back to indexUsing Failures, Movement & Balance to Learn Faster | Huberman Lab Podcast #7
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Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,
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where we discuss science and science-based tools
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for everyday life.
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My name is Andrew Huberman,
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and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology
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at Stanford School of Medicine.
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This podcast is separate
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from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
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It is, however, part of my desire and effort
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to bring you zero cost to consumer information
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about science and science-related tools.
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In keeping with that theme,
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I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
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Our first sponsor is Headspace.
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Headspace is a meditation app that makes meditation easy.
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I've been meditating on and off now for about 30 years,
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although I confess more off than on.
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And that's because I think like for a lot of people,
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sticking to a meditation practice can be pretty challenging.
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I started using Headspace a few years ago,
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and I found that it's really allowed me
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to stick to a meditation practice on a regular basis.
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I meditate anywhere from five to seven times a week.
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The app includes meditations that are all backed
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by scientific peer-reviewed studies,
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and it makes it really easy to start
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and complete the meditations.
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I started using these meditations
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while I was flying a few years back.
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On JetBlue flights,
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they started offering Headspace meditation,
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so that's where I initially started,
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and then I moved over to the app, and I really enjoy it,
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and I derive great benefit from it.
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If you'd like to try Headspace,
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you can go to headspace.com slash special offer,
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and if you do that, you'll get all the meditations
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that Headspace offers for free for one month.
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That's headspace.com slash special offer.
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You get all the meditations for free,
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which is the best offer that Headspace has
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available right now,
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so if you're interested in it, check it out.
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The second sponsor of today's podcast is Athletic Greens.
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Athletic Greens is an all-in-one
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vitamin mineral probiotic drink.
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I started using Athletic Greens in 2012,
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and I've been using it continuously ever since.
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I started using Athletic Greens
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because I found it rather dizzying to know
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which vitamins and minerals to take,
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and Athletic Greens allows me to get
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the full base of all the necessary vitamins and minerals
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in one easy-to-consume drink.
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It also turns out that the drink tastes quite good.
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I mix mine with some lemon juice and some water.
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I'll drink it once or twice a day.
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The probiotics in Athletic Greens are also important to me
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because there are a lot of data now
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supporting the fact that the gut microbiome
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is important for the gut-brain axis,
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for various aspects of cognitive function, immune function,
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metabolic function.
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There's just a huge number of things
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that having a healthy gut microbiome
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has been shown to be important for,
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so by taking Athletic Greens,
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I have that base covered as well.
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If you'd like to try Athletic Greens,
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you can go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman,
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and if you do that, they'll give you a year's supply
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of liquid vitamin D3K2.
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There are also a lot of data now showing
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that vitamin D3 is very important
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for a number of different biological functions.
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In addition, they'll give you five free travel packs
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It can be difficult to mix up powders while on the road,
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you know, when in a car or, you know,
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in a hotel or on a plane, et cetera.
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The travel packs make everything really clean and easy,
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so you'll get the year supply of vitamin D3K2
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plus the five free travel packs
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if you go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman.
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The third sponsor of today's podcast is Made For.
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Made For is a behavioral science company
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that makes learning positive habits and growth mindset easy.
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I've been involved with Made For since the beginning
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as the lead of their scientific advisory.
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Other members of the scientific advisory include,
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for instance, the head of the Chronobiology Unit
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at the National Institutes of Mental Health,
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as well as psychiatrists from Harvard Medical School
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and elsewhere, all of whom are serious about science
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and science-related tools for developing positive habits
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and growth mindset.
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The program is a 10-month program
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during which each month you engage in a specific activity
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designed to encourage and cultivate
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positive habits and growth mindset.
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As well, we hold a monthly Zoom call
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during which we discuss the program,
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people's progress, and answer any questions
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they have directly.
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If you'd like to try Made For,
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you can go to getmadefor.com,
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and if you put Huberman in at checkout,
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you'll get 20% off the program.
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That's getmadefor.com.
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Put Huberman in at checkout and get 20% off the program.
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Today, we're going to talk about
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how to change your nervous system for the better.
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As you recall, your nervous system
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includes your brain and your spinal cord,
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but also all the connections that your brain
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and spinal cord make with the organs of your body
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and all the connections that the organs of your body
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make with your brain and spinal cord.
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This thing that we call the nervous system
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is responsible for everything we know,
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all our behavior, all our emotions,
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everything we feel about ourselves and the outside world,
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everything we think and believe, it's really at the center
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of our entire experience of life and who we are.
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Fortunately, in humans, unlike in other species,
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we can change our nervous system
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by taking some very specific and deliberate actions.
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And today, we're really going to focus on the actions,
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the motor commands and the aspects of movement and balance
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that allow us to change our nervous system.
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It turns out that movement and balance
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actually provide windows or portals into our ability
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to change our nervous system the way we want,
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even if those changes are not about learning new movements
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or learning how to balance, and soon you'll understand why.
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So today, we're going to talk a lot
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about the basic science of neuroplasticity.
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I promise to not use excessive nomenclature,
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there'll be a little bit,
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but I'll try and make it as clear as possible.
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And we're also going to talk a lot about protocols and tools
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that the scientific literature points to and supports
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for changing our nervous system.
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Again, not just for sake of learning new motor movements
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or how to balance better, but for how to feel differently
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about particular experiences, both past, present and future,
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as well as how to learn faster.
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We're not going to discuss hacks, a word I loathe,
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we're not going to discuss gimmicks,
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we're going to discuss mechanism and scientific data
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and the tools that those mechanisms
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and scientific data point to
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so that you can tailor your practices around learning
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to your specific needs and goals.
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So let's begin by just examining the big picture question,
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which is does the brain control behavior?
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And my hope is that everyone is immediately thinking yes.
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The brain and nervous system, we really should say,
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because the brain is just one component of the nervous system
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controls our behavior.
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How does it do that?
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Well, there are a couple of different levels
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that it does that.
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First of all, if we're talking about movement,
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behavior generally means movement.
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If we're talking about movement,
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we have two categories of neurons that are very important
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to think about in the context of neuroplasticity.
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First of all, we have what are called lower motor neurons.
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These are motor neurons that live in our spinal cord.
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If for the aficionados out there,
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for those of you that might be head to medical school
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or just want to learn more about the anatomy,
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they live in the ventral horn of the spinal cord,
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but that doesn't matter.
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If you don't want to know that,
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just know that you have these things
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called lower motor neurons.
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These are neurons that are in the spinal cord,
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but they extend a wire that we call an axon
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out into the peripheral nervous system, into the body.
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And those neurons connect with muscle.
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They send electrical potentials out there
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that allow our muscles to twitch and to contract.
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As a little point of fact, actually,
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we don't have muscle memory.
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There's no such thing as muscle memory.
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They don't know anything.
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They don't have a history.
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They don't have a memory.
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They don't know anything.
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It is the neurons that control those muscles
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and their firing patterns in which all the information
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for motor patterns are stored.
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So your ability to walk is not muscle memory.
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It's neural memory.
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Now, the lower motor neurons,
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while smarter than the muscle, so to speak,
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are not the most brilliant of the motor neurons.
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They are generally involved in doing what they are told.
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And they are told what to do from two sources.
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We have circuits in our brainstem.
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So this would be kind of around your neck deep in the brain
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that are called central pattern generators.
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These are sometimes called CPGs.
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Central pattern generators are what allow us
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to generate repetitive patterns of movement.
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So inhaling and exhaling, inhaling and exhaling,
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subconsciously is controlled by a central pattern generator.
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That just means a collection of neurons.
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If you really want to know,
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they're called the pre-bot singer neurons
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discovered by Jack Feldman and colleagues at UCLA.
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These neurons in the brainstem send information
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down the phrenic nerve and control the diaphragm.
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So it goes inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
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And you don't have to think about that.
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You could think about it,
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and you could change the durations of inhales and exhales
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and change that up.
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But the motor neurons that control that
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are just responding to what the brain is telling it to do.
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The other central pattern generators
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include things like walking.
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The right limb, left limb, right limb, left limb pattern
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that we normally associate with walking
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was learned during childhood.
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And the central pattern generator, sometimes called CPGs,
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tell our lower motor neurons fire.
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Now you fire, now you fire.
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So they are literally saying right, left, right, left.
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They are the marching orders from the brainstem
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to the lower motor neurons.
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So these lower motor neurons do what they are told.
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They are obedient little soldiers
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and they do what they are told.
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And their job is to make the muscles
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contract at specific times.
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Okay, that's all simple.
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But then there are the upper motor neurons.
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The upper motor neurons actually reside in our motor cortex
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way up on top of the brain.
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And they are involved in sending signals
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for deliberate action.
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Okay, so they send signals to the lower motor neurons
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which are the effectors,
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the ones that actually control the muscles,
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but the upper motor neurons are the ones
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that send very specific signals.
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For instance, the signals that would allow you
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to make a cup of coffee in the morning
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or to deliberately engage in any kind of behavior.
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Now you can probably make a cup of coffee in the morning
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without having to think about it too much.
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It's almost reflexive for you now,
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which means that a lot of the information
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about how to perform that particular movement
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has been passed off to circuitry
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that's now more or less in the brainstem
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and below the motor cortex.
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Now, why am I giving you all this detail?
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Well, if you want to change motor patterns,
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you have to know where in the circuitry changes are possible
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and you ought to know where the changes
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are most likely to occur.
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You also need to know how do you signal
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to the brain and nervous system that a change is necessary.
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So let's just pause there,
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return to the initial question that we started with,
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which is does the brain control behavior?
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And the answer is yes, and now you know how.
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It's upper motor neurons, lower motor neurons.
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You've got these things called central pattern generators
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and some connection with the muscle.
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So we've just got basically what was the equivalent
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of the introduction to a college lecture
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on motor control in the nervous system,
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but the point today is all about plasticity.
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How can that be leveraged in order to open up
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this magical thing that we call plasticity
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in order to access changes to our emotional experience
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or to our belief system or to our ability to remember
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and use specific kinds of information
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for say math or language, et cetera?
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Well, what I'm not going to tell you
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is that you need to go running or you need to go biking
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or that simply going through motor patterns
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is going to open up plasticity,
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because I hate to tell you this,
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but as beneficial as exercise is,
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it does not open plasticity unless you do certain things.
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And I will tell you exactly
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what those certain things are today.
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To be clear, I think exercise is wonderful and healthy,
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can improve cardiovascular function,
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maintain strength, bone density, all that good stuff,
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but just working out or doing your exercise
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of various kinds will not change your nervous system.
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It will maintain it
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and it can certainly improve other health metrics,
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but it is not going to open up the window for plasticity.
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The question we need to ask
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is can behavior change the brain?
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We already agreed that the brain can change behavior,
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but can behavior change the brain?
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And the answer is yes,
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provided that behavior is different enough in specific ways
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from the behaviors that you already know how to perform.
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Let me repeat that.
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Can behavior change the brain?
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And the answer is yes,
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provided that behavior is different enough
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from the sorts of behaviors
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that you already know how to perform.
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And I should have added the word well,
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because you can't obviously perform a behavior
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that you don't know how to perform
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because you don't know how to do it yet.
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But there's a key element to accessing neuroplasticity
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that frankly, I don't see out there
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in the general discussion about neuroplasticity.
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In the general discussion about neuroplasticity
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and about learning, I hear all these gimmicks
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about using different ways to remember
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lots of people's names
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and arranging things into their first letters
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and mnemonics and all this kind of stuff,
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which frankly to me feels really gimmicky.
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And I think that if you look at super learners,
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they tend to be people that have a process
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of say extreme memory,
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but people who have extreme memory,
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generally the literature shows us
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are pretty poor at other things.
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So I don't think most of us are interested
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in walking around knowing how to remember everything.
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In fact, there are some interesting studies
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looking at humans who over-remember
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and they suffer tremendously
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because they remember all sorts of things
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like the number at the top of the receipt at the bodega
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that they bought at Coca-Cola 10 years ago.
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This is useless information for most people.
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They don't do well in life really.
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So the goal isn't to remember everything,
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the goal is to be selective about your brain changes.
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And when we talk about brain changes,
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I want to highlight adaptive changes.
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There's a whole category of things
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that we're going to discuss
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when we talk about traumatic brain injury and dementia,
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a topic for a future episode,
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about all the things that happen when you have damaged
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your nervous system or you're missing neurons.
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But today I really want to talk about something
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that I think is very near and dear to many of your hearts,
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which is what are the behaviors that you can engage in
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to access neuroplasticity
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so that then you can apply that plasticity
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to the specific things that you want to learn or unlearn.
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This is very important because I don't want people
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to get the impression that we're really talking
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about learning a bunch of motor movements.
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You may be an athlete, you might not be an athlete.
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You might want to learn how to dance, you might not.
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You might want to learn how to dance
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and get better at remembering and learning languages,
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for instance, or at unlearning
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some difficult emotional experience,
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meaning you want to remove the emotional load
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from a particular memory of an experience.
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What we're talking about today is using behavior
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as a gate to enter states of mind and body
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that allow you to access plasticity.
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So let's talk about the different kinds of plasticity
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that are available to us,
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because those will point directly
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towards the type of protocols that we should engage in
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to change ourselves for the better,
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the so-called adaptive plasticity.
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There is something called representational plasticity.
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Representational plasticity
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is just your internal representation of the outside world.
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So you have a map of auditory space, believe it or not,
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meaning you have neurons that respond
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when something over on my right happens,
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like I'm snapping my fingers over to my right,
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can't snap as well on my left,
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which is the whole thing into itself.
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Yeah, weak over there on the left side.
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But when I do that,
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there are different neurons respond to those.
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We have a map of visual space.
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Certain neurons are seeing things
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in certain portions of visual space and not others.
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We have a map of motor space,
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meaning when we move our limbs in particular directions,
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we know where those limbs are,
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because even if we can't see them,
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we have what's called proprioceptive feedback.
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So we have knowledge about where our limbs are.
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In fact, people that lack certain neurons
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for proprioceptive feedback,
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they are very poor at controlling their motor behavior.
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They get injured a lot.
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It's actually a terrible situation.
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So we've got all these representations inside,
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and we have maps of our motor commands.
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We know that, for instance,
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if I want to reach out and grab the pen in front of me,
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that I need to generate a certain amount of force,
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so I rarely overshoot.
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I rarely miss the pen, okay?
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So our maps of the motor world
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and our maps of the sensory world are merged.
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The way to create plasticity
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is to create mismatches or errors in how we perform things.
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And this, I think, is an amazing and important feature
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of neuroplasticity that is highly underappreciated.
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The way to create plasticity
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is to send signals to the brain that something is wrong,
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something is different, and something isn't being achieved.
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I think this will completely reframe
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the way that most people think about plasticity.
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Most of us think about plasticity as,
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okay, we're going to get into this optimal learning state
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or flow, and then suddenly we're going to be able
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to do all the things that we wish that we could do.
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Well, I hate to break it to you,
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but flow is an expression of what we already know how to do.
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It is not a state for learning.
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And I'm willing to go to bat
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with any of the flow anistas out there
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that want to challenge me on that one.
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Flow is an expression of nervous system capabilities
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that are already embedded in us.
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Errors and making errors out of sync
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with what we would like to do
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is how our nervous system is cued
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through very distinct biological mechanisms
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that something isn't going right,
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and therefore certain neurochemicals are deployed
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that'll signal the neural circuits that they have to change.
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So let's talk about the experiments
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that support what I just said,
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because I'm about to tell you that making errors
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over and over and over again
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is the route to shaping your nervous system
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so that it performs better and better and better.
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And I'm not going to tell you that the last rep of a set
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where you hit failure in the gym
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is anything like neuroplasticity.
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You hear that too, that it's pushing to that point
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of a cliff where you just can't function anymore.
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That's the signal, that's not the signal.
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That's a distinct neuromuscular phenomenon
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that bears zero resemblance
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to what it takes to get neuroplasticity.
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So let's talk about errors and making errors
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and why and how that triggers the release of chemicals
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that then allow us to not just learn the thing
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that we're doing in the motor sense,
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play the piano, dance, et cetera,
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but it also creates an environment to milieu within the brain
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that allows us to then go learn how to couple
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or uncouple a particular emotion to an experience
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or better language learning or better mathematical learning.
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It's a really fundamental aspect of how we're built.
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And when you look at it,
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it's actually very straightforward.
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It's a series of logical steps
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that once you learn how to open those hatches,
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it becomes very straightforward to deploy.
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Last episode, we discussed some of the basic principles
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of neuroplasticity.
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If you didn't hear that episode, no problem.
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I'll just review it quickly,
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which is that it's a falsehood that everything that we do
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and experience changes our brain.
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The brain changes when certain neurochemicals,
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namely acetylcholine, epinephrine, and dopamine
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are released in ways and in the specific times
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that allow for neural circuits to be marked for change
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and then the change occurs later during sleep.
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I'll review that later,
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but basically you need a certain cocktail of chemicals
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released in the brain in order for a particular behavior
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to reshape the way that our brain works.
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So the question really is,
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what allows those neurochemicals to be released?
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And last episode, it talked all about focus.
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If you haven't seen or heard that episode,
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you might want to check it out
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about some specific tools and practices
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that can allow you to build up your capacity for focus
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and release certain chemicals in that cocktail.
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But today we're going to talk about the other chemicals
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in the cocktail, in particular dopamine.
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And we're really going to center our discussion
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around this issue of making errors
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and why making errors is actually the signal
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that tells the brain, okay, it's time to change,
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or more generally, it's time to pay attention to things
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so that you change.
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And I really want to distinguish this point really clearly,
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which is that I'm going to talk today a lot about motor
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and vestibular, meaning balance programs,
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but not just for learning motor commands and balance,
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not just for learning new motor skills and balance,
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but also for setting a stage or a kind of condition
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in your brain where you can go learn other things as well.
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So let's talk about some classic experiments
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that really nail down what's most important
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in this discussion about plasticity.
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So I mentioned last episode,
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and I'll just tell you right now, again,
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the brain is incredibly plastic from about birth
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until about age 25.
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Passive experience will shape the brain
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just because of the way that the chemicals
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that are sloshing around in there
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and the way that the neurons are arranged
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and all sorts of things.
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The brain's job is to customize itself
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in response to its experience.
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And then somewhere about 25,
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it's not like the day after your 26th birthday,
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plasticity closes.
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There's a kind of tapering off of plasticity,
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and you need different mechanisms
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to engage plasticity as an adult.
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We're mostly going to be talking about adult plasticity today
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but I got a lot of questions about,
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well, what about if I'm younger than 25?
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Well, first of all, that's great.
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I wish I had a time machine, but I don't.
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Because as I've said before,
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the stinger is when you're young,
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your brain is very plastic,
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but you have less control over your experience.
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When you're older,
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generally you have more control over your experience,
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but your brain is less plastic.
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So if you're already asking the question
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as a 20-year-old or a 15-year-old,
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what can I do now that's really gonna enhance my brain?
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I guess the simple question would answer,
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excuse me, would be an aside
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which we get the broadest education you can possible.
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That means math, chemistry, physics, literature, music,
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learn how to play an instrument.
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I'm saying that because I wish I had, et cetera.
link |
Get a broad training in a number of things
link |
and find the thing that really captures your passion
link |
and excitement and then put a ton of additional effort there.
link |
That's what I recommend, including emotional development.
link |
Maybe a topic for a future episode.
link |
But if you are an adult or if you are a young person,
link |
knowing how to tap into these plasticity mechanisms
link |
You need these chemicals deployed in the nervous system
link |
in order to mark whatever nerve cells happen to be firing
link |
in the time afterward for change.
link |
And people are obsessed with asking,
link |
what supplements, what drugs, what conditions,
link |
what machines will allow for that?
link |
But there's a natural set of conditions that allow for that.
link |
When we came into this world,
link |
we learned to take our different maps of experience,
link |
our motor maps, our auditory maps, our visual maps,
link |
and to link them, we align those maps.
link |
The simplest example is the one I gave before.
link |
If I hear something off to my right, like a click,
link |
like that, it could come from my finger snapping
link |
or it could come from something generated by somebody else
link |
or something else to my right, I look to my right.
link |
If I hear it on the left, I look to my left.
link |
If I hear it right in front of me,
link |
I keep looking right in front of me.
link |
And if I hear it behind me, I turn around.
link |
And that's because our maps of visual space
link |
and our maps of auditory space and our maps of motor space
link |
are aligned to one another in perfect register.
link |
It's an incredible feature of our nervous system.
link |
It takes place in a structure called the superior colliculus,
link |
although you don't need to know that name.
link |
Superior colliculus has layers,
link |
literally stacks of neurons like in a sandwich
link |
where the zero point right in front of me,
link |
or maybe 10 or 15 degrees off to my right
link |
or 10 or 15 degrees off to my left
link |
are aligned so that the auditory neurons,
link |
the ones that care about sounds at 15 degrees to my right,
link |
sit directly below the neurons that look at 15 degrees
link |
to my right in my visual system.
link |
And when I reach over to this direction,
link |
there's a signal that's sent down through those layers
link |
that says 15 degrees off to the right
link |
is the direction to look, it's the direction to listen,
link |
and it's the direction to move if I need to move.
link |
So there's an alignment, and this is really powerful.
link |
And this is what allows us to move through space
link |
and function in our lives in a really fluid way.
link |
It's set up during development,
link |
but there have been some important experiments
link |
that have revealed that these maps are plastic,
link |
meaning they can shift, they're subject to neuroplasticity,
link |
and there are specific rules that allow us to shift them.
link |
So here's the key experiment.
link |
The key experiment was done by a colleague of mine,
link |
who's now retired, but whose work is absolutely fundamental
link |
in the field of neuroplasticity, Eric Knudsen.
link |
The Knudsen lab and many of the Knudsen lab
link |
scientific offspring showed that if one
link |
is to wear prism glasses that shift the visual field,
link |
that eventually there'll be a shift
link |
in the representation of the auditory and motor maps too.
link |
Now, what they initially did
link |
is they looked at young subjects,
link |
and what they did is they moved the visual world
link |
by making them wear prism glasses,
link |
so that for instance, if my pen is out in front of me
link |
at five degrees off center,
link |
so just a little bit off center,
link |
if you're listening to this,
link |
this would be like just a little bit to my right,
link |
but in these prism glasses,
link |
I actually see that pen way over far on my right,
link |
so it's actually here, but I see it over there
link |
because I'm wearing prisms on my eyes.
link |
What happens is in the first day or so,
link |
you ask people or you ask animal subjects or whatever
link |
to reach for this object,
link |
and they reach to the wrong place
link |
because they're seeing it where it isn't.
link |
This gets especially complicated
link |
when you start including sounds,
link |
when you have a thing off to your right making a sound,
link |
but the thing is actually right here,
link |
so you're hearing the sound at one location
link |
and you're seeing the object at another location
link |
because you're wearing these prisms,
link |
so your image of the world is totally distorted.
link |
Or in experiments done by other groups,
link |
they wear glasses, subjects wear glasses
link |
that completely invert the visual world
link |
so that everything is upside down,
link |
which is an extreme example of these representational maps
link |
being flipped or shifted.
link |
But what you find is that in young individuals,
link |
within a day or two,
link |
they start adjusting their motor behavior
link |
in exactly the right way
link |
so that they always reach to the correct location.
link |
So they hear a sound at one location,
link |
they see the object that ought to make that sound
link |
at a different location,
link |
and they somehow are able to adjust their motor behavior
link |
to reach to the correct location.
link |
It's incredible, it's absolutely incredible.
link |
Or in the case of the people
link |
who look at the world upside down,
link |
they somehow are able to navigate this upside down world
link |
even though we're completely used to
link |
our feet being on the floor and not on the ceiling
link |
and people not walking at us
link |
by hanging off the ceiling like bats, amazing.
link |
And what it tells us is that these maps
link |
that are aligned to one another
link |
can move and shift and rotate and even flip themselves.
link |
And it happens best in young individuals.
link |
If you do this in older individuals,
link |
in most cases it takes a very long time
link |
for the maps to shift and in some cases they never shift.
link |
So this is a very experimental scenario
link |
but it's an important one to understand
link |
because it really tamps down the fact
link |
that we have the capacity to create dramatic shifts
link |
in our representation of the outside world.
link |
So how can we get plasticity as adult
link |
that mimics the plasticity that we get when we are juveniles?
link |
Well, the Knudsen lab and other labs have looked at this
link |
and it's really interesting.
link |
First of all, we have to ask
link |
what is the signal for plasticity?
link |
Is it just having prism glasses on?
link |
No, because they did that experiment and ruled that out.
link |
Is it just the fact that the visual thing is over to my,
link |
appears to be far over to my right
link |
when in fact it's right in front of me?
link |
No, the signal that generates the plasticity
link |
is the making of errors.
link |
It's the reaches and failures
link |
that signal to the nervous system that this is not working
link |
and therefore the shifts start to take place.
link |
And this is so fundamentally important
link |
because I think most people think,
link |
oh, well, practice is gonna be,
link |
I have to access beginner's mind,
link |
which is a great concept actually.
link |
It's about approaching things, expecting to make errors,
link |
I think I am a believer in beginner's mind,
link |
but people understandably get frustrated.
link |
Like they're trying to learn a piece on the piano
link |
and they don't know, they can't do it
link |
or they're trying to write a piece of code
link |
or they're trying to access some sort of motor behavior
link |
and they can't do it.
link |
And the frustration drives them crazy.
link |
And like, I can't do it, I can't do it.
link |
When they don't realize that the errors themselves
link |
are signaling to the brain and nervous system,
link |
something's not working.
link |
And of course the brain doesn't understand the words,
link |
something isn't working.
link |
The brain doesn't even understand frustration
link |
as an emotional state.
link |
The brain understands the neurochemicals that are released,
link |
namely epinephrine and acetylcholine,
link |
but also, and we'll get into this, the molecule dopamine,
link |
when we start to approximate the correct behavior
link |
just a little bit and we start getting a little bit right.
link |
So what happens is when we make errors,
link |
the nervous system kind of, I don't wanna say freaks out
link |
because it's a very mechanistic and controlled situation,
link |
but the nervous system starts releasing neurotransmitters
link |
and neuromodulators that say,
link |
we better change something in the circuitry.
link |
And so errors are the basis for neuroplasticity
link |
And I wish that this was more prominent out there.
link |
I guess this is why I'm saying it.
link |
And humans do not like this feeling of frustration
link |
and making errors.
link |
The few that do, do exceedingly well in whatever pursuits
link |
they happen to be involved in.
link |
The ones that don't generally don't do well.
link |
They generally don't learn much.
link |
And if you think about it,
link |
why would your nervous system ever change?
link |
Why would it ever change?
link |
Unless there was something to be afraid of,
link |
something that made us feel awful will signal
link |
that the nervous system needs to change,
link |
or there's an error in our performance.
link |
So it turns out that the feedback of these errors,
link |
the reaching to the wrong location
link |
starts to release a number of things.
link |
And now you've heard about them many times,
link |
but this would be epinephrine, it increases alertness,
link |
acetylcholine focus.
link |
And this is why frustration that leads us
link |
to just kind of quit and walk away from the endeavor
link |
is the absolute worst thing.
link |
But because if acetylcholine is released,
link |
it creates an opportunity to focus on the error margin,
link |
the distance between what it is that you're doing
link |
and what it is that you would like to do.
link |
And then the nervous system starts to make changes
link |
almost immediately in order to try
link |
and get the behavior right.
link |
And when you start getting it even a little bit right,
link |
that third molecule comes online or is released,
link |
which is dopamine,
link |
which allows for the plastic changes to occur very fast.
link |
Now, this is what all happens very naturally
link |
in young brains, but in old brains,
link |
it tends to be pretty slow except for in two conditions.
link |
So let me just pause and just say this.
link |
If you are uncomfortable making errors
link |
and you get frustrated easily,
link |
if you leverage that frustration
link |
toward drilling deeper into the endeavor,
link |
you are setting yourself up
link |
for a terrific set of plasticity mechanisms to engage.
link |
But if you take that frustration
link |
and you walk away from the endeavor,
link |
you are essentially setting up plasticity
link |
to rewire you according to what happens afterwards,
link |
which is generally feeling pretty miserable.
link |
So now you can kind of start to appreciate why it is
link |
that continuing to drill into a process
link |
to the point of frustration,
link |
but then staying with that process for a little bit longer,
link |
and I'll define exactly what I mean by a little bit,
link |
is the most important thing for adult learning,
link |
as well as childhood learning,
link |
but adult learning in particular.
link |
Now, the Newton Lab did two very important
link |
sets of experiments.
link |
The first one was published in Nature,
link |
very important study,
link |
which showed that juveniles can make these massive shifts
link |
in their map representations,
link |
meaning you can shift the visual world using visual prisms
link |
and very quickly young individuals
link |
can shift their representations of the world
link |
so that they learn to reach to the correct location.
link |
They get a lot of plasticity all at once,
link |
and it happens very fast
link |
in the period of just a couple of days.
link |
In adults, it tends to be very slow,
link |
and most individuals never actually accomplish
link |
the full map shift.
link |
They don't get the plasticity.
link |
And here, we're talking about map shifts,
link |
but this could be learning a new language.
link |
This could be any number of different things
link |
that one were attempting.
link |
So what we're saying is what I already said before,
link |
which is that we learn very well as youngsters,
link |
but not as adults after 25.
link |
But then what they did
link |
is they started making the increment of change smaller.
link |
So instead of shifting the world a huge amount
link |
by putting prisms that shifted the visual world
link |
all the way over to the right,
link |
they did this incrementally.
link |
So first, they put on prisms
link |
that shifted it just a little bit,
link |
just like seven degrees, I believe was the exact number.
link |
And then it was 14 degrees, and then it was 28 degrees.
link |
And so what they found was that the adult nervous system
link |
can tolerate smaller and smaller errors over time,
link |
but that you can stack those errors
link |
so that you can get a lot of plasticity.
link |
Put simply, incremental learning as an adult
link |
is absolutely essential.
link |
You are not gonna get massive shifts
link |
in your representations of the outside world.
link |
So how do you make small errors as opposed to big errors?
link |
Well, the key is smaller bouts of focused learning
link |
for smaller bits of information.
link |
It's a mistake to try and learn a lot of information
link |
in one learning bout as an adult.
link |
What these papers from the Knudsen Lab show
link |
and what others have gone on to show
link |
is that the adult nervous system is fully capable
link |
of engaging in a huge amount of plasticity,
link |
but you need to do it in smaller increments
link |
per learning epoch or per learning episode.
link |
So how would you do this?
link |
Well, let's say, for instance, I'm terrible at free throws.
link |
So let's say I wanted to learn free throws.
link |
I'm 45 years old, so I'm well past the 25 and under mark.
link |
I'm gonna make errors, I'm gonna make a lot of errors.
link |
If I go into learning free throws,
link |
knowing that errors are the gate to plasticity,
link |
well, then I feel a little bit better,
link |
but I still have to aim for the rim of the basket
link |
or the net, basically showing how little
link |
I know about basketball.
link |
But I think I know the general themes around basketball.
link |
It involves a net, a backboard, and a ball, of course.
link |
So I go to the free throw line and I'll throw.
link |
How long should I go?
link |
Well, until I'm hitting the point of frustration,
link |
and at that point, continuing probably for anywhere
link |
from 10 to 100 more trials should be my limit, right?
link |
That should be my limit if I want to improve
link |
some specific aspect of the motor behavior.
link |
And so the question then is,
link |
what should I be paying attention to?
link |
What should I be focusing on?
link |
Well, obviously trying to get the ball into the basket,
link |
but the beauty of motor learning is that the circuits
link |
for auditory and visual and motor
link |
more or less teach themselves.
link |
I don't necessarily have to be paying attention
link |
to exactly what the contact of my fingers with the ball
link |
or some random feature,
link |
like whether or not I'm bending my knees or not.
link |
The key is to try a number of different parameters
link |
until I start to approximate the behavior
link |
that I want to get a little bit better
link |
and then trying to get consistent about that.
link |
Now, many of you involved in sports learning will say,
link |
okay, well, that's obvious, it's just incremental learning.
link |
But the key thing is in those errors.
link |
By isolating the errors and making a number of errors
link |
in a particular aspect of the motor movement,
link |
it signals to the brain that it's plastic.
link |
And if I leave that episode of going
link |
and trying to learn how to shoot free throws,
link |
my brain is still plastic.
link |
Plasticity is a state of the brain and nervous system.
link |
It's not just geared toward the specific thing
link |
I'm trying to learn.
link |
So there are two aspects to plasticity
link |
that I think we really need to highlight.
link |
One is that there's plasticity geared toward the thing
link |
that you are trying to learn specifically.
link |
And then there are states of mind and body
link |
that allow us to access plasticity.
link |
Now, toward the end of this episode,
link |
I'm going to spell out specific protocols
link |
in a little more detail.
link |
That free throw example might not correlate
link |
with what you want to learn.
link |
Actually, I don't have a huge desire to learn free throws.
link |
I've more or less given up on basketball
link |
and free throws in particular.
link |
But I think that it's important to understand
link |
that motor movements are the most straightforward way
link |
to access states of plasticity.
link |
And that can be for sake of learning the motor movement
link |
or for sake of accessing plasticity more generally.
link |
One very important aspect to getting plasticity as an adult
link |
is not just smaller increments, meaning shorter bouts.
link |
So I gave an example of another 100 free throws or something
link |
but going out there and just getting my 10,000 free throws
link |
all at once or packing as much as I can into one episode
link |
is not going to be as efficient for me
link |
as shorter bouts of intense learning as an adult.
link |
Because the error signals are not as well defined.
link |
To my nervous system,
link |
it's not going to know what needs to change.
link |
And so this is really the key element
link |
of incremental learning,
link |
is that you're trying to signal to the nervous system
link |
at least one component that needs to change.
link |
The nervous system needs to know what the error is.
link |
Now, when I shoot free throws, Lord knows,
link |
there are a lot of different kinds of errors that happen.
link |
Probably the way I'm bending my knees, the arc of the ball,
link |
the way I'm organizing my shoulder
link |
is probably where my eyes are, lots of things.
link |
So which ones to focus on.
link |
And that's what I said before,
link |
the beauty of the motor system is
link |
I don't have to worry about all of that.
link |
I just need to get the reps in a number of times
link |
and the nervous system will figure out
link |
how far off my motor commands are
link |
at the level of these maps that I described earlier,
link |
how far those deviate from the desired behavior,
link |
getting the ball into the basket.
link |
And it will start making adjustments.
link |
But as I make adjustments,
link |
or as my nervous system makes adjustments for me,
link |
the key thing is to not start adding a variety of new errors
link |
because then it gets confused.
link |
And so this is why short learning bouts
link |
are absolutely essential.
link |
So let's say it's for learning an instrument as an adult,
link |
probably anywhere from seven minutes to 30 minutes
link |
provided that you're fully attending, you're very focused,
link |
is going to be a pretty significant stimulus
link |
to inspire plasticity in the nervous system.
link |
Now, there is one way to get a lot of plasticity
link |
all at once as an adult.
link |
There is that kind of holy grail thing
link |
of getting massive plasticity
link |
as you would when you were a young person, but as an adult.
link |
And the Knudsen lab revealed this
link |
by setting a very serious contingency on the learning.
link |
What they did was they had a situation
link |
where subjects had to find food
link |
that was displaced in their visual world,
link |
again, by putting prisms,
link |
and they had to find the food and the food made a noise.
link |
There was a noise set kind of the location of the food
link |
through an array of speakers.
link |
Basically, what they found was that
link |
if people have to adjust their visual world
link |
in order to get food, the plasticity would eventually occur,
link |
but it was very slow as an adult.
link |
It was very, very slow.
link |
Unless they actually had to hunt that food.
link |
They actually, in order to eat at all,
link |
they needed plasticity.
link |
And then what happened was remarkable.
link |
What they observed is that the plasticity as an adult
link |
can be as dramatic, as robust as it is in a young person
link |
or in a young animal subject,
link |
provided that there's a serious incentive
link |
for the plasticity to occur.
link |
And this is absolutely important to understand,
link |
which is that how badly we need or want the plasticity
link |
determines how fast that plasticity will arrive,
link |
which is incredible because the brain is just neurons
link |
and soup of chemicals.
link |
So with this, but this means that the importance of something
link |
how important something is to us
link |
actually gates the rate of plasticity
link |
and the magnitude of plasticity.
link |
And this is why just passively going through most things,
link |
going through the motions, as we say,
link |
or just getting our reps in quote unquote
link |
is not sufficient to get the nervous system to change.
link |
This study, a beautiful study
link |
published in the Journal of Neuroscience shows
link |
that if we actually have to accomplish something
link |
in order to eat or in order to get our ration of income,
link |
we will reshape our nervous system very, very quickly.
link |
So the nervous system has a capacity to change
link |
at a tremendous rate to an enormous degree
link |
at any stage of life,
link |
provided it's important enough that that happened.
link |
And I think some of you might be saying,
link |
well, duh, that's obvious.
link |
If it's really crucial,
link |
then of course it's gonna change faster,
link |
but it didn't have to be that way.
link |
And for most people who are trying to learn
link |
how to learn faster or learn better,
link |
they probably, in most cases,
link |
they are hitting a limit
link |
because the need to change is not crucial enough.
link |
And I think there are a number of places
link |
where this has an important relevance
link |
in the people who are battling addiction, for instance.
link |
I will be the first to say that I sympathize with the fact
link |
that addictions have a biological component.
link |
There's clearly cases where people struggle tremendously
link |
to change their behavior and their nervous system,
link |
in some cases, is so disrupted
link |
by whatever substance they've been abusing
link |
or behavior that they've been engaging in
link |
that it's that much harder for them to change.
link |
But we've also seen incredible examples
link |
where when people have to change from an internal standpoint
link |
from their own belief and desire to change,
link |
that massive change is possible.
link |
And so I think that the studies that Knudsen did
link |
showing that incremental learning
link |
can create a huge degree of plasticity as an adult,
link |
as well as when the contingency is very high,
link |
meaning we need to eat or we need to make an income
link |
or we need to do something that's vitally important for us,
link |
that plasticity can happen in these enormous leaps
link |
just like they can in adolescence and young adulthood.
link |
That points to the fact
link |
that it has to be a neurochemical system.
link |
There has to be an underlying mechanism, right?
link |
This wasn't a case of sticking a wire into the brain
link |
or taking a particular drug.
link |
All the chemicals that we're about to talk about
link |
are released from drug stores, if you will,
link |
chemical stores that already reside in all of our brains.
link |
And the key is how to tap into those stores.
link |
And so we're going to next talk about
link |
what are the specific behaviors
link |
that liberate particular categories of chemicals
link |
that allow us to make the most of incremental learning
link |
and that set the stage for plasticity
link |
that is similar enough
link |
or mimics these high contingency states
link |
like the need to get food
link |
or really create a sense of internal urgency,
link |
chemical urgency, if you will.
link |
If you've heard previous episodes of this podcast,
link |
you may have heard me talk about ultradian rhythms,
link |
which are these 90 minute rhythms
link |
that break up our 24 hour day.
link |
They help break up our sleep into different cycles of sleep
link |
like REM sleep and non-REM sleep.
link |
And in waking states, they help us,
link |
or I should say they break up our day in ways
link |
that allow us to learn best
link |
within 90 minute cycles, et cetera.
link |
So some of you might be saying,
link |
wait, you've been talking about ultradian cycles
link |
and a moment ago you were talking about
link |
seven minute or 12 minute or 30 minute learning cycles.
link |
Today we're really talking about
link |
how to tap into plasticity
link |
through the completion of a task
link |
or working towards something repetitively and making errors.
link |
And so just to frame this
link |
in the context of the ultradian cycle,
link |
you might sit down,
link |
decide that you're going to learn a conversational French,
link |
which would mean that you probably
link |
don't already speak French.
link |
So you're going to sit down,
link |
you're going to decide,
link |
you're going to learn some nouns and some verbs.
link |
You might do some practice sets.
link |
The ultradian cycle says that
link |
for the first five to 10 minutes of doing that,
link |
your mind is going to drift
link |
and your focus will probably kick in
link |
provided that you're restricting your visual world
link |
to just the material in front of you,
link |
something we talked about last episode,
link |
somewhere around the 10 or 15 minute mark.
link |
you're probably going to get about an hour
link |
of deliberate kind of tunnel vision learning in there.
link |
Your mind will drift.
link |
And then toward the end of that,
link |
what is now an hour and 10 or hour and 20 minute cycle,
link |
your brain will start to flicker in and out.
link |
You might start thinking about what you need to eat
link |
or the fact that you have to use the bathroom or something.
link |
And then by the 90 minutes,
link |
it's probably time to just stop the learning bout
link |
and go do something else,
link |
maybe return for a second learning bout later,
link |
but maybe take a nap afterwards
link |
or something to enhance the learning,
link |
but that it's going to happen within
link |
about a 90 minute block,
link |
you're going to go through that cycle of learning.
link |
But when I refer to the seven or 12 or 30 minutes
link |
what I mean is when you're really in a mode
link |
of repeating errors, not deliberately,
link |
you're trying your best to accomplish something
link |
and you're failing.
link |
You're absolutely failing.
link |
You're trying to remember, say, the sign language alphabet.
link |
I was trying to teach myself this recently,
link |
and then I keep repeating and repeating,
link |
and then you get to a certain point
link |
where I kept making errors,
link |
making errors, making errors.
link |
You want to keep making errors for this period of time
link |
that I'm saying will last anywhere
link |
for about seven to 30 minutes.
link |
It is exceedingly frustrating,
link |
but that frustration, it liberates the chemical cues
link |
that signal that plasticity needs to happen.
link |
And they also signal the particular neurons that are active.
link |
So in the case of sign language,
link |
it might be the ones that control my hand movements
link |
as well as me thinking about what the different letters are.
link |
It's signaling different components within the networks
link |
of between the brain and body.
link |
And it's trying to figure out,
link |
wait, where are these errors coming from?
link |
Where are the errors coming from?
link |
Ah, it's those neurons.
link |
They're making the mistakes.
link |
They're making the mistakes.
link |
They're making the mistakes.
link |
And it essentially highlights that pathway for change.
link |
And it is the case that when we come back a day or two later
link |
in a learning bout after a nap or a night or two
link |
of deep rest, then what we find is that
link |
we can remember certain things and the motor pathways work.
link |
And we don't always get it perfectly,
link |
but we get a lot of it right whereas we got it wrong before.
link |
So that seven to 30 minute intense learning bout
link |
is within the ultradian cycle.
link |
And I want to be clear about that.
link |
And some people can tolerate many of these per day.
link |
Most people can only tolerate one or two, maybe three.
link |
This is intense work.
link |
If, you know, shooting free throws,
link |
you could probably do it all day.
link |
But what I'm talking about is really trying
link |
to accelerate plasticity by having a period
link |
of the seven to 30 minutes per learning bout
link |
that is specifically about making errors.
link |
I want to really underscore that.
link |
And it's not about, as I mentioned before,
link |
coming up with some little hack or trick
link |
or something of that sort.
link |
It's really about trying to cue the nervous system
link |
that something needs to change
link |
because otherwise it simply won't change.
link |
Now, there's another aspect to learning.
link |
I think it's only fair to mention,
link |
which is that we can all learn very easily
link |
when there's something very bad happens to us.
link |
And I don't wish this on anyone,
link |
but it is the case that if something really terrible happens
link |
that we will have a lifetime memory for that event.
link |
There are processes that allow us to uncouple
link |
the emotional load of that event.
link |
I talked about some of those a few episodes back,
link |
the episode on dreams, trauma, and hallucinations.
link |
And we're going to return to trauma release, PTSD,
link |
and some of those other themes in a future episode.
link |
But the reason why negative experiences
link |
can be wired into us so quickly
link |
is because our nervous system's main job is to keep us safe.
link |
But at a deeper level, it's because negative experiences
link |
cue us to the fact that whatever's happening
link |
that's really bad is very different
link |
than the other things that tend to happen before.
link |
So most of our experience doesn't remap us,
link |
but those negative experiences
link |
deploy high levels of norepinephrine,
link |
high levels of acetylcholine, and really make,
link |
so that whatever it is that we experience
link |
in that bad episode is essentially cued up.
link |
And so we're on the lookout for it.
link |
And this has a number of negative effects,
link |
but in terms of psychological and emotional effects,
link |
but it is really a process designed to keep us safe.
link |
The other ways in which we can learn more quickly
link |
besides just making errors
link |
is when something really surprises us.
link |
And if we're positively surprised by something,
link |
or we are just flooded with this molecule dopamine,
link |
then there's a great opportunity for plasticity.
link |
Dopamine is a molecule
link |
that's almost always associated with pleasure
link |
and with the accomplishment of a particular goal,
link |
but it's really also a molecule of motivation.
link |
It's a molecule that is released inside of us
link |
when we think we're on the right path.
link |
And it does have a capacity to increase neuroplasticity,
link |
motivation, et cetera, it's released in response
link |
to a number of natural behaviors,
link |
just that help with the progression of ours
link |
and other species, things like food, sex,
link |
in some sense, social connection,
link |
although that's more serotonin,
link |
and serotonin doesn't have the same effects on plasticity,
link |
quite the same, and we'll talk about a few later.
link |
But dopamine is when we think we're on the right path
link |
toward an external goal, a little bit is released,
link |
and it tends to give us more motivation toward that goal.
link |
I think everyone could stand to enhance the rate of learning
link |
by doing the following.
link |
Learn to attach dopamine in a subjective way
link |
to this process of making errors,
link |
because that's really combining two modes of plasticity
link |
in ways that together can accelerate the plasticity.
link |
So earlier I talked about making errors
link |
and having a focus bout of learning
link |
that includes making a lot of errors
link |
inside of that learning bout,
link |
that is going to be frustrating,
link |
but the frustration itself is the cue,
link |
and epinephrine will be very high under those conditions,
link |
but if you can just subjectively associate that experience
link |
with something good and that you want to continue
link |
down that path as opposed to quitting
link |
when you hit the point of frustration,
link |
well, then you now start to create a synergy
link |
between the dopamine that's released
link |
when we subjectively think something is good
link |
or tell ourselves something is good,
link |
and that situation of making failures.
link |
In other words, making failing repetitively,
link |
provided we're engaged in a very specific set of behaviors
link |
when we do it, as well as telling ourselves
link |
that those failures are good for learning and good for us,
link |
creates an outsized effect on the rate of plasticity.
link |
It accelerates plasticity.
link |
Now, some of you might be asking, and I get asked a lot,
link |
well, how do I get dopamine to be released?
link |
Can I just tell myself that something is good
link |
Well, actually, yes, believe it or not.
link |
The thing about dopamine is it's highly subjective.
link |
What's funny to one person
link |
is not necessarily funny to the next,
link |
so it has to have some sense of authenticity for you,
link |
but if you really want to be learning the thing
link |
that you're trying to learn,
link |
that should be reason enough to tell yourself,
link |
well, I'm frustrated,
link |
but the frustration is the source of accelerated learning.
link |
Dopamine is one of these incredible molecules
link |
that both can be released according to things
link |
that are hardwired in us to release dopamine.
link |
Again, things like food, sex, warmth when we're cold,
link |
cool environments when we're too warm.
link |
It's that kind of pleasure molecule overall,
link |
but it's also highly subjective
link |
what releases dopamine in one person versus the next.
link |
So everyone releases dopamine
link |
in response to those very basic kind of behaviors
link |
but dopamine is also released
link |
according to what we subjectively believe is good for us,
link |
and that's what's so powerful about it.
link |
In fact, a book that I highly recommend
link |
if you want to read more about dopamine
link |
is a book that, frankly, I wish I had written.
link |
It's such a wonderful book.
link |
It's called The Molecule of More,
link |
and it really talks about dopamine
link |
not just as a molecule associated with reward,
link |
but a molecule associated with motivation and pursuit
link |
and just how subjectively controlled dopamine can be.
link |
So make lots of errors.
link |
Tell yourself that those errors are important and good
link |
for your overall learning goals.
link |
So learn to attach dopamine,
link |
meaning release dopamine in your brain
link |
when you start to make errors.
link |
Keep the bouts of learning relatively short
link |
if you're an adult.
link |
Younger people can probably engage
link |
in more bouts of learning,
link |
and it's probably one of the reasons
link |
why they learn so much faster.
link |
They can just pack so much more information
link |
into the brains and nervous systems compared to adults.
link |
You know, it's a little bit like, I'll use the example
link |
of performance-enhancing drugs.
link |
You know, some of those drugs
link |
probably do enhance performance
link |
at the level of increasing red blood cell count, et cetera,
link |
but a lot of what those drugs do
link |
is they allow athletes to recover faster
link |
so they can just train more.
link |
They allow them to do more work.
link |
And so being a child is a little bit
link |
like being in a performance-enhanced brain milieu.
link |
Their brains are kind of unnatural, healthy neurochemicals
link |
that afford them a lot more learning should they pursue it.
link |
So this goes back to my advice for young people early on.
link |
If you're young, what should you do?
link |
Learn as much as you can
link |
about as many things as you possibly can.
link |
And I suggest specializing in something.
link |
I guess I'm not in a position to give anyone direct advice,
link |
but I would say hopefully by about age 30,
link |
hopefully younger, you have some sense of what excites you
link |
and try and get really good at that thing
link |
provided it serves the world for better.
link |
But that's all I'll say in terms of parenting advice.
link |
It's not my place, but maybe sometime I'll have an episode
link |
completely devoted to sort of youth and learning in youth.
link |
But once you're attaching dopamine
link |
to this process of making errors,
link |
then I start getting lots of questions
link |
that really are the right questions,
link |
which are, you know, how often should I do this?
link |
And when should I be doing this?
link |
Well, I've talked a little bit about this
link |
in previous episodes, but as long as we're now
link |
kind of into the nitty gritty of tools and application,
link |
each of us have some natural times throughout the day
link |
when we are going to be much better
link |
at tolerating these errors and much more focused
link |
on what it is that we're trying to do.
link |
Last episode was about focus,
link |
but chances are that you can't focus as well at 4 p.m.
link |
as you can at 10 a.m.
link |
It differs for everybody depending on when you're sleeping
link |
and your kind of natural chemistry and rhythms.
link |
But find the time or times of day
link |
when you naturally have the highest mental acuity.
link |
And that's really when you want to engage
link |
in these learning bouts.
link |
And then get to the point where you're making errors
link |
and then keep making errors for seven to 30 minutes.
link |
Just keep making those errors and drill through it.
link |
And you're almost seeking frustration.
link |
And if you can find some pleasure in the frustration,
link |
yes, that is a state that exists.
link |
You have created the optimal neurochemical milieu
link |
for learning that thing.
link |
But then here's the beauty of it.
link |
You also created the optimal milieu
link |
for learning other things afterward.
link |
If you leave that bout of,
link |
I give the example of free throws,
link |
or maybe it's playing tennis,
link |
or maybe it's some other skill,
link |
and you sit down to read a book,
link |
your brain is in a heightened state
link |
to learn and retain the information.
link |
Because those chemicals don't get released
link |
and then shut down.
link |
You're creating a whole milieu,
link |
an environment of these chemicals.
link |
And the tale of how long these chemicals stay
link |
sloshing around in your brain has too many factors
link |
for me to put a hard number on it.
link |
It's going to depend on transporters and enzymes
link |
and all sorts of things.
link |
But at least for an hour or so, I would say,
link |
you're going to be in a state of heightened learning
link |
and the ability to learn, not just the motor patterns,
link |
but cognitive information, language information.
link |
Maybe you go to therapy right after that
link |
and you work on something in a very deliberate way
link |
that you're trying to work on.
link |
Maybe you don't go to therapy.
link |
Maybe you do something else that's important to you.
link |
Again, there are just a variety of examples I could give.
link |
There are a number of things that allow us
link |
to powerfully access the states of error
link |
that are kind of surprising, but also kind of fun.
link |
And these aren't, again, these aren't gimmicks.
link |
These tap into these basic mechanisms of plasticity.
link |
And the three that I'd like to talk about next
link |
are balance, meaning the vestibular system,
link |
as well as the two sides of what I call limbic friction
link |
or autonomic arousal.
link |
And if none of that makes sense,
link |
I'm going to put a fine point on each one of those
link |
and what it is and why it works
link |
for opening up neuroplasticity.
link |
Let's talk about limbic friction.
link |
Now, limbic friction is not a term
link |
you're going to find in the textbooks.
link |
So if any of my colleagues are listening,
link |
I want to repeat limbic friction.
link |
I realize it's not something you're going to find
link |
in any of the textbooks.
link |
But it is an important principle
link |
that captures a lot of information that is in textbooks,
link |
both neurobiology and psychology,
link |
and it has some really important implications.
link |
Limbic friction is my attempt to give a name to something
link |
that is more nuanced and mechanistic than stress.
link |
Because typically when we hear about stress,
link |
we think of heartbeat going too fast, breathing too fast,
link |
sweating, and not being in a state that we want.
link |
We're too alert and we want to be more calm.
link |
And indeed, that's one condition
link |
in which we have limbic friction,
link |
meaning our limbic system is taking control
link |
of a number of different aspects of our autonomic
link |
or automatic biology.
link |
And we are struggling to control that
link |
through what we call top-down mechanisms.
link |
We're trying to calm down in order to reduce
link |
that level of arousal.
link |
We're all familiar with this.
link |
It's called the stress response.
link |
However, there's another aspect of stress
link |
that's just as important, which is when we're tired
link |
and we're fatigued and we need to engage,
link |
we need to be more alert than we are.
link |
And so what I call limbic friction
link |
is really designed to describe the fact
link |
that when our autonomic nervous system
link |
isn't where we want it,
link |
meaning we're trying to be more alert
link |
or we're trying to be less alert,
link |
both of those feel stressful to people.
link |
So the other way to put it is that the word stress
link |
is not a very good word to describe
link |
what most people experience as stressful
link |
because it can either be being too tired
link |
or being too alert.
link |
Now, why am I bringing this up
link |
in the discussion about neuroplasticity?
link |
This is not a discussion about stress.
link |
At some point, we will talk about stress
link |
and tools to deal with stress.
link |
But the reason I'm bringing this up
link |
is that in order to access neuroplasticity,
link |
you need these components of focus.
link |
You need the component of attaching subjective reward.
link |
You need to make errors, all this stuff.
link |
And a lot of people find it difficult
link |
to just get into the overall state to access those things.
link |
So now there's a series of gates
link |
that people are having a hard time accessing.
link |
They're too tired and they can't focus, for instance.
link |
Well, here's the beauty of it.
link |
If you are too alert, meaning you're too anxious
link |
and you want to calm down in order to learn better,
link |
there are things that you can do.
link |
The two that I've spoken about previously
link |
on various podcasts,
link |
and I'll just review them really quickly,
link |
are the double inhale-exhale.
link |
So inhaling twice through the nose
link |
and exhaling once through the mouth.
link |
This is not some yogic trick or some hack.
link |
This is what's called a physiological psi.
link |
It offloads carbon dioxide from the lungs.
link |
It has a number of different effects.
link |
These were described in textbooks
link |
and dating back to the 30s.
link |
And a number of laboratories have explored
link |
the neural circuitry underlying
link |
these so-called physiological psi.
link |
That will calm you down faster than anything else
link |
that I'm aware of.
link |
The other thing is starting to remove your tunnel vision.
link |
When you use tunnel vision, you're very focused.
link |
That epinephrine is released by dilating your field of gaze,
link |
so-called panoramic vision.
link |
So now you can start to sort of move up and down
link |
this level of autonomic arousal.
link |
The key is you want to be in a state of arousal
link |
that's ideally matched to the thing
link |
that you're trying to perform or learn.
link |
So if I'm really anxious
link |
and I can't even pick up the basketball
link |
or I feel like I'm shaking or my muscles are too tight,
link |
I don't have that kind of looseness.
link |
Now when I move like that,
link |
it almost makes it look like I could throw a free throw,
link |
but I miss 95% of the time,
link |
unless the basket is very, very low
link |
and I place it indirectly.
link |
But I guess that's not a free throw, is it?
link |
In any case, the point being that you want to be
link |
in a state of alertness, but calm.
link |
And so you need to have ways to calm yourself down
link |
when you're too amped up.
link |
But the other side of limbic friction is important too.
link |
If you are too tired and you can't focus,
link |
well then it's going to be impossible
link |
to even get to the starting line, so to speak,
link |
for engaging in neuroplasticity
link |
through incremental learning, et cetera.
link |
there are other methods that you can do to wake yourself up.
link |
The best thing you should do is get a good night's sleep,
link |
but that's not always possible
link |
or use a NSDR, non-sleep deep rest protocol.
link |
But if you've already done those things
link |
or you're simply exhausted for whatever other reason,
link |
then there are other things that I often get asked about,
link |
like sure, a cup of coffee or super oxygenation breathing,
link |
which means inhaling more than exhaling
link |
on average in a breathing bout.
link |
These are, now we're sort of getting toward the realm
link |
of like how you could trick your nervous system
link |
And if you bring more oxygen in
link |
by making your inhales deeper and longer,
link |
you will become more alert.
link |
You'll start to actually deploy norepinephrine
link |
if you breathe very fast.
link |
So there are things that you can do to move up or down
link |
this so-called autonomic arousal arc.
link |
And what you want to ask before you undergo
link |
any learning bout is how much limbic friction
link |
am I experiencing?
link |
Am I too alert and I want to be calmer
link |
or am I too calm and too sleepy
link |
and I want to be more alert?
link |
You're going to need to engage in behaviors
link |
that bring you to the starting line in order to learn.
link |
There are other things that you can do
link |
in order to then learn better and faster
link |
besides incremental learning
link |
and those center on the vestibular system.
link |
And this may come as a surprise to some people,
link |
but probably not as a surprise to some of you
link |
whose professions or whose recreation
link |
involves a lot of motor activity
link |
and sort of what we call high dimensional skill activity,
link |
not just running or cycling
link |
or very linear activities like weightlifting,
link |
but things that involve inversions
link |
and a lot of lateral movement,
link |
actual sports, jumping, diving, rolling,
link |
these kinds of things, gymnastics type stuff.
link |
Why the vestibular system to access neuroplasticity?
link |
Well, we have a hardwired system for balance
link |
and here's how it works in as simple terms
link |
as I can possibly come up with.
link |
As we move through space or even if we're stationary,
link |
there are really three main planes of movement.
link |
Now I realize some people are just listening to this
link |
so I'm going to do this for both the folks
link |
that are just listening
link |
and for those of you that are watching on video.
link |
So there are three main modes of movement
link |
and it turns out that your brain doesn't really know
link |
where your body is except when
link |
through that proprioceptive feedback.
link |
The main way it knows is through three planes of movement
link |
that we call pitch, which is like nodding.
link |
So if I nod like this, that's pitch.
link |
Then there's yaw, which is side to side,
link |
which is like shaking my head, no.
link |
And then there's roll from side to side,
link |
like when a puppy looks at you like, that kind of thing.
link |
So pitch, yaw, and roll.
link |
And the pilots out there will know
link |
exactly what I'm talking about.
link |
The brain knows the orientation and position
link |
of your body relative to gravity,
link |
depending on whether or not your brain and your head
link |
actually is engaging more in pitch, yaw, or roll,
link |
or some combination.
link |
Because if I lean down like so,
link |
or like so, it's a combination of pitch, yaw, and roll.
link |
Now you might say like, what is going on here?
link |
Well, we have these little things in our inner ear
link |
called the semicircular canals.
link |
Just like our eyes have two main functions,
link |
one is to see objects in space,
link |
and the other is to set our circadian clocks
link |
through subconscious mechanisms,
link |
our ears have two main roles.
link |
One is to hear, right, to perceive sound waves
link |
or take in sound waves for perception, so-called hearing.
link |
And the other is balance or vestibular function.
link |
So sitting in our ears are these semicircular canals,
link |
and they're these little tubes where these little stones,
link |
they're actually little bits of calcium,
link |
roll back and forth like little marbles.
link |
When we roll this way, they roll this way.
link |
When we pitch, when we go from side to side,
link |
there's some that sit flat like this,
link |
and they go like marbles inside of a hula hoop.
link |
And then we have roll.
link |
There's some that are kind of at 45 degrees to those,
link |
and it's kind of pitch, yaw, and roll.
link |
So yeah, okay, great.
link |
That sends signals to the rest of our brain and body
link |
that tell us how to compensate
link |
for shifts relative to gravity.
link |
And I say, okay, wait,
link |
I thought we were talking about plasticity,
link |
but this is where it gets really, really cool.
link |
Errors in vestibular motor sensory experience,
link |
meaning when we are off balance and we have to compensate
link |
by looking at, thinking about,
link |
or responding to the world differently,
link |
cause an area of our brain called the cerebellum,
link |
it actually means mini brain,
link |
and it looks like a little mini brain
link |
like tucked below our cortex in the back,
link |
cause the cerebellum to signal
link |
some of these deeper brain centers
link |
that release dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine.
link |
And that's because these circuits in the inner ear,
link |
et cetera, and the cerebellum,
link |
they were designed to recalibrate our motor movements
link |
when our relationship to gravity changes,
link |
something fundamental to survival.
link |
We can't afford to be falling down all the time
link |
or missing things that we grabbed for,
link |
or running in the wrong direction
link |
when something is pursuing us.
link |
These are hardwired circuits
link |
that tap right into these chemical pathways.
link |
And those chemical pathways are the gates to plasticity.
link |
So I really want to spell this out clearly
link |
cause I've given a lot of information today.
link |
The first thing is how are you arriving
link |
to the learning bout?
link |
You need to make sure your level
link |
of autonomic arousal is correct.
link |
The ideal state is going to be clear, calm, and focused,
link |
maybe a little bit more on the arousal level,
link |
like heightened arousal.
link |
So understand limbic friction,
link |
understand that you can be too tired,
link |
in which case you're going to need
link |
to get yourself a little more alert,
link |
or you can be too alert
link |
and you're going to need to get yourself calmer.
link |
That gets you to the starting line.
link |
When you're at the starting line,
link |
then you're going to go into a learning bout
link |
and that's when you want to start making these errors, okay?
link |
But what I'm saying is there's a layer in between
link |
where if you are interested in using motor patterns
link |
as a way to open up plasticity for all kinds of learning,
link |
not just motor learning,
link |
disrupting your vestibular motor relationship,
link |
meaning, and I'll tell you how to do that in a moment,
link |
can deploy or release neurochemicals in the brain
link |
that place you into a state
link |
that makes you much better at learning
link |
and making errors much more pleasureful.
link |
You're much more willing to do that.
link |
Now, some of you are probably saying flow state, flow state.
link |
Okay, I have friends that work on flow states
link |
and who are involved in flow states
link |
and trying to figure out what they are.
link |
I have great respect for those people.
link |
So I want to tip my hat to them, very important work.
link |
But again, flow is an expression
link |
of what you already know how to do.
link |
It's not how you learn,
link |
it's how you express what you've already learned.
link |
So I want to be really clear about that.
link |
It's been kind of presented as this super state
link |
or highly desirable state,
link |
but it's that we can all reach for.
link |
That's the wrong rung to reach for
link |
until you already know how to do the things
link |
that I'm describing, in my opinion.
link |
So the vestibular system,
link |
if you can engage the vestibular system
link |
and create some errors within the vestibular motor operations
link |
that you're carrying out,
link |
you create a neurochemical state
link |
that then makes you very, very good
link |
at learning very quickly.
link |
Regardless of age.
link |
So what would this look like?
link |
Does this mean just doing inversions?
link |
Well, does this mean doing yoga?
link |
Does this mean taking corners faster on your road bike?
link |
let's say you always swim freestyle or breaststroke?
link |
Does this mean swimming backstroke or butterfly?
link |
It depends, however,
link |
on a very, very easy to understand parameter,
link |
which is how regularly you perform
link |
a particular motor behavior
link |
and how novel a behavior is.
link |
So the more novel that a behavior is
link |
in terms of your relationship to gravity,
link |
the more it will open up the opportunity for plasticity.
link |
Have you ever seen somebody
link |
who just jumped out of the plane for the first time
link |
I don't even want to think about what,
link |
if you've just seen somebody who jumped out of a plane
link |
for the first time without a parachute,
link |
I would just hope the plane was on the ground.
link |
But if you've seen somebody after that,
link |
they are in this incredible state
link |
because their body and brain
link |
are flooded with all these neurochemicals
link |
because it's very novel to them.
link |
However, I've got friends from communities
link |
that have done thousands upon thousands,
link |
maybe tens of thousands of jumps,
link |
and they're always alert and aware,
link |
but it becomes pretty regular for them.
link |
And they're not in this kind of buzzed out,
link |
excited state afterwards because it's routine for them.
link |
So the key is to bring novelty
link |
to the vestibular motor experience.
link |
The vestibular motor commands that you're performing.
link |
And how do you do that?
link |
Well, it's all about your orientation relative to gravity.
link |
Now, I wouldn't want anyone to place themselves at risk.
link |
So if you can't do handstands,
link |
don't try and do them, freestanding and whatever.
link |
If you're good at handstands,
link |
guess how much plasticity doing a handstands
link |
for half an hour is going to create for you?
link |
Your body is fully comfortable walking on your hands.
link |
I see these people walking on your hands,
link |
being upside down, being inverted.
link |
Your Cirque du Soleil performers,
link |
they're very comfortable there.
link |
And there's zero learning, zero plasticity
link |
because the failures and errors
link |
and the relationship to gravity
link |
are very typical for that individual.
link |
Now, what this means is
link |
that if we're going to use motor practices
link |
to open up plasticity for learning,
link |
not just those practices,
link |
but maybe some cognitive skills
link |
or other things in the period that follows,
link |
we need to create a sense of novelty relative to gravity.
link |
And that means being either in a new position
link |
or slightly unstable.
link |
Believe it or not, I don't want anyone injuring themselves,
link |
but the sensation of falling or close to falling
link |
signals the cerebellum to signal the deep brain centers
link |
that release these neurochemicals
link |
that something is very different
link |
and we need to correct this error very, very fast.
link |
Earlier, I was talking about high contingencies
link |
for learning and you definitely don't want to make it
link |
to kind of like either survive this or die kind of experience
link |
I confess I occasionally look at these parkour videos
link |
on YouTube and believe it or not,
link |
a lot of those people have died.
link |
The ones that do these ridiculous things
link |
of hanging off of buildings and things,
link |
I am not suggesting you do that, please don't do that.
link |
What I'm talking about is finding safe ways
link |
to explore the sensory motor vestibular space as we call it,
link |
the relationship between those things.
link |
So that could be through yoga.
link |
If you're terrible at yoga,
link |
there's more opportunity for you to learn
link |
than somebody who's very skilled at yoga, for instance,
link |
or gymnastics or handstands or on your road bike.
link |
This is unfortunately what I don't want to name brands,
link |
but stationary bikes where they give you
link |
the visual experience of moving through space,
link |
but you're not actually moving through physical space.
link |
There's no vestibular feedback, it's all visual, right?
link |
You're stationary on the bike, right?
link |
So unless you're hanging off the bike in your living room,
link |
like almost to the point you're tipping the bike,
link |
you're not getting the actual vestibular motor
link |
That mismatch is the signal that deploys
link |
dopamine epinephrine and these other things.
link |
I don't care how excited or how much fun the ride was
link |
or how much music you're playing that you love,
link |
it's not the same situation as being
link |
out of your normal relationship to the gravitational pull.
link |
So the first gate is to arrive at learning
link |
at the appropriate level of autonomic arousal.
link |
Clear and focused is best,
link |
but don't obsess over being right there.
link |
It's okay to be a little anxious or a little bit tired.
link |
Then you want to make errors.
link |
We talked about that.
link |
And this vestibular motor sensory relationship
link |
is absolutely key if you want to get heightened
link |
or accelerated plasticity.
link |
And we talked about another feature,
link |
which is setting a contingency.
link |
If there's a reason, an important reason for you
link |
to actually learn, even if you're making failures,
link |
the learning will be accelerated.
link |
So there's really four things
link |
that you really need to do for plasticity as an adult.
link |
And I would say that these also apply to young people.
link |
And there's an interesting
link |
kind of a thought experiment there as well,
link |
which is if you look at children,
link |
they are moving a lot in different dimensions.
link |
They are sometimes hanging from trees
link |
or I was a kind of a,
link |
my sports were always things
link |
where I tended to get hurt a lot, fall a lot.
link |
So there's a skateboarding for me when I was younger.
link |
So a lot of falling and rolling
link |
and various things of that sort,
link |
but whatever sport the kids are playing,
link |
or even if they don't play a sport,
link |
they tend to move in a lot of different relationships
link |
to gravity, more dimensionality to their movements,
link |
I should say, than adults.
link |
And one of the questions that's always kind of been
link |
in the back of my mind is,
link |
as we age, we get less good at engaging in neuroplasticity.
link |
Part of that is because as the brain ages,
link |
there are certain changes to the way
link |
that neurons are structured,
link |
their molecular components, et cetera,
link |
but it's kind of a self-amplifying,
link |
or I should say, a self-degenerating,
link |
self-degenerating cycle where as we get older,
link |
we tend to get more linear and more regular
link |
about the specific kinds of movement.
link |
So we get on the treadmill or we take the walk,
link |
or we just always go up the same stairs, et cetera,
link |
and there's less opportunity typically
link |
for engaging these relationships
link |
to the gravitational pull
link |
through the vestibular motor sensory convergence
link |
that we talked about a moment ago.
link |
And so you sort of have to wonder
link |
whether or not the lack of plasticity
link |
or the reduced plasticity in older individuals,
link |
which includes me, would reflect the fact
link |
that those chemicals aren't being deployed
link |
because we're not engaging in certain behaviors,
link |
as opposed to we can't engage in the behaviors
link |
because the chemicals aren't being deployed.
link |
Now, I have a feeling it's both.
link |
These have a reciprocal relationship.
link |
And I certainly, again, I don't think it would be wise
link |
for anyone who doesn't have the muscle stabilizing skills
link |
or the bone density, et cetera,
link |
to start doing inversions and things of that sort.
link |
That's not what I'm talking about here.
link |
But it's interesting to think about
link |
the sorts of exercise that we engage in.
link |
We all know that getting the heart rate elevated
link |
three to five times a week is really good for us,
link |
for cardiovascular health.
link |
I think there's a ton of data to support that now.
link |
Some load-bearing exercise is important
link |
for increasing bone density
link |
and maintaining muscular strength
link |
and proprioceptive feedback,
link |
because I'm sure many of you know this,
link |
but resistance exercise actually trains
link |
the nerve to muscle connections
link |
as much as it does the muscles themselves,
link |
something I talked about at the beginning of the episode.
link |
But I think most of us could stand to increase the degree
link |
to which we engage this vestibular system in novel ways.
link |
And that can be done quite safely
link |
through a number of different mechanisms.
link |
but people who do that sort of thing
link |
are very familiar with orienting their body differently
link |
according to the gravitational pull.
link |
They're lying down, then they're standing up,
link |
then they're turning, they're leaning their head.
link |
So again, it's this pitch, yaw, roll thing.
link |
And again, if you're very skilled at surfing,
link |
you're actually not going to open up plasticity
link |
It's in the learning of these new relationships to gravity
link |
that the windows for plasticity are enhanced.
link |
So I want to make sure that I underscore the fact
link |
that this vestibular thing that I've been describing
link |
is a way to really accentuate plasticity.
link |
It's tapping into an inborn biological mechanism
link |
where the cerebellum has outputs
link |
to these deep brain nuclei
link |
associated with dopamine, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine.
link |
You don't want to endanger yourself
link |
in the course of pursuing these activities,
link |
but it is a powerful mechanism.
link |
That's kind of an amplifier on plasticity,
link |
as is high contingency.
link |
If you really need to learn conversational French
link |
to save your relationship,
link |
the chances are you're going to learn it.
link |
There are limits, of course,
link |
to the extent to which one can accentuate
link |
or accelerate plasticity.
link |
You know, the ceiling on this is not infinite.
link |
Although we don't know how high it goes,
link |
I think it's reasonable to say
link |
that if someone put a gun to my head and said,
link |
learn conversational French in the next 120 seconds,
link |
that conversational French would be limited
link |
probably to just one word,
link |
probably the word we or something like that,
link |
because I can't stuff in all the knowledge all at once.
link |
I mean, I think that's the dream of brain machine interface
link |
that one will be able to download a chip
link |
into their hippocampus or cortex
link |
or some other brain structure
link |
that would allow them to download conversational French.
link |
And someday we may get to that
link |
as that capability may come about.
link |
Right now, it does not exist,
link |
nor is there a specific pill or chemical
link |
that will allow you to download more information
link |
This is the issue around nootropics
link |
I've talked about before.
link |
There are things that can increase focus,
link |
mainly things that increase acetylcholine
link |
and transmission through the nicotine system,
link |
things that can increase dopamine, things like L-tyrosine.
link |
Again, I'm not recommending these.
link |
You need to heed the warnings on those bottles,
link |
but they will increase these neurochemicals.
link |
And there are, of course,
link |
things that will increase epinephrine,
link |
things like caffeine or some people,
link |
because of prescription, take Adderall.
link |
I'm, again, not suggesting people take any of these things.
link |
In fact, today I focused almost exclusively
link |
on behavioral tools and ways of structuring learning bouts
link |
that will allow you to access more plasticity
link |
regardless of age.
link |
And they center around things that I'm sure
link |
if you look around you, you'll see evidence for,
link |
oh, incremental learning is powerful,
link |
or, oh, the vestibular system
link |
can open up opportunities for plasticity.
link |
I'm sure that the yogis out there are all saying,
link |
wait, this sounds exactly like yoga.
link |
We're supposed to push to an edge and do these inversions
link |
and do all those sorts of things.
link |
Well, I want to be clear.
link |
I never said anyone should do inversions.
link |
I said that the vestibular system is a valuable portal
link |
into some of these neurochemical states
link |
that favor plasticity.
link |
But not so seldom I hear from the yoga community,
link |
and they will say things like,
link |
much of what you're saying about how the brain works
link |
or neuroplasticity has already been described
link |
is embedded in yoga practices.
link |
And I just want to be very clear.
link |
I have tremendous respect for the yoga community
link |
and the practices.
link |
I've done yoga from time to time.
link |
I find it challenging and valuable.
link |
I'm not a regular practitioner.
link |
But the problem with yoga
link |
is exactly the same problem with science,
link |
which is that yoga has a lot of practices
link |
for which there are very specific names,
link |
but no description or lending of understanding
link |
And science has a lot of mechanisms
link |
and a lot of publications and papers
link |
for which there's very little, if not no description
link |
of tools and practices.
link |
So my goal in not just today,
link |
but in many ways throughout the course of the podcast
link |
is to bridge the gaps between these various disciplines
link |
in ways that are grounded mainly
link |
to the fields of neuroscience and some related fields.
link |
So yes, it's true that I look at things
link |
mainly through the lens of science,
link |
but that's not to say
link |
that it exhaustively explains everything about anything,
link |
nor is it to say that it's the only lens
link |
through which one could look at
link |
something like neuroplasticity.
link |
So I just want to acknowledge that I have great respect
link |
for all these different practices and communities.
link |
And I think that indeed,
link |
there are many cases in which
link |
different communities and practices
link |
have been aimed at targeting the same goals or outcomes.
link |
Science and neuroscience
link |
through an understanding of mechanism
link |
can allow all of us
link |
to gain a kind of common understanding
link |
about what those practices are
link |
and how to access things like neuroplasticity,
link |
And I do believe, as I've said previously on this podcast,
link |
that understanding mechanism
link |
affords us a certain flexibility,
link |
and I don't mean physical flexibility.
link |
I mean a flexibility
link |
when we can't engage in a particular behavior,
link |
maybe we're injured
link |
or maybe we're not in the right situation
link |
to do a particular practice,
link |
but by thinking about mechanism,
link |
we can adapt our circumstances.
link |
I've talked about this with sleep.
link |
If you're rigidly attached to one protocol
link |
of always looking at sunlight
link |
at one particular time in the morning and in the evening,
link |
that is not as valuable as understanding the mechanisms
link |
of why you might look at sunlight
link |
at one particular time versus another,
link |
because that affords you a flexibility,
link |
allows you to adapt,
link |
and life is very dynamic,
link |
and we don't have control
link |
over all the external conditions all the time.
link |
And so understanding mechanism
link |
through the lens of neuroscience,
link |
I do believe can be very powerful
link |
because of course there are multiple ways to access dopamine.
link |
There are multiple ways to adjust limbic friction.
link |
It's not just through respiration.
link |
Of course, there are many ways to do that.
link |
And so my overall goal here in this episode
link |
and with this podcast
link |
is to give you some understanding of the mechanisms
link |
and the insights into the underlying biology
link |
that allow you to tailor
link |
what these kind of foundational mechanisms are
link |
to suit your particular learning needs.
link |
So I really thank you for your time and attention today.
link |
I've covered a lot of material.
link |
I very much encourage questions in the comment section
link |
if you're looking at this on YouTube,
link |
and if you're not and you're listening to it
link |
on Apple or Spotify,
link |
please feel free to visit us over on the YouTube channel
link |
and put your questions in the comment section.
link |
This entire month is all about neuroplasticity.
link |
There's a lot to cover,
link |
but I'm very excited to delve deeper into this topic
link |
as it relates to your particular interests.
link |
Many of you have graciously asked
link |
how you can help support the podcast.
link |
The best way you can do that
link |
is to subscribe to the YouTube channel
link |
if you haven't done that already,
link |
as well as to place questions in the comment section below
link |
or comments if you'd like to give us feedback.
link |
Also to subscribe on Apple and or Spotify,
link |
and Apple allows you to leave a five-star review
link |
if you believe we deserve a five-star review,
link |
as well as leave comments about the podcast.
link |
In addition, if you can suggest the podcast
link |
to your friends, to your family members,
link |
or anyone that you think might be able to use
link |
and appreciate the information,
link |
that's a terrific way to support us.
link |
And of course, check out our sponsors
link |
that we mentioned at the beginning.
link |
That's a terrific way to support us as well.
link |
Several times throughout today's episode,
link |
as well as on previous episodes of the podcast,
link |
I've talked about various supplements
link |
that can be useful for enhancing sleep,
link |
enhancing neuroplasticity, et cetera.
link |
And again, I want to emphasize that I always think
link |
that behavioral practices are the place to start.
link |
I don't think supplements should ever be
link |
the first line of entry for people looking
link |
to enhance these aspects of their nervous system in life.
link |
But for those of you that are interested in supplements
link |
and the supplements that I take,
link |
I'm pleased to announce that we partnered with Thorne,
link |
T-H-O-R-N-E, and Thorne makes supplements
link |
that are, in my opinion, of the very highest stringency
link |
in terms of what's listed on the bottle
link |
is actually what you'll find in the bottle.
link |
This is a serious issue for the supplement industry,
link |
as well as just the overall quality
link |
of the materials they put into their supplements.
link |
If you'd like to take a look at the supplements
link |
that I take, as well as explore any of them for yourself,
link |
you can go to Thorne.com slash U slash Huberman.
link |
And if you look there, you'll see a number
link |
of the different supplements that I take.
link |
And if you decide to purchase any of them,
link |
you'll get 20% off your order.
link |
So that's Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E slash U slash Huberman
link |
to see the supplements that I take
link |
and to explore if any of them are right for you.
link |
In the next episode of this podcast,
link |
we're going to continue to explore neuroplasticity.
link |
This, as you may recall, is the way that we go about things
link |
here at the Huberman Lab Podcast,
link |
which is to really drill deeply into a topic
link |
for three or four or even five episodes
link |
so that by the end of those episodes,
link |
all of you have a very firm understanding
link |
of how to apply the principles of neurobiology
link |
to the specific practices and endeavors
link |
that are most important to you.
link |
So I very much thank you for your time and attention.
link |
I know it's a lot of information
link |
and it takes a bit of focus and attention
link |
and certainly will trigger plasticity
link |
to learn all this information.
link |
I want to encourage you and just remind you
link |
that you don't have to grasp it all at once,
link |
that it is here archived.
link |
And then if you want to return to the information,
link |
it will still be here.
link |
And that I most of all really appreciate
link |
your interest in science.
link |
Thank you so much.