2: in the environment. And these parasite eggs are stable for
6:33
Speaker 2: years out in the environment, and they can be picked
6:36
Speaker 2: up by other animals and infect them, and they can
6:38
Speaker 2: certainly be picked up by humans and infect us. We
6:42
Speaker 2: can get the parasite directly from the cat, or we
6:45
Speaker 2: can get it from undercooked meats. You know, animals that
6:49
Speaker 2: also got infected with the parasite. If we don't cook
6:52
Speaker 2: the meat sufficiently, the parasite can infect us that way
6:55
Speaker 2: as well. So it's hugely common. But it doesn't cause
6:59
Speaker 2: any over disease. You know, you won't feel anything more
7:02
Speaker 2: than a mild flu when you become infected with this parasite.
7:05
Speaker 2: And that's why for years it was kind of put
7:08
Speaker 2: on the back burner. This parasite obviously isn't causing a
7:13
Speaker 2: health crisis. Most people aren't even aware that they have it.
7:17
Speaker 2: But then in the eighties and nineties, toxoplasma became one
7:21
Speaker 2: of the number one killers of AIDS patients because when
7:25
Speaker 2: your immune system deteriorates, the parasite then can become a
7:30
Speaker 2: lethal infection, which basically told us that this parasite never
7:34
Speaker 2: goes away. It infects us and it stays in the body,
7:38
Speaker 2: probably for the rest of your life. And it likes
7:41
Speaker 2: to hide out in the brain and the heart and
7:44
Speaker 2: skelet to muscle tissue. So when you hear that there's
7:47
Speaker 2: a parasite hiding out in your brain, it makes you
7:51
Speaker 2: wonder what in the world could this thing be doing.
7:54
Speaker 2: And that is I'm sorry, Paul, that is a very
7:56
Speaker 2: long winded answer to one of the hidden forces that
8:00
Speaker 2: might be influencing human behavior. There's very well documented studies
8:06
Speaker 2: in mice and rats, as well as some non human
8:09
Speaker 2: primates and now even wolves, that when they are infected
8:13
Speaker 2: with this parasite, they don't get sick, but the parasite
8:17
Speaker 2: hides in their brain for the rest of their lives
8:19
Speaker 2: and starts to instigate risk taking behavior in those infected organisms.
8:25
Speaker 2: And these are very well documented studies and animals that
8:28
Speaker 2: I've found endlessly fascinating. We've conducted some of these behavioral
8:32
Speaker 2: essays ourselves, and when we infect mice with this parasite,
8:39
Speaker 2: it survives the initial infection just fine. And if you
8:43
Speaker 2: look at the mouse, it looks perfectly normal, okay, But
8:46
Speaker 2: if you study its behavior, it's very different. It is hypermodal,
8:50
Speaker 2: which means it moves around a lot more than usual,
8:53
Speaker 2: it takes a lot more risks. And one of the
8:55
Speaker 2: most odd ball findings that actually makes evolutionary sense is
8:59
Speaker 2: that these mice are no longer afraid of cats.
9:01
Speaker 1: Crazy.
9:01
Speaker 2: I'm no longer afraid of anything, actually, but when you
9:05
Speaker 2: put cats into the picture, you get a very interesting
9:08
Speaker 2: and elegant evolutionary story where this parasite has figured out
9:12
Speaker 2: a way to kind of re engineer the mammalian brain,
9:16
Speaker 2: if you will, in a way that makes it takes
9:19
Speaker 2: more risks and it is more likely to be eaten
9:22
Speaker 2: by its major predator, and it gets into the cat,
9:25
Speaker 2: where it really wants to go, because the cat is
9:28
Speaker 2: the only organism on the planet where the parasite can
9:31
Speaker 2: complete the sexual stage of its life cycle and be
9:35
Speaker 2: spread around in the form of those sturdy eggs that
9:37
Speaker 2: I talked about at the beginning of the conversation.
9:41
Speaker 1: Wow.
9:41
Speaker 3: So I knew that the parasite got into the mice,
9:46
Speaker 3: and I knew that it impacted their behavior and reduced
9:49
Speaker 3: their fear of cats. But I didn't realize that the
9:52
Speaker 3: whole driver was that was completing the sexual cycle.
9:56
Speaker 1: How clever is that?
9:58
Speaker 2: It isn't that amazing. It's evolution has all kinds of
10:03
Speaker 2: time to work with. Okay, we're talking about millions of years,
10:08
Speaker 2: So maybe when you consider the fact that it took
10:10
Speaker 2: millions of years to hone this behavior, it might not
10:14
Speaker 2: look so miraculous. But I have to admit when I
10:16
Speaker 2: first learned about it, just like you, I was blown away.
10:19
Speaker 2: My mind was blown and it's just really clever on
10:23
Speaker 2: the part of this toxoplasma parasite to be able to
10:27
Speaker 2: do this. And it raises the next logical question, which
10:32
Speaker 2: if three billion people have this parasite in their heads,
10:38
Speaker 2: what might be happening to their behavior if anything. And
10:42
Speaker 2: those studies are just starting to be done. So we
10:46
Speaker 2: didn't even know about this whole mouse behavioral change to
10:51
Speaker 2: get into the cat until the late nineties. So we're
10:54
Speaker 2: talking about very new science. And of course when you're
10:58
Speaker 2: doing studies like this with humans, you can't pull them
11:02
Speaker 2: into the lab and infect them with the parasiteans studies,
11:08
Speaker 2: right right, throw them in a lion cage and see
11:11
Speaker 2: if they're not afraid, right, No, they frown upon that here.
11:17
Speaker 1: So in the ethics departments build there, I tell you that.
11:22
Speaker 2: But we can do correlation studies. You know, we do
11:26
Speaker 2: have blood tests to discern whether people are infected or not,
11:30
Speaker 2: and then we can just just you know, look at
11:32
Speaker 2: behavioral patterns and see if there's a correlation. Now, I
11:36
Speaker 2: probably don't have to tell you that correlation is not causation,
11:40
Speaker 2: but it's the best we can do. Since we can't
11:43
Speaker 2: throw humans in a lion cage and then see what
11:45
Speaker 2: whether they're afraid or not. So these correlation studies have
11:50
Speaker 2: been fascinating so far. There's a really strong correlation between
11:56
Speaker 2: this what we call latent toxoplasma infection in the brain
12:00
Speaker 2: and schizophrenia. So if you are infected with toxoplasma, I
12:05
Speaker 2: believe you're almost twice as likely to get schizophrenia as
12:10
Speaker 2: a non infected person would be.
12:14
Speaker 1: Say significant increased risk ride.
12:17
Speaker 2: It's a strong it's a strong correlation, and if memory
12:20
Speaker 2: serves correct, it's stronger than any single gene that's ever
12:23
Speaker 2: been implicated in schizophrenia. Now that's not to say genetics
12:27
Speaker 2: aren't involved or other environmental factors, because there are people
12:32
Speaker 2: diagnosed with schizophrenia who don't have a toxoplasma infection. So
12:36
Speaker 2: there's obviously more to this story, but that correlation is
12:40
Speaker 2: strong and I think warrants further investigation. There's other correlations
12:45
Speaker 2: that speak to other neuropsychoses. In people infected with toxoplasma.
12:51
Speaker 2: You see an elevated risk for rage disorder, an elevated
12:55
Speaker 2: risk for impulsive gambling, other risk taking activities.
13:00
Speaker 3: I was going to ask about it, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
13:03
Speaker 3: risk taking behavior, right.
13:05
Speaker 2: And as you're surmising, this parallels what we see in rodents,
13:09
Speaker 2: you know, higher proclivity to engage in risky behavior, and
13:13
Speaker 2: we're seeing parallels to that in people who carry this
13:17
Speaker 2: parasite in their brain. There's even one study that showed
13:21
Speaker 2: people with toxoplasma in their brain, and you know, most
13:25
Speaker 2: people don't even know about that, they're three times more
13:28
Speaker 2: likely to be involved in a car wreck, presumably because
13:33
Speaker 2: of this parasite in the brain and the increased risk
13:36
Speaker 2: taking activity that comes along with it. Now, it's not
13:39
Speaker 2: necessarily all bad, and this is where we get into
13:42
Speaker 2: some really interesting philosophical discussions because there is one study
13:47
Speaker 2: out there that suggests people with this toxoplasma in their
13:51
Speaker 2: brain have a higher chance of being a successful entrepreneur.
13:57
Speaker 1: Again, maybe because the behavior increase.
14:01
Speaker 2: Exactly they're rolling the dice on something that you know
14:05
Speaker 2: might pay off, right, So this this is really interesting
14:09
Speaker 2: and it makes people like me wonder. You know, I'm
14:12
Speaker 2: trying to develop drugs that gets rid of this parasite
14:15
Speaker 2: completely from the body, you know, because for you know,
14:18
Speaker 2: compromise patients, this could be a fatal affection. So we
14:22
Speaker 2: need drugs to get rid of it completely, and those
14:24
Speaker 2: currently don't exist. It's one of the missions of my lap.
14:28
Speaker 2: But let's say we're successful and we do find a
14:30
Speaker 2: drug that can get rid of these cysts once and
14:32
Speaker 2: for all, what would happen to the personality of that
14:36
Speaker 2: person that people knew and loved. Would it change in
14:40
Speaker 2: a way you know that would be better or worse.
14:45
Speaker 2: It's a really interesting thing to contemplate, and that was
14:47
Speaker 2: one of the drivers behind the book, was to look
14:50
Speaker 2: at some of these hidden forces in the body and
14:54
Speaker 2: see what's under the radar there that might be influencing
14:57
Speaker 2: our behavior in ways that we don't know about.
15:00
Speaker 3: So, Bill, when you look at my studies or other animals,
15:06
Speaker 3: is it particularly impacting on the amygdala or on certain
15:11
Speaker 3: circuitry that's involved in behavior. As soon as you're talking,
15:14
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, surely the amigdala in the front of lobes,
15:17
Speaker 3: the go no go circuit has to be involved in this.
15:21
Speaker 3: Do we know specifically where it's acting or have we
15:25
Speaker 3: not got that level of detail yet?
15:28
Speaker 2: That's an excellent question, and there's really scant information at
15:32
Speaker 2: this time. The great Robert Sapolski actually did a study
15:36
Speaker 2: trying to find where the cyst went in the brain.
15:38
Speaker 2: I think this is over ten years ago now, but
15:40
Speaker 2: he's one of the few people who actually tried, and
15:43
Speaker 2: he stated in his paper that he did see a
15:46
Speaker 2: very slight enrichment in the amigdala for where the parasite
15:50
Speaker 2: was going. But I don't believe that's ever been replicated.
15:54
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone's tried to replicate it. Most
15:57
Speaker 2: of the studies I'm aware of, and the studies from
15:59
Speaker 2: my own lab, have found pretty much a random distribution
16:03
Speaker 2: these cysts throughout the brain, and it might explain why
16:06
Speaker 2: sometimes the behavioral changes vary. Yes, you know, you don't
16:10
Speaker 2: see the same degree of change every single time and
16:13
Speaker 2: in every single animal. So I think there's a little
16:17
Speaker 2: luck of the drawl as to where the parasite happens
16:19
Speaker 2: to end up in the brain. And what sort of
16:22
Speaker 2: behavioral modification you see.
16:25
Speaker 3: Bloody Yeah, we could get We could end up with
16:27
Speaker 3: targeted parasite cysts in the briand to try and improve
16:32
Speaker 3: our change behavior as Wow, that opens a whole ethical
16:38
Speaker 3: Pandora's box.
16:39
Speaker 1: Doesn't it?
16:40
Speaker 2: It sure does.
16:41
Speaker 1: So let's know I talk about so.
16:44
Speaker 3: An old quote about genes is that genetics loads the
16:49
Speaker 3: gun and environment pulls the trigger. So let's explore both
16:53
Speaker 3: sides of that. Let's talk about genetics and behavior, because
16:58
Speaker 3: again there's a whole host of different association studies around
17:04
Speaker 3: certain genes and certain behavior. What are the sort of
17:07
Speaker 3: the big ones of interest that you've looked at, and
17:10
Speaker 3: then we can jump into the environmental stuff.
17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, well, well there's a connection there because I
17:15
Speaker 2: never I never think about genes independent from the environment anymore.
17:21
Speaker 2: You know, back in the day that was kind of there.
17:24
Speaker 2: There was almost like gene tyranny. Everyone thought that the
17:26
Speaker 2: genes were everything, and if we sequence the human genome,
17:30
Speaker 2: we were going to solve all the diseases and disorders
17:33
Speaker 2: that are out there. Now. I don't want to underplay
17:35
Speaker 2: that achievement at all. It's a fantastic achievement, has produced
17:40
Speaker 2: wildly informative studies, but I think it diminished how we
17:47
Speaker 2: think about the interaction between the environment and genes. And
17:51
Speaker 2: I got involved in this because there's there's basically two
17:55
Speaker 2: hidden forces. Okay, to go back to the analogy that
17:59
Speaker 2: pleased to meet me, use is, genes and epigenetics are
18:03
Speaker 2: what I consider two other very related hidden forces that
18:07
Speaker 2: are operating in our body. As you said, most people
18:12
Speaker 2: think of genes, you know, it's kind of like, well,
18:14
Speaker 2: they build you, right, They're a recipe for life. And
18:19
Speaker 2: most people won't have to be convinced that there are
18:22
Speaker 2: genes that control your eye color or whether you have
18:25
Speaker 2: curly hair. But when you tell them that there's genes
18:28
Speaker 2: that are involved in addiction or obesity or things that
18:34
Speaker 2: people usually look to your you know, your moral discipline about.
18:38
Speaker 2: You tell them that genes can influence that genes can
18:42
Speaker 2: dictate what sort of foods you like. You know, and
18:46
Speaker 2: you know, there's even a study that shows that genes
18:49
Speaker 2: can have something to do with when you lose your virginity.
18:54
Speaker 1: Wow, I mean it's.
18:55
Speaker 2: Crazy, right, But when you when you when you read
18:58
Speaker 2: the whole story, it's basically because there's genes that initiate
19:01
Speaker 2: puberty earlier in some individuals, and that's really all it's about.
19:05
Speaker 2: But genes can have some remarkably predictive power with respect
19:09
Speaker 2: to behavioral changes and personality in general, much more than
19:14
Speaker 2: I ever appreciated before I started doing the research for
19:18
Speaker 2: Please to Meet Me. But I love the analogy. Say
19:21
Speaker 2: that again, Paul, what did you say.
19:22
Speaker 3: Genes genetics loads the gun and environment pulls the trigger.
19:26
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure who there was.
19:27
Speaker 3: Some Nobel Prize winner who said genes are not deterministic.
19:32
Speaker 1: They do not operate in a vacuum.
19:34
Speaker 3: Genes are the servants of the environment, right, and that
19:37
Speaker 3: gets into the interactions between them.
19:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there's a lot of truth to
19:43
Speaker 2: that statement. But sometimes genes really do have a huge impact,
19:50
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's just a single one. So the examples
19:54
Speaker 2: I cited in my book would be like a genetic
19:57
Speaker 2: mutation in certain gene will cause sickle cell amenius. There's
20:03
Speaker 2: a genetic mutation in another gene that will cause Huntington's disease.
20:07
Speaker 2: And these are predictive without fail. They are right every
20:11
Speaker 2: single time. So in those cases it really doesn't matter
20:14
Speaker 2: what the environment's doing. That phenotype, that characteristic is going
20:19
Speaker 2: to happen no matter what. But we don't want to
20:22
Speaker 2: overextend that, Okay. So those are actually rare instances where
20:27
Speaker 2: the genes are really really important and highly predictive. Other
20:32
Speaker 2: things like personality and behavior are far more complicated. They
20:36
Speaker 2: involve the activities of hundreds, maybe thousands of genes, and
20:41
Speaker 2: we are in we're nowhere near close to being able
20:44
Speaker 2: to formulate predictions. So the analogy that I used was
20:49
Speaker 2: that genes are the piano, but it's the environment that
20:54
Speaker 2: plays the song. Yeah, okay, so when you're talking about behavior,
20:59
Speaker 2: that's where the environment it can have really strong effects,
21:03
Speaker 2: even things if physical characteristics can be affected by the environment.
21:08
Speaker 2: So we all know height is about eighty percent genetically controlled,
21:13
Speaker 2: but it does have a twenty percent environmental component. So
21:18
Speaker 2: that means you're in your DNA, you could have the
21:22
Speaker 2: genes that should build a human being that is six
21:25
Speaker 2: foot tall. Okay, let's just say that for the sake
21:27
Speaker 2: of argument. But if that individual grows up in poverty
21:32
Speaker 2: and is malnourished, you're not going to get to that
21:35
Speaker 2: six feet. That genetic potential is not going to be realized.
21:39
Speaker 2: Why because of the environment. And that's where this concept
21:43
Speaker 2: of epigenetics comes in, which is the environment basically regulating
21:48
Speaker 2: how gene activity works, and that can have a profound
21:52
Speaker 2: influence on how someone looks and acts, which to me
21:57
Speaker 2: is mind blowing for two reasons. First of all, it
22:01
Speaker 2: kind of destroys the whole nature nurture dichotomy. Yeah, in
22:05
Speaker 2: my mind, that's a false dichotomy. We shouldn't really bifurcate
22:10
Speaker 2: those principles like that there are two sides of the
22:13
Speaker 2: same coin. And the second thing it tells me is
22:17
Speaker 2: that there are a lot of potential people in your
22:23
Speaker 2: genome and you are just one manifestation of what could
22:27
Speaker 2: have happened, which I think is a fascinating philosophical concept.
22:34
Speaker 3: It is a really interesting concept. And I'll give you
22:37
Speaker 3: one that was springing to mind as you were talking
22:40
Speaker 3: about that. And Dennis Charney has done a lot of
22:43
Speaker 3: research on resilience, studying a lot of combat veterans, but
22:47
Speaker 3: then done genetic testing around a whole heap of people
22:52
Speaker 3: who've been through trauma, some who get PTSD, some who don't,
22:57
Speaker 3: and they have identified that there is one gene that
23:02
Speaker 3: if say you have one variant and I have another variant,
23:06
Speaker 3: and that if we are brought up in highly stressful situations,
23:11
Speaker 3: I will develop PTSD and have massive mental health problems,
23:15
Speaker 3: whereas you with a different variant of that gene end
23:19
Speaker 3: up becoming much more resilient. Right, And so exactly what
23:23
Speaker 3: you talked about there, the gene environment interaction then having
23:28
Speaker 3: a huge impact on behavior. And so if you're brought
23:32
Speaker 3: up in a stressful situation, you end up much more resilient.
23:34
Speaker 3: But if you're not brought up in a stressful situation,
23:36
Speaker 3: you don't end up.
23:37
Speaker 1: Much more resilient. So there's two different versions of you
23:39
Speaker 1: depending on that upbringing.
23:42
Speaker 3: And it's really fascinating, isn't it that that environment and
23:45
Speaker 3: I've never thought about it before from that perspective, that
23:48
Speaker 3: there's a whole heap of potential use that they interact. Jesus,
23:54
Speaker 3: we're getting into quantum physics here and right.
23:56
Speaker 2: Right, If you're a believer in parallel univers indeed, you
24:00
Speaker 2: know there's an infinite number of other Paul Taylors out
24:03
Speaker 2: there that could be very similar to you or very different.
24:06
Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, wow, that's fascinating.
24:08
Speaker 3: So let's let's just dive into epigenetics a little bit
24:11
Speaker 3: and just give our listeners a bit more of a
24:15
Speaker 3: sense about epigenetic regulation of things and how that happens
24:21
Speaker 3: throughout our lifetime to affect a whole host of different things.
24:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:27
Speaker 2: So, epigenetics is a relatively new science, and we started
24:31
Speaker 2: studying it in the context of toxoplasma because that's how
24:35
Speaker 2: old some of these gene regulatory mechanisms are Toxoplasma evolved
24:39
Speaker 2: millions and millions of years ago, long before we came
24:42
Speaker 2: into the picture, right, and it's still using epigenetics. So
24:47
Speaker 2: the way I like to describe epigenetics, just so people
24:49
Speaker 2: understand it very simply, is that you can have you
24:53
Speaker 2: think about a caterpillar and a butterfly. Okay, very very
24:58
Speaker 2: different physical manifestations of the same genome. A caterpillar and
25:06
Speaker 2: a butterfly have the exact same DNA, So how do
25:10
Speaker 2: you get such drastic morphological differences in these two forms?
25:16
Speaker 2: And that's what epigenetics comes down to. They have the
25:20
Speaker 2: same exact genes, but different ones are turned on and
25:23
Speaker 2: different ones are turned off between those two different states.
25:27
Speaker 2: And put simply, epigenetics is simply a chemical modification that
25:32
Speaker 2: takes place on the DNA molecule, on a gene, if
25:35
Speaker 2: you will, that changes its activity. It can ramp it up,
25:40
Speaker 2: it can ramp it down, it can shut it off completely.
25:44
Speaker 2: And those chemical modifications come from the environment. They come
25:48
Speaker 2: from signals in the environment. And this not only can
25:52
Speaker 2: affect us today, it has affected us during our entire lives.
25:57
Speaker 2: So the way an embryo develops for example, from a
26:01
Speaker 2: single cell. Every time a new cellular division occurs and
26:05
Speaker 2: it's time to make different organs, that's when epigenetics comes
26:09
Speaker 2: into play. It's like a unfolding computer program, if you will.
26:14
Speaker 2: But when one of those cells divides in the embryo
26:18
Speaker 2: and says it's time to be a liver cell, that
26:21
Speaker 2: cell shuts off all the other unrelated genes and turns
26:24
Speaker 2: on only the genes designed to make it a liver cell.
26:28
Speaker 2: And that's epigenetics probably at its most simplest. Where it
26:33
Speaker 2: affects people as they grow is that we can see studies,
26:38
Speaker 2: like you mentioned before. If we look at children, for example,
26:44
Speaker 2: who are subjected to aces or adverse childhood experiences, bullying, neglect, abuse,
26:52
Speaker 2: and you look at their genomes, they are epigenetically modified.
26:57
Speaker 2: They're not mutated, but the genes are chemically modified to
27:03
Speaker 2: express stress genes differently. So, like you were alluding to earlier,
27:09
Speaker 2: stressful situations are handled differently on average by children who
27:15
Speaker 2: were in stressful environments, you know, for you know, their
27:20
Speaker 2: most impressionable years. Those changes are governed by epigenetics. There's
27:24
Speaker 2: a well documented study that shows children who are unfortunately
27:28
Speaker 2: subjected to aces have what we call DNA methylation at
27:33
Speaker 2: stress responsive genes. Now, DNA methylation is one of those
27:37
Speaker 2: chemicals I told about, told you about that can modify DNA,
27:41
Speaker 2: and you can think of them as like little construction
27:44
Speaker 2: cones on the highway. Every time a gene gets methylated,
27:47
Speaker 2: once it starts to shut down. So if you have
27:51
Speaker 2: a heavily methylated gene, it can be virtually completely turned off.
27:56
Speaker 2: And that means the stress responses in these children are
27:59
Speaker 2: just not being turned on correctly or they're in a
28:02
Speaker 2: constant state of being hyperactivated. And that extends into their
28:07
Speaker 2: adulthood and explains why there's correlations between children who experience
28:14
Speaker 2: those unfortunate events when they were young and then have
28:17
Speaker 2: problems interacting socially, you know, in older age, and they're
28:22
Speaker 2: more more prone to violence and mental health disorders.
28:26
Speaker 1: And to end up in prison as well, right.
28:28
Speaker 2: And to end up in prison, yeah, yeah, So it's
28:32
Speaker 2: even if they get into a better environment later in life.
28:35
Speaker 2: There seems to be a window during our childhood. It's
28:38
Speaker 2: critically important, and if it's epigenetically wired in the wrong way,
28:43
Speaker 2: it can set that child up for a lifetime of trouble.
28:48
Speaker 2: And that's something we need to deal with, and that
28:51
Speaker 2: knowledge is power. It might be able to help us.
28:53
Speaker 3: And it has huge implications, doesn't it throughout society and
28:57
Speaker 3: throughout how we treat these people when they end up
29:00
Speaker 3: in trouble.
29:02
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more.
29:03
Speaker 3: And then even you know, if we just take people
29:07
Speaker 3: in prisons, we know a huge amount of them have
29:10
Speaker 3: had a traumatic brain injury, right, which then modifies their behavior.
29:14
Speaker 3: And that seems to be pretty obvious. You go, well,
29:17
Speaker 3: this person's has had a traumatic brain injury that has
29:21
Speaker 3: changed certain areas of the brain, and their front elopes.
29:23
Speaker 1: Don't work as well, so we need to do something
29:26
Speaker 1: about that. That is a bit more obvious.
29:29
Speaker 3: But it's the same as that epigenetic modification of that
29:33
Speaker 3: child who's brought up in a stressful environment with a
29:38
Speaker 3: father who's violent and.
29:39
Speaker 1: Drinking and they're poor in all of these things.
29:43
Speaker 3: As you rightly say, it can then affect their behavior
29:45
Speaker 3: throughout their life. Now, is there any evidence then that
29:51
Speaker 3: those epigenetic changes can then be passed on to their children,
29:56
Speaker 3: because I know that so certain things.
29:59
Speaker 1: For instance, we know that.
30:02
Speaker 3: If one of your parents was an alcoholic or a
30:05
Speaker 3: drug addict, there will then be atpigenetic changes on your
30:09
Speaker 3: dopamine receptors, which will then influence your behavior at your
30:13
Speaker 3: risk of becoming addicted yourself. Do we see similar things
30:17
Speaker 3: with people who've been through uses or is there any
30:20
Speaker 3: other examples of that where you've seen epigenetic modifications actually
30:25
Speaker 3: then happening in the next generation. Because we didn't used
30:28
Speaker 3: to think that could happen.
30:29
Speaker 2: Right right, right, Yeah, we didn't think that trauma could
30:33
Speaker 2: be inherited in those ways. And unfortunately, the mindset of
30:38
Speaker 2: many individuals is to tell someone who is suffering, or
30:42
Speaker 2: who's committed crimes or is overly aggressive, to snap out
30:46
Speaker 2: of it, change your behavior, and that might be like
30:49
Speaker 2: telling a blind person to see God, damn it. Yeah,
30:53
Speaker 2: you know. I like the parallel that you drew there
30:57
Speaker 2: between brain injury and the proclivity for violence. What's the
31:01
Speaker 2: difference if it's an actual brain injury versus modification of
31:04
Speaker 2: your DNA molecule. Both are going to affect behavior, and
31:08
Speaker 2: we need to step back as a society and evaluate
31:11
Speaker 2: are we really treating people even if they've committed offenses
31:17
Speaker 2: that we find, you know, quite horrible. Are we really
31:20
Speaker 2: going about this the right way? And more importantly, are
31:24
Speaker 2: there biomarkers that we might be able to essay to
31:27
Speaker 2: catch this sort of behavior or try to predict that
31:30
Speaker 2: this person is going to be in a higher is
31:35
Speaker 2: going to have a higher proclivity for violence or aggression,
31:38
Speaker 2: and then we might be able to start therapy or
31:40
Speaker 2: treatment before it becomes a problem. That's that's my ultimate hope.
31:45
Speaker 2: But you were you were.
31:48
Speaker 3: I'm sorry whether.
31:51
Speaker 2: The oh the evidence yea. The concept you're referring to there,
31:55
Speaker 2: and it's a mouthful, what's called transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. And
32:01
Speaker 2: you've stumbled upon one of the most controversial ideas in
32:07
Speaker 2: genetics today, because there's a whole school of thought that
32:12
Speaker 2: with epigenetics there is now a real tangible way that
32:18
Speaker 2: behavioral learned behavior can be passed on to the next generation,
32:22
Speaker 2: or that trauma could be passed on to the next generation.
32:25
Speaker 2: But the evidence for that idea we need some more.
32:29
Speaker 2: It needs to be more rigorous. But I'll tell you
32:33
Speaker 2: about one of the coolest experiments that I wrote about
32:36
Speaker 2: in the book that just blew my mind and suggests
32:40
Speaker 2: that an investment of research dollars into this phenomenon is
32:44
Speaker 2: worth it. So these scientists several years ago wanted to
32:50
Speaker 2: investigate whether trauma was heritable, so they used a mouse
32:55
Speaker 2: model and they basically induced a learned fear into these mice.
33:01
Speaker 2: And the way they did that was mice normally love
33:04
Speaker 2: the smell of cherries, right, just like we do, but
33:07
Speaker 2: not if they're shocked at the same time they're smelling
33:11
Speaker 2: the cherries. Okay, So if the scientists allow them to
33:14
Speaker 2: smell cherries but then shock them, they start to develop
33:18
Speaker 2: an unusual fear of cherries. Okay. So the interesting part
33:24
Speaker 2: came when the scientists decided to mate those mice that
33:30
Speaker 2: were unnaturally afraid of cherries with a normal mouse and
33:35
Speaker 2: then look at the behavior of the offspring, and wouldn't
33:38
Speaker 2: you know it, the offspring were afraid of cherries. And
33:43
Speaker 2: that's remarkable because they never saw their parents get shocked.
33:48
Speaker 2: They've never been shocked. They were just born with this
33:51
Speaker 2: brand new fear that most mice do not have. And
33:56
Speaker 2: then they looked at the grand children of those parents
33:59
Speaker 2: and the behavior was still there. Those grandchildren were still
34:02
Speaker 2: afraid of cherries, and that's pretty remarkable to me. And
34:07
Speaker 2: they've done a whole lot of mechanistic work that tracked
34:10
Speaker 2: it down to an epigenetic modification of an olfactory receptor
34:17
Speaker 2: that happens to go to the brain, and this epigenetic
34:21
Speaker 2: change was taking place in the sperm of the males
34:24
Speaker 2: that were shocked by the cherries.
34:25
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
34:26
Speaker 2: So it provides a really interesting and plausible mechanism for
34:31
Speaker 2: how this might be happening, how this inherited trauma might
34:35
Speaker 2: be happening. But we do have to be careful with
34:38
Speaker 2: how we interpret these sorts of results, because you know,
34:43
Speaker 2: if I know how to play the guitar, you know,
34:46
Speaker 2: my kids were not born knowing how to play the guitar.
34:51
Speaker 2: But that's a very complicated behavior, maybe very simple ones,
34:55
Speaker 2: especially ones that play into survivor.
34:57
Speaker 3: I was just about to say the survivor, because it's
35:00
Speaker 3: interesting that that that the two mice being meted, one
35:05
Speaker 3: with the fear, one without the fear. The dominant one
35:08
Speaker 3: that's passed on is the fear. So straight away, am
35:11
Speaker 3: I brain on my survival? That that that's got to
35:14
Speaker 3: be a survival.
35:15
Speaker 2: And and that would make that would make perfect evolutionary.
35:18
Speaker 1: Sense right absolutely.
35:20
Speaker 2: And when you see other examples in different model organisms,
35:23
Speaker 2: like there is a oh what is this creature. I
35:26
Speaker 2: think it's some kind of water flea or something like that.
35:30
Speaker 2: There's a little microscopic water flea that when you put
35:37
Speaker 2: its predators sent into the tank, its offspring will be
35:43
Speaker 2: born with these defensive hooks on its head which are
35:47
Speaker 2: not present on the parent. Oh wow, So that's another
35:51
Speaker 2: example of how an epigenetic change that took place in
35:55
Speaker 2: a parent that got scared and then whilah, it's children
35:59
Speaker 2: are born with this new defense system.
36:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:01
Speaker 2: So it's almost like the parent is sending, you know,
36:06
Speaker 2: like a signal of some kind of molecular signal that
36:10
Speaker 2: is woven into the fabric of the DNA to tell
36:13
Speaker 2: its child, Hey, this is a dangerous environment. You should
36:16
Speaker 2: expend extra energy to make these horns on your head,
36:19
Speaker 2: which you normally don't have to do. But since there's
36:23
Speaker 2: since mom and dad detect predators, we're basically sending you
36:26
Speaker 2: a molecular signal that you've got to make these horns
36:28
Speaker 2: on your head. And then after a couple of generations,
36:31
Speaker 2: if the predator scent is no longer there, they go away.
36:34
Speaker 2: So it's reversible changes as well.
36:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now there's two there's two things that that
36:39
Speaker 3: that jump up two rabbit holes that I want to
36:41
Speaker 3: go down here, and one is the what's known as
36:45
Speaker 3: the Dutch hunger winter. So this came out of I
36:49
Speaker 3: believe it's the Second World War where the Germans encircled
36:54
Speaker 3: a part of Holland and basically imposed a famine on there.
36:59
Speaker 1: And and what.
37:00
Speaker 3: They found is that certain babies who were conceived at
37:05
Speaker 3: a certain time, so it was all about the trimester,
37:10
Speaker 3: and I'm struggling to remember. I think it might have
37:12
Speaker 3: been the third trimester. I'm not sure which one it was.
37:14
Speaker 3: But they went on to express genes that basically made
37:20
Speaker 3: them more thrifty and were much more likely to develop
37:24
Speaker 3: diabetes and obesity when they were brought up in an
37:27
Speaker 3: environment where there was good nutrition. So it was basically
37:31
Speaker 3: when they're born or sus certain trimester when genes are
37:35
Speaker 3: being methylated at without food, with mother didn't have the food.
37:40
Speaker 3: It basically then said to that child, you're going to
37:44
Speaker 3: be in an environment with no food, so you need
37:47
Speaker 3: to hold on to all of that energy. And they
37:50
Speaker 3: then had children who were more likely to be diabetic
37:53
Speaker 3: and opese if they were brought up with sufficient food. Obviously,
37:58
Speaker 3: if they hadn't been brought up with with sufficient food
38:01
Speaker 3: that would have been a survival advantage, but they then
38:04
Speaker 3: went on to have grandchildren who expressed the same thing.
38:07
Speaker 3: So again that's another one of those for me, driven
38:12
Speaker 3: by survival.
38:13
Speaker 1: Survival is prioritizing stuff.
38:15
Speaker 3: So that's one around epigenetic and nutritional epigenetics, and we
38:20
Speaker 3: know that nutrition has got huge methylation capacities. So I'll
38:25
Speaker 3: get your comment on that in a second. But then
38:27
Speaker 3: the other one about trauma and intergenerational trauma. So the
38:32
Speaker 3: Aboriginal community in Australia have been through pretty severe trauma.
38:38
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've heard of the Stolen generation
38:42
Speaker 3: that happened in Australia where it was a few decades
38:46
Speaker 3: ago were people thought that they were an inferior race
38:50
Speaker 3: and that they should be outbred basically, and they actually
38:54
Speaker 3: thought that this was good for the population, so they
38:56
Speaker 3: went in and stole a whole heap of children and
39:00
Speaker 3: give them to white people. And what has now been
39:03
Speaker 3: clear is that that trauma has actually been passed on
39:07
Speaker 3: from generations and it influences behavior. And then there's the
39:12
Speaker 3: whole heap of other disadvantages that they've had. And we
39:16
Speaker 3: now know that people are born Aboriginal are more than
39:20
Speaker 3: thirty times more likely to be incarcerated than white people.
39:24
Speaker 3: And some people in this country go, oh, they're just
39:28
Speaker 3: poorly behaved and they need to sort their stuff out,
39:30
Speaker 3: and they have got no idea about the impact of
39:35
Speaker 3: that trauma and that intergenerational trauma. So take either of
39:39
Speaker 3: those that you might find interesting to have a comment on.
39:44
Speaker 2: Well they are. I was not as familiar with the
39:47
Speaker 2: second example, but I certainly heard of the Dutch hunger
39:50
Speaker 2: famine and it's tie to transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, and to
39:56
Speaker 2: the best of my knowledge, it's one of the few
39:59
Speaker 2: examples that we have of this phenomenon possibly occurring in
40:04
Speaker 2: human beings, and I personally think it's pretty convincing evidence.
40:10
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of the molecular machinery is not
40:12
Speaker 2: in place, but I think the proof of principle is there.
40:16
Speaker 2: And like you said, the prenatal environment is kind of
40:24
Speaker 2: like a sensory one as well, and mom is trying
40:29
Speaker 2: to set up her baby to be ready to be
40:32
Speaker 2: born into the environment that she is currently experiencing, right,
40:37
Speaker 2: And that's why those children were born with thrifty genotypes,
40:42
Speaker 2: which means they did not incur mutations in their DNA.
40:45
Speaker 2: That's not the mechanism here, it's purely epigenetic. DNA was
40:50
Speaker 2: either methylated chemically modified in some way that it allowed
40:56
Speaker 2: these children to extract the maximum number of calories minimal
41:01
Speaker 2: amount of food, which is a horrible phenotype to have
41:06
Speaker 2: if you're growing up in a virtual candy land, which
41:09
Speaker 2: we are today.
41:09
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, but a brilliant phenotype to have if you're
41:15
Speaker 3: in an environment where there is not food.
41:18
Speaker 2: And that's what biology was trying to do. It was
41:20
Speaker 2: trying to prepare those children to be ready for a famine,
41:23
Speaker 2: and they're very well could have been one, you know,
41:26
Speaker 2: had history gone differently, but there wasn't. And as a consequence,
41:30
Speaker 2: we now have a lot of individuals who have a
41:33
Speaker 2: thrifty genotype but are extracting too many calories, even though
41:38
Speaker 2: they're probably eating reasonably well, they're just still extracting too
41:42
Speaker 2: many calories. And that not only tells us about you know,
41:47
Speaker 2: intergenerational trauma, but it also tells us about you know
41:52
Speaker 2: a lot about the obesity epidemic. You know, how much
41:54
Speaker 2: of this is really beyond someone's discipline, and you know,
41:58
Speaker 2: whether it's moral, fiber it might be DNA fiber that's
42:02
Speaker 2: actually more in play here, and maybe we should have
42:04
Speaker 2: a little more sympathy and compassion with respect to you know,
42:11
Speaker 2: obese people or people who have been subjected to these
42:15
Speaker 2: adverse childhood experiences and then have higher rates of incarceration,
42:20
Speaker 2: you know, to speak to the Aborigines example that you
42:23
Speaker 2: brought up. I think I think studying these epigenetic phenomena
42:29
Speaker 2: is very telling and puts us in a much more
42:33
Speaker 2: compassionate place with respect to Let's try to figure out
42:38
Speaker 2: what's going on at a biological level, and then from
42:41
Speaker 2: there we can potentially work on potential you know, treatments
42:45
Speaker 2: for these individuals. We may be able to develop epigenetic
42:49
Speaker 2: drugs that can change how these marks exist and then
42:55
Speaker 2: put an end to that transgenerational inheritance.
43:00
Speaker 1: If you will.
43:01
Speaker 3: And it's interesting you're talking about the fatal environment. So
43:07
Speaker 3: I know, particularly with my interest in stress and resilience,
43:11
Speaker 3: that if mum is stressed in the third trimester, that
43:18
Speaker 3: developing fetus actually grows a bigger and more sensitive amygdala
43:23
Speaker 3: and they're born with hypervigilance to stress and threat, and
43:27
Speaker 3: that is an amazing evolutionary mechanism that mom is basically
43:33
Speaker 3: sent to that unborn child, you are going to be
43:36
Speaker 3: born into a dangerous environment.
43:38
Speaker 1: You need to be on your guard.
43:40
Speaker 3: I mean, it's an amazing adaptive response, isn't it if
43:44
Speaker 3: that task is born in a dangerous environment. But if
43:47
Speaker 3: they're not born in a dangerous environment, it becomes maladaptive
43:51
Speaker 3: because they're hypervigilant to stress and threat and more prone
43:54
Speaker 3: to anxiety and depression.
43:57
Speaker 1: And it's then not good.
43:58
Speaker 2: Right, right, that's a brilliant example. Evolution is conservative. It's
44:06
Speaker 2: going to take the safe way out. You know, it
44:09
Speaker 2: doesn't take chances, right because that usually doesn't work out
44:13
Speaker 2: in your favor. But if a mother is exposed to
44:18
Speaker 2: stress and wants to kind of molecularly educate that child, Hey,
44:22
Speaker 2: this is a stressful environment. These are the genes that
44:25
Speaker 2: are going to help you. That's okay. The child might
44:28
Speaker 2: have an advantage if there is a stressful environment. And
44:31
Speaker 2: I think evolution predicts that the environment is going to
44:35
Speaker 2: be relatively stable because in the past we didn't wander
44:39
Speaker 2: very far. You know, our environment pretty much stayed the
44:42
Speaker 2: same our entire lives. So that's not the case anymore today.
44:47
Speaker 2: And those genes as you said the way they were
44:50
Speaker 2: epigenetically modified could now be maladaptive, and evolution doesn't care
44:57
Speaker 2: about that as long as the child lives long enough
45:00
Speaker 2: to replicate.
45:05
Speaker 3: It just evolution doesn't care about you at all, needs
45:09
Speaker 3: just about survival of the species.
45:13
Speaker 2: Vehicle, doesn't care if you're happy, doesn't care if you
45:17
Speaker 2: see rainbows and sunshine. It just wants you to live
45:20
Speaker 2: long enough to replicate, and it considers its job well done.
45:26
Speaker 1: So like, let's not will switch checked a little bit.
45:30
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Ozzy Osbourne.
45:33
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the great Ozzy Osbourne, the man on the
45:37
Speaker 2: Crazy Train himself.
45:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you write about him in your book, tell
45:41
Speaker 3: us a little bit about it.
45:42
Speaker 1: I did.
45:43
Speaker 2: I wrote about Osbourne Surprise in the context of a
45:47
Speaker 2: drug and alcohol addiction. And it's a fascinating story because
45:53
Speaker 2: most people aren't aware that Ozzy Osbourne was one of
45:56
Speaker 2: the first people on the planet to have his genome sequenced.
46:02
Speaker 2: He was I don't know exactly where he was, but
46:05
Speaker 2: he was up there, like in the top ten percent.
46:07
Speaker 1: Wow.
46:07
Speaker 2: And it's not because he volunteered. You know, scientists approached him,
46:12
Speaker 2: you know, they sought him out as a specimen in
46:14
Speaker 2: there a specimen because they purposefully wanted to see what
46:23
Speaker 2: kind of genes he has that have kept him alive
46:28
Speaker 2: through all that he's put his body through. I'm not
46:31
Speaker 2: making that up. That's exactly what their motivation was. They
46:34
Speaker 2: wanted to try to learn something about drug and alcohol
46:36
Speaker 2: addiction from this guy who's had notorious stories about drug
46:42
Speaker 2: and alcohol addiction and has emerged at the end of
46:45
Speaker 2: that tunnel relatively unscathed like many people. Scientists were befuddled
46:51
Speaker 2: by this, and they wanted to see if sequencing Ozzy
46:53
Speaker 2: Osbourne's genome could reveal something. And Ozzy said the funniest things,
46:58
Speaker 2: you know, when the scientists approached him, He's like, the
47:02
Speaker 2: only gene I knew about was that guy from Kiss.
47:06
Speaker 1: Excellent, you know.
47:08
Speaker 2: So Ozzy really had no idea what was going on,
47:12
Speaker 2: but he was. He played along, and he sent them
47:15
Speaker 2: samples of his DNA and scientists sequence it and lo
47:19
Speaker 2: and behold, they found never seen mutations in a gene
47:25
Speaker 2: called eighth four I believe it was, which produces an
47:29
Speaker 2: enzyme that that works in the liver to detoxify alcohol.
47:35
Speaker 2: And the way this gene was mutated this is the
47:38
Speaker 2: crazy part. It would have produced a ton of this
47:42
Speaker 2: ADH four enzyme. So Ozzy Osbourne is genetically engineered to
47:48
Speaker 2: process alcohol at a much higher rate than your ordinary
47:51
Speaker 2: average human being.
47:53
Speaker 3: Apart from half of the Irish population apparently, so alcohol alcohol,
48:00
Speaker 3: I'm refining machines.
48:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the b fair Paul, I would like to
48:05
Speaker 2: actually go back usually write a grant to researchers look
48:09
Speaker 2: at the Irish population compare it to Ozzy Osbourne and
48:12
Speaker 2: see if they share that mutation or that would be interesting.
48:17
Speaker 2: And he had some other mutations as well that scientists
48:20
Speaker 2: didn't know what to make of back when it was done, because,
48:23
Speaker 2: like I said, he was one of the first human
48:25
Speaker 2: beings to get his genome sequenced. We have sequenced you know,
48:30
Speaker 2: tons more since then over the past twenty years, because
48:34
Speaker 2: sequencing has gotten so much easier to do and it's
48:36
Speaker 2: so much cheaper. So we have the genomes for hundreds
48:39
Speaker 2: of thousands of people now, and we can do what
48:41
Speaker 2: are called genome wide assortment studies gwas the genomes of
48:48
Speaker 2: you know, literally millions of people, and supercomputers can spit
48:52
Speaker 2: out these analyzes that tell us, you know, certain phenotypes
48:55
Speaker 2: correlate with these genetic mutations. So I say all that,
49:01
Speaker 2: just basically to educate people that one of the most
49:06
Speaker 2: common denominators that come out of these genetic studies looking
49:10
Speaker 2: at people struggling with alcohol are genetic modifications in what's
49:16
Speaker 2: called the GABBA neurotransmitter system in the brain. And for
49:20
Speaker 2: those who don't know, GABA is a neurotransmitter or a
49:23
Speaker 2: brain chemical that calms the brain down. It basically de
49:27
Speaker 2: escalates brain activity, and that's something that's necessary in order
49:32
Speaker 2: to sleep and in order to focus in things of
49:36
Speaker 2: that nature. And basically, what they're seeing in a lot
49:38
Speaker 2: of alcoholics, not all of them, but a lot of them,
49:41
Speaker 2: there is some sort of genetic mutation in the regulation
49:45
Speaker 2: or the manufacturing of GABBA and how it works, and
49:48
Speaker 2: the end result is that these individuals have a hyperactive brain.
49:53
Speaker 2: So now things start to make a lot more sense.
49:56
Speaker 2: Right If someone has a hyperactive brain and they accidentally
50:01
Speaker 2: discover one day when they first try alcohol that, oh
50:04
Speaker 2: my god, if I drink this, I feel normal. Brain
50:07
Speaker 2: has calmed down. I can sleep at night, I can focus,
50:11
Speaker 2: And that's going to be a real short term solution
50:15
Speaker 2: because alcohol is an addictive substance, and the more you ingest,
50:20
Speaker 2: the more of a tolerance you build up and it
50:22
Speaker 2: just leads into this vicious cycle of addiction. But it
50:25
Speaker 2: explains very nicely why some alcoholics struggle so much to
50:33
Speaker 2: give it up. It's because as soon as they start
50:36
Speaker 2: to do so, their brain could kick back into this
50:39
Speaker 2: hyperactive mode and it'll just be a downward spiral from there.
50:44
Speaker 2: So the bright side to all of that is that
50:49
Speaker 2: information is really powerful and it suggests that one we
50:54
Speaker 2: shouldn't just be you know, scornful and admonishing and judgmental
50:59
Speaker 2: about people who struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. There's
51:02
Speaker 2: a real biological basis for why this is happening and
51:06
Speaker 2: why it happens to just like ten or twelve percent
51:09
Speaker 2: of people. You know, the vast majority of people who
51:12
Speaker 2: experiment with drugs or alcohol do not get addicted. Only
51:16
Speaker 2: a small subset do. And now we're learning it's because
51:19
Speaker 2: they have genetic mutations at key genes that regulate brain activity.
51:24
Speaker 2: And that leads us to a new discovery of therapeutics
51:30
Speaker 2: that might be able to mimic what Gabba does and
51:34
Speaker 2: kind of fill this hole you know that is in
51:38
Speaker 2: their character, their molecular character. You know, it'll be able basically,
51:42
Speaker 2: it'll be able to treat alcoholism without the resurgence of
51:48
Speaker 2: a hyperactive brain.
51:50
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you only have to it's not a
51:52
Speaker 3: massive lape to look at. I did a workshop a
51:57
Speaker 3: talk last week and with somebody else that they're doing
52:01
Speaker 3: another talk who was leading the research on psychedelics for
52:09
Speaker 3: mood disorders and getting unbelievable results. So you can see
52:14
Speaker 3: that that basically a compound and it's a chemical.
52:17
Speaker 1: The chemical structure of.
52:18
Speaker 3: That compound, psilocybin or the MDMA can actually and he
52:24
Speaker 3: described it as the rocket ship for therapy. Right, So
52:28
Speaker 3: it doesn't work in and of itself, but he said
52:31
Speaker 3: it absolutely supercharges therapy to change people's brain. And so
52:38
Speaker 3: there are just one chemical ingested and the research that
52:42
Speaker 3: they were doing was showing one intervention can completely change
52:47
Speaker 3: people who no interventions has worked with. They take one
52:52
Speaker 3: MDMA or psilocybin assistant therapy and it can have a
52:56
Speaker 3: massive effect. Now they're tending to do two or three
53:00
Speaker 3: in the therapy lasts longer, but it is just the
53:05
Speaker 3: potential for a therapeutic to change the brain.
53:08
Speaker 1: So much so that opens the door.
53:11
Speaker 3: To the stuff that you were saying, And let's do
53:14
Speaker 3: another little pivot and talk about something that's a very
53:18
Speaker 3: hot button in your country right now, which is political beliefs.
53:23
Speaker 2: Right So what you know, maybe a little bit of
53:26
Speaker 2: a hot but maybe a little.
53:29
Speaker 3: Wow is.
53:31
Speaker 1: This?
53:32
Speaker 3: I mean, is there something around in the water that
53:35
Speaker 3: is making people more diametrically opposed?
53:39
Speaker 1: But what in general.
53:41
Speaker 3: Does our biology have to do with our political beliefs?
53:45
Speaker 3: Because there is a massive experiment going on right now.
53:49
Speaker 2: Really, you know, that's that's the billion dollar question, Paul.
53:53
Speaker 2: And if I had an answer to that, well, I
53:57
Speaker 2: would love to put it into practice, because we can't
54:00
Speaker 2: what we have going on right now, and it's not
54:02
Speaker 2: just our country, maybe maybe our country to an amplified degree,
54:06
Speaker 2: but this hyper polarization and this whole US versus them,
54:10
Speaker 2: this this ship's got to stop. Yeah, I mean, I'm
54:14
Speaker 2: sorry if I can't.
54:15
Speaker 3: Say that.
54:18
Speaker 2: Past, but but it's it's the most frustrating because there
54:24
Speaker 2: are organizations that are profiting massively by dividing people, by
54:31
Speaker 2: misinforming people. And what we as a group, and this
54:35
Speaker 2: is on us, have forgotten is that hey, we're all
54:39
Speaker 2: Americans and we should recognize when there is an entity
54:42
Speaker 2: out there that it's trying to divide us. Okay, that's
54:46
Speaker 2: the enemy, not you and me. You know, the enemy
54:49
Speaker 2: is trying to divide us. But that's neither here there.
54:52
Speaker 2: Like you were asking, there are biological explanations for all
54:58
Speaker 2: sorts of behavior. Politics is not excluded from that realm.
55:02
Speaker 2: That was like the what I was trying to make.
55:04
Speaker 2: The main takeaway of my book is that no matter
55:06
Speaker 2: how bizarre unusual you think the behavior is, there's a
55:09
Speaker 2: biological basis for it. There's no magic or supernatural element
55:14
Speaker 2: to this. And if we can discover what that biological
55:17
Speaker 2: basis is, that gives us a foothold on how to
55:20
Speaker 2: proceed forward. It also helps generate compassion because people can't
55:24
Speaker 2: help who they are. You know, you don't get the
55:27
Speaker 2: shop for your genes. You don't get the shop for
55:29
Speaker 2: your prenatal environment or the environment you were exposed to
55:33
Speaker 2: as a child. You have no say in that matter.
55:36
Speaker 1: You know.
55:36
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, you didn't get to pick your language. Yeah,
55:39
Speaker 2: you know, why should I hate you because you don't
55:40
Speaker 2: speak my language? You know, you have no control over that.
55:44
Speaker 2: So I think we got to take a step back
55:46
Speaker 2: in a time out, you know, sober up and you know,
55:50
Speaker 2: talk ourselves down from these partisan ledges, if you will,
55:54
Speaker 2: and get back in touch with our common humanity. I
55:57
Speaker 2: think that's the only way forward to solve this critical,
56:00
Speaker 2: critical problem. But getting back to the biology you spoke
56:04
Speaker 2: before about dopamine. Really interesting study that goes to these
56:09
Speaker 2: g WADS analyzes where scientists look at the genomes between
56:13
Speaker 2: people who are on the far right and the far left.
56:17
Speaker 2: And one interesting thing did pop out of those analyzes
56:20
Speaker 2: that has a pretty good that has pretty good statistical power,
56:24
Speaker 2: is that there's a dopamine receptor that is different in
56:29
Speaker 2: people on the far left who would be liberals, and
56:33
Speaker 2: the way this dopamine receptor is modified. All the details
56:37
Speaker 2: aren't worked out yet, but the correlation's pretty strong is
56:41
Speaker 2: that those individuals would have greater thrill seeking activity. They
56:46
Speaker 2: need a larger dopamine hit in order to feel the
56:49
Speaker 2: pleasure that say, normal people would feel from a lesser experience.
56:56
Speaker 2: So that would be behavior that's more consistent with what
57:00
Speaker 2: you see in your trademark liberal. Okay, they tend to
57:03
Speaker 2: be higher risk takers, they tend to explore more, they
57:07
Speaker 2: tend to be open to new experiences and new cultures,
57:12
Speaker 2: and you know, there was a personality traits that you
57:15
Speaker 2: would associate with liberalism, So that mutation might explain one
57:20
Speaker 2: why liberals exist and two why humans started exploring around
57:24
Speaker 2: the world. You know, it might go all the way
57:26
Speaker 2: back to why we started migrating out of Africa in
57:30
Speaker 2: the first place. So it's a really fascinating dichotomy, and
57:34
Speaker 2: it's just one of the few genetic variants that seem
57:39
Speaker 2: to exist between far left and far right individuals. Now
57:44
Speaker 2: there's also brain differences between liberals and conservatives, some of
57:50
Speaker 2: which may have a genetic basis, But the end result
57:53
Speaker 2: is that scientists can look at a brain scan of
57:56
Speaker 2: an individual they don't know anything about, and with about
58:00
Speaker 2: seventy five percent accuracy, they can predict whether that person's
58:04
Speaker 2: a liberal or a conservative. And you know what it
58:07
Speaker 2: boils down to. You mentioned it earlier. It's the size
58:11
Speaker 2: of the amygdalo wow, which tends to be larger in conservatives, okay,
58:15
Speaker 2: which means they have a greater capacity to sense threats
58:20
Speaker 2: and they have a greater concern that something might be dangerous,
58:25
Speaker 2: whereas liberals would not have that grave of a concern.
58:30
Speaker 2: Where liberal's brain differs is I'm blanking on the region
58:35
Speaker 2: of the brain, but it's one of the analytical sections.
58:39
Speaker 2: So liberals will tend to see the complexity in problems
58:44
Speaker 2: and try to figure out, you know, evaluate the situation,
58:50
Speaker 2: you know, with a little more logical reason rather than
58:53
Speaker 2: fear and emotion. And I'm not saying either one of
58:57
Speaker 2: those approaches is better or worse. You know, in my
59:00
Speaker 2: deal world, if you're thinking about small tribes where we evolved,
59:03
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred people,
59:06
Speaker 2: it would be advantageous to have one half who are
59:09
Speaker 2: really good at threat detection, and then maybe the other
59:12
Speaker 2: half who are really good at evaluating that threat.
59:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. Nice, I like that, you know.
59:17
Speaker 2: Working together to try to you know, hey, that's a
59:21
Speaker 2: good possibility. Let's think about it. Yes it is a threat,
59:25
Speaker 2: No it's not, and then move forward. So I think
59:27
Speaker 2: that might be one of the explanations why evolution has
59:30
Speaker 2: kind of built this dichotomy into our society and we're
59:33
Speaker 2: not taking advantage of it. Instead we're using it to
59:35
Speaker 2: turn on.
59:35
Speaker 3: One Well, it's also a potential explanation about how one
59:42
Speaker 3: side is being massively motivated by somebody who is around
59:46
Speaker 3: generating fear and actually playing beautifully into that.
59:51
Speaker 1: He's not the.
59:52
Speaker 3: First, Right, he's not the first you lik in, not
59:54
Speaker 3: the first different countries around more right wing stuff. It's
59:59
Speaker 3: all he's driven around the messaging that rallies them. It's
1:00:03
Speaker 3: always around fear and threat Right.
1:00:06
Speaker 2: You're right, those are very potent motivators.
1:00:09
Speaker 1: Wow, bloody interesting.
1:00:12
Speaker 3: So tell me this, Like, so, as you're discovering all
1:00:17
Speaker 3: this stuff, and I can I can hear in you
1:00:20
Speaker 3: that a lot of the discoveries that you have made,
1:00:23
Speaker 3: it actually made you sort of sit back and look
1:00:26
Speaker 3: at things a bit more objectively and go, wow, we
1:00:30
Speaker 3: need to have a bit more compassion about this people,
1:00:34
Speaker 3: these people, and these people and these people and these people.
1:00:36
Speaker 3: But how does that, aside from that, how does all
1:00:40
Speaker 3: of this knowledge help us to live better lives?
1:00:45
Speaker 2: Yeah? That's that was one of the main takeaways I
1:00:48
Speaker 2: had in the process of writing this book. Exactly like
1:00:51
Speaker 2: you said, I was blown away by some of the
1:00:53
Speaker 2: science that's out there, some of the studies that have
1:00:55
Speaker 2: been done that are shining a light onto these hidden
1:01:00
Speaker 2: forces that are governing or influencing our behavior in ways
1:01:04
Speaker 2: that we have no idea that it's even happening. And yes,
1:01:08
Speaker 2: it might bring up some unsettling questions with regard to
1:01:11
Speaker 2: free will and things like that. But I look at
1:01:15
Speaker 2: it more from a half glass, half full perspective and
1:01:18
Speaker 2: that this knowledge is powerful. You know, if we know
1:01:21
Speaker 2: that certain genes produce undesirable behaviors, we now have the
1:01:26
Speaker 2: technology or you know, it's the advent of Crisper and
1:01:30
Speaker 2: gene editing might be able to eradicate some of these
1:01:34
Speaker 2: genetic defects that cause anomalist behaviors, just like we're using
1:01:39
Speaker 2: Crisper and gene editing to cure sickle cell anemia right now.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: You know, it's a wonderful time to be alive and
1:01:48
Speaker 2: to see how the power of genetics can be utilized
1:01:52
Speaker 2: for human benefit. Epigenetics is the same way. Scientists are
1:01:56
Speaker 2: busy making epigenetic drugs that can either posit methylation marks
1:02:01
Speaker 2: or remove them. And now that we have Crisper, we
1:02:04
Speaker 2: can probably target those modification marks to very specific genes
1:02:09
Speaker 2: and not have like off target effects. And then you know,
1:02:14
Speaker 2: we talked about maybe fixing transgenerational epigenetic inheritance with tools
1:02:20
Speaker 2: like that. And the more we learn, the more we
1:02:23
Speaker 2: do these psychology experiments and learn how humans respond to
1:02:27
Speaker 2: different stimuli and different environments. We can move forward with that.
1:02:31
Speaker 2: And it's a little frustrating because it's such common sense that, yes,
1:02:36
Speaker 2: we need to provide children with outstanding, exceptional environments. You know,
1:02:41
Speaker 2: we can need to remove them from situations that subject
1:02:44
Speaker 2: them from bullying and abuse and put them into encouraging
1:02:48
Speaker 2: environments where they can be curious and learn and grow
1:02:52
Speaker 2: up without you know, fear and paranoia. There was a
1:02:55
Speaker 2: very basic common sense things to do. And now we
1:02:58
Speaker 2: have the biological evidence that suggest that, Look, if we
1:03:02
Speaker 2: don't get our act together as a society and we
1:03:04
Speaker 2: don't invest in these poor children, they're going to grow
1:03:08
Speaker 2: up to be a problem.
1:03:09
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
1:03:10
Speaker 2: Why wait for that?
1:03:11
Speaker 1: Why?
1:03:12
Speaker 2: And to me, it's just from a from a humane perspective.
1:03:15
Speaker 2: You know, we can give all these millions of dollars
1:03:18
Speaker 2: to all these violent activities that the world's engaged in,
1:03:23
Speaker 2: or we can invest it in poor people. But no,
1:03:26
Speaker 2: in America, it's pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right,
1:03:29
Speaker 2: you should be able to get out of poverty. And
1:03:32
Speaker 2: I'm just like, all right, you think about that for
1:03:35
Speaker 2: a yeah, exactly, you read my mind. Just like we
1:03:42
Speaker 2: said at the outset, Paul, there are many different yous
1:03:45
Speaker 2: in your genome, different versions of you. And someone who's
1:03:49
Speaker 2: criticizing a poor person because they can't get out of poverty.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: Let's put your genome into that body and that environment,
1:03:57
Speaker 2: and let's see how you do. And if you do
1:03:59
Speaker 2: that simple thought experiment, I think that would be sufficient
1:04:02
Speaker 2: for a reasonable reasonable person to say, you know, I
1:04:06
Speaker 2: really haven't been very compassionate or smart about this. You know,
1:04:11
Speaker 2: we really do need to be a little more humane
1:04:13
Speaker 2: and how we treat other people who are different than us.
1:04:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:04:16
Speaker 3: Absolutely, to tell me this, But what are you excited
1:04:20
Speaker 3: about from with the future and particularly with emerging technologies
1:04:25
Speaker 3: and AI and.
1:04:26
Speaker 2: All of that in your world.
1:04:29
Speaker 3: Is there anything that you're particularly excited about right now?
1:04:34
Speaker 2: Well, coming from a genetics background, I am really excited
1:04:40
Speaker 2: about the power for gene editing, but I also go
1:04:43
Speaker 2: into it with a little trepidation. I feel the same
1:04:45
Speaker 2: way about AI. I think it can be a marvelous tool,
1:04:50
Speaker 2: but it can also I can also foresee how it
1:04:53
Speaker 2: could radically change society. So, like with respect to gene editing,
1:04:59
Speaker 2: the compromise that forms in my mind is that yes,
1:05:02
Speaker 2: it should be used for you know, like inherited blindness,
1:05:07
Speaker 2: or to rid a family of generations of Huntington's disease,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: or to cure sickle cell anemia. I think those are
1:05:13
Speaker 2: no brainers. If we have the power to fix those,
1:05:16
Speaker 2: I think it would be inhumane not to do it.
1:05:19
Speaker 2: But when you get people who are saying they want
1:05:22
Speaker 2: to tweak this or that gene because it's been linked
1:05:24
Speaker 2: to improving memory or learning, that's where we get into
1:05:28
Speaker 2: a really dangerous area because we don't know enough about
1:05:33
Speaker 2: how genetic networks integrate themselves to produce those sorts of activities.
1:05:38
Speaker 2: And we do see in some mouse models as well
1:05:41
Speaker 2: as in humans who have off the charts intelligence. There's
1:05:45
Speaker 2: trade offs. You know, if you make these tweaks, like
1:05:48
Speaker 2: in a mouse model, for example, to make them enhanced
1:05:51
Speaker 2: with respect to memory or learning, they're not as social
1:05:56
Speaker 2: as they used to be. Interesting, there's something different about them,
1:06:00
Speaker 2: and it just is a warning for us to be
1:06:03
Speaker 2: to proceed with costion when we make a when we
1:06:06
Speaker 2: make a change in a gene that's linked to a
1:06:09
Speaker 2: behavior or personality trait, we could be changing something else
1:06:13
Speaker 2: that might not be very.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: Desirable unintended consequences. Right because gene genes have more that.
1:06:20
Speaker 3: We're complex, very very complex ecosystems.
1:06:25
Speaker 2: And absolutely, and they don't work in isolation, like you said,
1:06:30
Speaker 2: They work with an environment, and a gene mutation in
1:06:33
Speaker 2: one environment may be great, but it might be horrible
1:06:36
Speaker 2: in another environment.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:06:37
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Bill, this has been absolutely brilliant, fascinating.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: I love the conversation.
1:06:45
Speaker 2: It's been a blasphemy. You've asked some excellent questions.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: So please to meet me. Is the name of the book?
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Where do people go to get it?
1:06:53
Speaker 3: And is there are other places where they can follow
1:06:56
Speaker 3: you and your work? And just where are we saying people?
1:07:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, they can buy the book anywhere. It's sold on
1:07:04
Speaker 2: Amazon and all sorts of bookstores, and you can learn
1:07:08
Speaker 2: more about the book. Follow additional articles that I've written
1:07:12
Speaker 2: that are related to the book at author Bill Sullivan
1:07:15
Speaker 2: dot com.
1:07:16
Speaker 1: Author Bill Sullivan dot com.
1:07:18
Speaker 3: Okay, get on at people, and your next book purchase
1:07:23
Speaker 3: should be pleased to meet me by Professor Bill Sullivan.
1:07:27
Speaker 1: Bill, this has been bloody awesome. Thanks very much, Ben, Oh.
1:07:31
Speaker 2: Thanks Paul. I had a blast