Neuroscientist Explains MDMA and The Science of Social Connection | Dr. Ben Rein Ph.D.

Summary

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show, Dr. Lyon hosts neuroscientist Dr. Ben Rein, Ph.D. to unravel the neuroscience of MDMA (ecstasy), its role in PTSD therapy, and the biology of social connection and empathy. Dr. Rein, author of Why Brains Need Friends, shares insights on the therapeutic mechanisms of MDMA, the science of empathy and likability, the health risks of social isolation, and the modern world’s challenges to authentic connection.

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Key Themes & Insights

1. MDMA: History, Mechanisms, and Therapeutic Benefits

• Origins and Legality
  • Originally synthesized in 1912 by Merck; not intended as a psychoactive substance.
    • "[MDMA] was synthesized by actually Merck Pharmaceutical Company in 1912. ... They just kind of shelved it, forgot about it for like 60 years." — Ben Rein [01:35]
  • Found psychoactive use by Dr. Alexander Shulgin in the 1970s and then used in therapy, before becoming illegal due to its stimulant properties and recreational abuse.
• How MDMA Helps PTSD
  • Not a trauma eraser like painkillers; its main value lies in fostering empathy and lowering brain defenses against trauma recall.
    • "What MDMA does is it makes everything euphoric. ... You're better able to approach and sort of ruffle through these buried traumatic emotions because they're not painful." — Ben Rein [04:14]
  • Lowered amygdala activity (the brain’s alarm for fear), allowing traumatic memories to be revisited in a “softer” mental state.
    • "With MDMA, if we can apply this sort of euphoric filter and turn down the amygdala activity, ... you can sort of bypass that barrier." — Ben Rein [09:43]
• Set and Setting in MDMA Therapy
  • Mindset (“set”) and therapeutic environment (“setting”) are critical. “Taking Molly at Lollapalooza isn’t therapy.”
• Potential for New Drugs
  • Dr. Rein’s work at Stanford: MDMA’s empathogenic (empathy-producing) effects come from serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens, separate from its stimulant/dopamine toxicity.
    • "We identified that the empathogenic properties are associated with serotonin and specifically serotonin release in a brain area called the nucleus accumbens." — Ben Rein [07:52]

2. The Neuroscience of Empathy and Social Connection

• Empathy: Cognitive and Emotional
  • Cognitive empathy: understanding what someone feels.
  • Emotional empathy: feeling with them, almost viscerally.
    • "Cognitive empathy is understanding their emotions. ... Emotional empathy is you feeling this sense of sort of revulsion." — Ben Rein [25:04]
  • Empathy is learned through social experience, especially parent-child interactions and peer learning.
    • "Children with more emotionally responsive parents show greater empathy because it's sort of like you're demonstrating empathy." — Ben Rein [26:04]
• Social Mimicry and Face-to-Face Connection
  • We unconsciously mimic others’ facial expressions (even micro-movements), helping us empathize.
    • "When we mimic someone's facial expression, our brain starts to detect that we are feeling the same emotion. ... It's one of the critical pieces of empathy." — Ben Rein [16:06]
  • Botox or facial paralysis may hinder empathy and social reading skills by disrupting facial mimicry.
• Screen-Mediated vs. In-Person Connection
  • Texts and virtual interactions are less effective for emotional connection than in-person or video chat; missing cues like tone and expressions weakens empathy ("Virtual Disengagement Hypothesis").
    • "The absence of those [social] signals makes a difference. ... There’s no reason that the brain’s empathy systems should be activating at all when we interact online." — Ben Rein [18:23]

3. Modern Challenges: Social Isolation & Empathy Decline

• Health Impact of Isolation
  • Social isolation is as bad as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, raising risk for depression, anxiety, suicide, heart disease, dementia, and overall mortality.
    • "Being isolated is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day." — Ben Rein [68:00 & 00:55]
  • The body treats isolation as a form of stress—raising cortisol, harming health.
    • "Isolation is perceived as stress. ... You have elevated chronic levels. You're basically exerting the effects of chronic stress on your body." — Ben Rein [68:29]
  • Surgeon General labels loneliness an epidemic.
    • "We’re in a loneliness epidemic." — Ben Rein [65:54]
• Empathy on the Decline?
  • Survey data shows decreasing self-reported empathy, with possible bounce-back recently, but concern remains.
    • "There's some research showing that it was on the steady decline throughout the 2010s ... but it feels a bit like it's declining." — Ben Rein [49:25]
• Online Communication, AI, and the Future
  • Digital communications foster depersonalization, trolling, and less empathy due to lack of real-time emotion cues.
  • Unlikely that AI friends or robots can fully substitute for human connection—brain chemistry (like oxytocin) differs.
    • "If you are recognizing that this is not a human being, your brain is—it’s going to behave differently." — Ben Rein [71:02]

4. Practical Social Neuroscience: Likability and Authenticity

• What Makes People Likable?
  • Emotional expressiveness, authenticity, being easy to "read" (clear facial expressions), and similarity to others ("self-other overlap").
    • "A big part of it is basically how easy to read someone is... their facial expressions tell you a lot. They are being perceived as being authentic." — Ben Rein [36:03]
  • People who talk more (to a point), ask questions, and mirror body language are rated as more likable.
    • "If you talk more—obviously to a threshold...when someone’s really emotionally expressive and their facial expressions are telling you what they’re thinking, and you perceive them to be authentic, that is a brain’s dream." — Ben Rein [36:01 & 42:11]
• The Likability Gap
  • Most people underestimate how well-liked they are after interactions; self-doubt is normal.
    • "People underestimate how well liked they are." — Ben Rein [49:49]
• Barriers to Connection
  • Social anxiety, perceived or real differences (“self-other overlap”), and technology use (e.g., "phubbing"—phone snubbing).
    • "Don’t use your phone. Phones away. If you even leave your phone out on the table...it can impair the quality of your interaction." — Ben Rein [60:07]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On MDMA Therapy:
  • "The remission rates are super high. It is very clearly effective if administered properly." — Ben Rein [06:34]
• On Empathy in the Online World:
  • "If you strip all those things [cues] away, why would these areas be activating? Why would we experience empathy and care for someone else's emotions?" — Ben Rein [21:58]
• On Social Rewards:
  • "We have systems in our brain that when we're around others, we experience social reward. We experience our brain’s release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin that make us feel good and say, let's do this again." — Ben Rein [54:52]
• On the Stigma and Value of Alcohol:
  • "Alcohol is a neurotoxin. It is bad for the brain. Brain cells do not like it. The only reason it is so popular is because it's oil to the social brain." — Ben Rein [79:31]
• On Human Touch and Oxytocin:
  • "Oxytocin is this...love hormone...it's really what drives social reward in the brain, so it makes us feel connected." — Ben Rein [72:52]
• On Basic Brain Health:
  • "Besides [socializing], sleep, diet, exercise. ...I would put sleep first, socializing second..." — Ben Rein [74:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro/Why MDMA for PTSD? [00:00–01:05]
• History, Chemistry, and Legal Status of MDMA [01:19–02:54]
• MDMA's Mechanism, Set, and Setting [03:31–05:53]
• PTSD Neurobiology & How MDMA Modifies Memory Recall [08:24–09:43]
• Empathogenic Effects: Rein's Research [06:34–07:53]
• Psychedelics vs. Ketamine vs. MDMA [11:44–13:17]
• The Role of Social Connection in Health [15:02–16:06]
• Facial Mimicry, Botox, and Connection [16:06–18:08]
• Online Disconnection: The Virtual Disengagement Hypothesis [18:08–21:38]
• Empathy Development, Deficits, and Gender Differences [25:03–26:06]
• Practical Likability: Top 3 Tips [40:07–43:35]
• Social Isolation and Health Risks [65:40–69:21]
• AI “Friendship”, Human Touch, and Oxytocin [69:21–73:41]
• Core Elements for Brain Health Ranking [74:09–75:38]
• Alcohol, Lifestyle, and Cognitive Decline [79:10–82:17]
• Sex, Touch, and Oxytocin [82:30–85:08]
• Naming Bias and Likability [58:02–59:13]

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Actionable Takeaways

• Seek authentic, in-person connection. Screens can't replace real human cues, and isolation is a health risk.
• Express yourself. Emotional expressiveness—especially with facial cues—increases likability and connection.
• Don’t underestimate your likeability. Chances are you’re better liked than you think.
• Put your phone away when connecting. Even just having it visible can lower interaction quality.
• Protect your brain: Prioritize sleep, social interaction, exercise, and a healthy diet.
• Be cautious with alcohol and recreational substances. They may ease anxiety or promote temporary connection but carry long-term cognitive risks.

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Further Reading & Dr. Ben Rein’s Work

• Why Brains Need Friends — Dr. Ben Rein's book on the neuroscience of social connection.
• Dr. Rein’s research on MDMA, serotonin, and empathy published with Stanford colleagues.
• Follow Dr. Rein for educational neuroscience videos and more on empathy in the digital age.

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Original, conversational tone retained to reflect the lively, expert, and accessible style of Dr. Lyon and Dr. Rein.

Transcript

[A]

What are some of the therapeutic benefits of mdma, also known as amali or ecstasy?

[B]

So MDMA is primarily and maybe only used or experimented for ptsd. It's not necessarily that the drug mechanism, what it's doing in the brain is like reversing trauma in the way that a painkiller is like kind of blocking pain signals. It's not like that. One of the reasons why it's so helpful for PTSD is being an empathogen and improving social connection. It allows the patient to connect with the therapist better. There's also evidence that MDMA turns down activity. You can sort of bypass that barrier and the alarm might be going off, but it's a much quieter, softer alarm. You can get through it and you can touch the memory and revisit it and maybe even sort of reshape the way your brain holds that memory. Being isolated is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. What does that actually mean when people are isolated? Anxiety go up, depression go up, suicide go up. The body perceives isolation as a form of stress. Being isolated is associated with higher risk of mortality, just more or less likely to die by any cause.

[A]

Pause there. This is a really important point. Dr. Ben Raine, neuroscientist, welcome to the show.

[B]

Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

[A]

Let's talk about otherwise known MDMA, long.

[B]

Name 3, 4, methylenedioxymethamphetamine. That's why they shortened it.

[A]

Also known as amali.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Or ecstasy.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

What is it? Where did it come from? The. Just the whole shebang. Why do we care about it?

[B]

So MDMA is a synthetic drug. It was synthesized by actually Merck Pharmaceutical Company in 1912. I was actually surprised to learn that as a MDMA researcher, I studied it in some work I led at Stanford. And when I found that out, I was like, wow. I really thought MDMA came from like a. Like a meth lab or something, right? Like someone just like made it in like a trailer, like Breaking Bad? No, it was Merck. They. When they made it, they didn't realize what it was. They just, they. I think they were trying to make like blood thinners or something like that, and they just kind of shelved it, forgot about it for like 60 years. And then in the 70s, this chemist, Dr. Alexander Shulgin, came along and looked at the chemical structure of MDMA and realized that it was similar to mescaline, which is another really potent drug. And so he was talented enough to synthesize some MDMA on His own tried it on himself, was understandably pleased with the outcome, and so he started distributing it to therapists in Northern California who started giving it to their patients. And that was sort of the first, like, observational studies, I guess, of what MDMA does, how it makes people feel. And they found that it made people feel, you know, euphoric, very socially connected, empathic. It was the first drug to be called an empathogen, and one of the only in the world. Fast forward, it was. Obviously became illegal.

[A]

Why?

[B]

I think the partying and the illegal use sort of got out of control. And the truth is, I mean, 3, 4. Methylenedioxy, methamphetamine. Notice the last couple syllables. Methamphetamine. It's very similar to meth. It's a stimulant. And so it has. It can have negative effects. It can definitely, like, you can have a very bad experience and serious adverse health outcomes.

[A]

Can you die?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, theoretically, you could have a heart attack or something like that. I mean, like I said, it's a stimulant, right? So blood pressure, heart rate. You know, this is why oftentimes when you see. I'm not sure how often you see people on mdma, but for those out there who do.

[A]

But yes, you know, except for Matt, the producer, just. I'm totally kidding.

[B]

The typical mdma, like, stereotype or idea is, you know, they're grinding their teeth, they're sweating, right? They're running around. It's a stimulant, right? It's. It is stimulating their heart rate and all that, so it can be dangerous. That was sort of recognized. And they said, all right, you know, this probably shouldn't be legalized. And then it kind of, you know, vanished from at least the clinical and scientific worlds for a while, until, I think, late 2000s, like 2008 or so, was the first study MDMA for PTSD. And that is where the whole sort of MDMA science and psychedelic science reemerged and just exploded. And it's become a really significant part of science nowadays.

[A]

What are some of the therapeutic benefits of mdma?

[B]

So MDMA is, I want to say, primarily and maybe only used or experimented for ptsd. And the idea is that, you know, big misconception. People think, okay, MDMA for ptsd. So if I have PTSD and I take Molly at Lollapalooza or Coachella, I'm gonna feel better after, right? But that's a big misconception, because mdma, it's not necessarily that the drug mechanism what it's doing in the brain is like reversing trauma, right? Like, in the way that a painkiller is, like reversing or kind of blocking pain signals. It's not like that. It's thought that there. There's two important things. Set and setting. The set is sort of like the mindset that you go into the experience with. And this is, by the way, true for, like, all psychedelics. Lsd, psilocybin. You need to go in. In this mindset of, like, I'm going to heal. And setting where you are, what you're doing, what MDMA does is it makes everything euphoric. And if your setting is that you're sitting with a therapist who you trust and who you know, and you are discussing whatever experiences you have been through that have driven that ptsd, you are better able to approach and sort of ruffle through these buried traumatic emotions because they're not painful. And there's a. There's a guy in this field named Ben Sessa. He tells this story where him and his buddies were sitting around on Mali, and someone says, oh, think about your mom dying. And everyone was like, it's not bad. It's not so bad. And, you know, that's kind of a good idea of how to explain it, that you can. You can really do a lot more work therapeutically. So, like I said, going to Coachella isn't the right setting.

[A]

You have to be there. It's illegal now. Is it used legally in particular settings with ptsd?

[B]

It's. It's still illegal in Australia. It has been legalized for clinical use. And so it is being used for this purpose for ptsd. We have not gotten there in the United States yet. There was a recent sort of controversial decision on this that basically it was. It could have moved forward, but it wasn't. It was kind of stopped. And, you know, there was a lot of kind of outcry about that and whether it should have been moved forward. I mean, the reality is, if you look at the clinical trials where people have with PTSD have taken MDMA and been tracked and put in that right setting, it's unbelievable. The remission rates are super high. It is very clearly effective if administered properly. And, you know, the patient experience is the right one, but there's still some concerns about whether it's safe. And, you know, the research I was doing at Stanford was looking at empathy. Specifically, I mentioned that it's an empathogen. And so what we were trying to do is figure out what of the many things MDMA does in the brain, which of those is responsible for the changes in empathy? And the reason for that is because. So what MDMA does is it targets three systems, primarily dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. It's thought that those stimulant kind of harmful, you know, unpleasant effects of MDMA are associated with the dopamine part. So the question is, well, what if empathy, the empathogenic properties, are not associated with the dopamine? And we could figure it out, and then we could create a drug that's like MDMA and has those same properties of making people feel more connected and maybe even making those memories easier to process without having them sweating and grinding their teeth and their heart rate elevating. And so can we make a drug that basically is safer and has all of the great positive therapeutic properties of mdma? And we made some good progress because we identified that the empathogenic properties are associated with serotonin and specifically serotonin release in a brain area called the nucleus accumbens. That's where we're at right now. The project is published and it's out there. But what next? I mean, I'm not personally involved in making drugs or anything like that. It would be interesting to know and to test what if we could create a drug that just stimulates serotonin in the nucleus accumbens? Because from what all of our research says, that drug would theoretically make people feel more connected and empathic, and it would be a really powerful, unique pharmacological agent that nothing like that exists.

[A]

Do we know why? When an individual is exposed to trauma or whatever, the cause is, and then they come out with ptsd, do we know why the brain seems to wire in this way where it seems to exist as a repetitive type of thought or hyper vigilant experience? And then certainly there's a criteria, elevated blood pressure. Do we know why that happens?

[B]

There are studies showing that those with PTSD show abnormal activity in the amygdala. You know, I think they believe they show elevated activity in the amygdala, which makes sense. The amygdala is sort of like the brain's alarm system. It can function that way, saying, you know, this is bad, this is stay away, right? It's well connected with other brain areas to help motivate our behavior and cause us to, you know, not approach something that's scaring us or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I believe it's. It's one part of ptsd, at least, is some sort of abnormal rewiring of, of the amygdala and its function, driving this hyper arousal, you know, intense anxiety and fear around, you know, certain stimuli or memories associated with whatever that trauma stemmed from.

[A]

And then MDMA allows you to access these memories or this experience and revisit it in a more empathetic or softer way. Is that, Is that how you would think about it?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, there's. There's also evidence that MDMA turns down amygdala activity. Right. So you think about the amygdala as, like this alarm system that is kind of protecting you from revisiting something that was horrifying. Right. So anytime you get close to it, the. The alarm sets off in your brain and you are shrinking away from that thought because it's just too painful to go anywhere near. But so with mdma, if we can apply this sort of euphoric filter over everything and turn down the amygdala activity, you can sort of bypass that barrier. And the alarm might be going off, but it's a much quieter, softer alarm where you can get through it and you can touch the memory and revisit it and maybe even in doing so, sort of reshape the way your brain holds that memory, I suppose, you know, if. If maybe you can go back and you can remember, you know, certain parts of it that weren't so traumatic, or you can kind of reprocess it through a different lens of, oh, that actually, you know, that wasn't so bad and maybe it helped me see life differently. That was positive. And that way, when you, after the experience is over, when you go there again and you try to access the memory, those alarm bells aren't. Aren't ringing as strongly. They're kind of suppressed because you've now been able to kind of move it out from behind that alarm system and put it somewhere that you can access it comfortably.

[A]

If you listen every week and feel like we are in this together, which I believe that we are learning, growing, and building strength, then I created a way for us to get connected even more closely. It's called Forever Strong Insider, a premium community for listeners who want to go deeper. You'll get ad free episodes, which I know you'll love. Bonus Q and A's, where your questions shape the conversation behind the scene moments, because, let's face it, I'm hilarious from my daily life and written takeaways to keep at your fingertips. But more than that, you'll be supporting the show so that we can keep creating content that matters. If you've ever wanted to feel part of the inner circle. This is your invitation. Join us at foreverstrong.supercast.com or through the link in the show. Notes. Is there an alternative to that that we have access to?

[B]

Good question. I don't think so. I don't think there's anything like mdma.

[A]

Ketamine, any other psychedelics, not for ptsd.

[B]

So the psychedelic space is so interesting because all these drugs do different things and seem to be kind of. They're like, filtering down into what conditions they're useful for. Like, ketamine has a totally different mechanism from mdma. It acts on. And it's an NMDA receptor antagonist. Whatever.

[A]

Some people care about it.

[B]

Yeah. So NMDA receptors are excitatory. They. They turn neurons on. The mechanism of MD or of ketamine is so complicated. So I'll explain. Explain it and you can cut it out later if you want. But these NMDA receptors, they activate neurons. Ketamine is an NMDA receptor antagonist. So it blocks those receptors, which you would think would turn down the activity of neurons. Turns out it actually has the opposite effect because it's doing that selectively to these neurons that are called interneurons, which turn down the activity of other neurons. So you're basically taking the activity, you're turning down the activity of neurons that typically silence other neurons. And so you end up with more activity overall. That's kind of the most important thing you end up. Ketamine increases brain activity. And so what ketamine does is creates a lot of neuroplasticity. It drives the formation of new synapses, the connections between brain cells, where they interact. And that plasticity seems to be really important for ketamine's antidepressant effects. So there we go. MDMA is over here with ptsd. Ketamine seems to be most effective for depression.

[A]

What about Alzheimer's if you're being able to develop new synapses?

[B]

Good question. That's not recognized and. Or at least I don't recognize that as being something that's, like, known, which tells me that probably clinical trials have been done, but I don't think it's going anywhere. And it might be because you have someone with Alzheimer's, you give them ketamine, they are detaching from reality. That could be a really harmful effect.

[A]

Right. That could accelerate any kind of problem.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We see these psychedelics and other agents important for ptsd, depression. Is it fair to say, social connection? That's not really. I mean, okay, to be fair, that's not recognized. As a disease state or illness or problem. But I have heard people that I know say they go. They engage in these drugs, and it's for the relationship. It's for connection. And.

[B]

Yeah, no one's doing that legally. Legally, yeah, yeah. I mean, 70s and 80s, when those therapists were using MDMA in California, that's where a lot of it was going. Couples therapy. People were saying, oh, my gosh, you know, I can connect with my partner like never before. This is amazing. And that is nowhere near, like, clinical relevance right now. It's really. I mean, the fact that it hasn't even been approved for ptsd, a condition that has severe. Yeah. And consequences on people's lives. We're nowhere near approving it for couples therapy, but, yeah, I mean, the fact that it is an empathogen. One of the. One of the reasons why it's so helpful for PTSD is being an empathogen and improving social connection. It allows the patient to connect with the therapist better. So imagine replacing the therapist with your partner. And, yeah, I mean, it could very much theoretically be useful for that kind of thing.

[A]

Social connection is a big thing. You wrote a book on it. What's your book called?

[B]

My book's called why Brains need Friends. And, yeah, it's all about. You know, in the current world, we are super isolated. People keep saying it's important, it's bad, it's bad. But, like, why? Right. What is the neuroscience? And I try to make it as clear as possible for everybody deserves to understand the science. You know, science is held behind paywalls and jargon, and, you know, just like your book, you want to get the stuff out. You want to help people. Yeah, that's what I was hoping to do.

[A]

You chose social connection, and there are a lot of layers to social connection. And I want to talk about what is authentic social connection? Is it authentic when you're through a screen? Do you really develop the tight relationship that you do when you're in person? And also just from an external perspective, I'm sitting across from you, you're smiling, your eyes lighting up. Hopefully my face is not frozen. But there are a lot of external changes that seem to be happening at faster rates. For example, Botox. Botox might paralyze someone's smile, or plastic surgery might tighten the skin. Does that affect social connection?

[B]

There's reason to believe that it does. So one of the really, like, unspoken things that happens when we interact is that our faces mimic each other. People don't know this because you don't realize it's happening. So, like, you're smiling right now, and, like, I'm kind of smiling, but usually it's not that way where I can. I'm, like, actually smiling. What happens is these muscles in the face, when they detect. When our brain detects that you're making a facial expression, the muscles in my face will activate in the same direction. So if you're smiling, you know, the muscles that lift my cheeks or lift my lips in a smile will start to activate, and in this very, like, imperceptible way. You know, it's just, like, electrical activity that science has discovered. But what's important about that is that information doesn't just travel from the brain to the face in that, like, the brain is happy, so the face starts smiling. It also goes backwards. You know, maybe you've heard of these studies where, like, if people look at cartoons, it's like a classic psychology study. They're looking at cartoons and they have to put a pencil between their teeth so they're artificially made to smile. And the people who did that rated the cartoons as funnier because the brain is processing, oh, I'm smiling, so this must be funny, right? This must be pleasant. So that's kind of what's happening here, that when we mimic someone's facial expression, our brain starts to detect that we are feeling the same emotion. And this is one of the critical pieces of empathy and something called emotional contagion, where you basically take on someone's emotions. With Botox, you're essentially paralyzing the muscles. You're interfering with the ability for those nerves from the brain that control the muscle to send those messages. And so your muscles kind of are, you know, they're not moving. And because of that, you are interfering with your brain and your face's ability to mimic expressions. And so there are studies showing that people with Botox have a harder time basically reading, properly reading what faces, what expressions other people are making and what their internal state is. Which is interesting because you think that all that stuff lives in the brain, but a lot of the information lives in the muscles in the face.

[A]

It's challenging because it's not perceivable. Right, right. This is outside of our conscious control. If we are in front of screens all day long, we have access to more people on social media. We have more people coming into our sphere than ever before. Does that affect social connection?

[B]

You mean the sheer, like, volume? Yeah, I don't know. It's a good question. I mean, you know, there's this idea that the human Brain is only capable of knowing so many people, right. And I do think that what happens when we're online, especially because I'm sure you speak in front of large crowds. Often it's different when you're standing in front of 5,000 people versus when you post something on social media and it says 5,000 views. Right? It's completely different. And there's this sort of like depersonalization that happens online where it just becomes, you know, your brain can't compute what it is. Like these aren't real people, these are just numbers on my screen. And the idea of having a million people see a piece of content is dramatically different impact on your emotional well being. I don't think that's very good. I think that a lot of the important signals that tell our brains you are interacting with a human being, they are removed when we're online. Right. Like even this one on one interaction, there's facial expressions that can sense your vocal tone, your body language. Right. There's so much information. Whereas on social media and let's say on Twitter, your ex, sorry, you're interacting with someone and you're just messaging back and forth. I mean you don't have any of those signals. And, and so your brain is not necessarily interpreting to the full extent that this is a person you're interacting with. Right. And it actually could be a bot. Right. But I think that the absence of those signals makes a difference. And I actually, I published this hypothesis a year or two ago. I called the virtual disengagement hypothesis. Basically saying that because of the absence of those social cues, there's no reason that the brain's empathy systems should be activating at all when we interact online.

[A]

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[B]

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, and this came to me as a person who was, you know, at Stanford, spending my days studying empathy, trying to figure out how can we enhance empathy, thinking about the brain systems that drive empathy. And then I post on social media, I post educational neuroscience videos and I would look in the comments and I'm.

[A]

Like, oh my goodness, you just broke rule number one. Never look at the comments.

[B]

Right, I know that was. But. And a lot of the time it's not even about me. I mean, the comments about me, whatever, you know, it stings, but it is what it is. But the people in the comments going at it with each other, it's, it's so unlike typical human exchange that it made me wonder what is going on here? And you know, I started poking around the literature and found that what I just said, basically, facial expressions activate these empathy related brain areas. Vocal tone activates the brain empathy related brain areas. And so when you strip all those things away, why would these areas be activating? Why would we experience empathy and care for someone else's emotions? And I think what this kind of amounts to is like we are not there for what I call the stepping on the tack phase of the interaction. So imagine you're in elementary school and you want to play a prank. And so you set a tack upright on the ground or on your, you know, your friend's chair or someone, your classmate's chair, maybe not your friend, and they don't sit on it. Two hours later, the next student comes into the classroom, you're long gone. Student sits down in the tack, they start screaming, they go to the nurse, they're in horrible pain. You have no idea that this happened. You're in the other room, you're directly responsible, but you don't know that it happened. Do you feel empathy no, of course not. There's no reason. It's like, does a tree in the, in the woods make a sound? Right. If you're not there to witness this person's pain and suffering, even though you caused it, your brain has no reason to feel empathy or make you feel empathy. And I think that's what basically happens with social media, that you can leave a horrible comment on someone's post, you can place attack, and you're not there for them to sit on the tack. You know, you, you do not witness their emotions. But what I do think is possible is once you realize, oh my gosh, I hurt this person, you know, if they comment to you and say that really hurt my feelings, yada yada, I do think it's possible to then realize, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Not to the full extent that seeing them crying, you know, experiencing their vocal tone, all that would make your brain feel bad, but to some extent you would feel bad. And I think that's where cognitive empathy comes in, which is a whole other.

[A]

Topic in relation to sitting down and writing a post. Having someone say a terrible comment. Let's say this person continues to do that, is that I always think that humans are able to evolve and that they're able to evolve in their environment. You know, It's a catch 22 because we've become very sedentary and arguably we're, quote, adapting to that environment. We now have a landscape of AI, of technology. Do you think that that is going to change our brain in a positive, negative way? Will it affect mental health? Humans shouldn't be able to make an absolutely atrocious comment and then be off the hook because that doesn't really happen in real life. That doesn't happen. I would only imagine that if that type of person is doing that, they are doing that multiple times a day. Maybe they're getting hooked into doing it. I am sure that there is a sequelae or there's some kind of outcome cognitively for them.

[B]

Yeah, I think so. Specifically for younger people, I think empathy is not necessarily something that we're born with. We're born with the capacity for empathy.

[A]

How would you define empathy?

[B]

Empathy is the ability or the experience of really understanding someone's emotions or taking on their emotions. And I just mentioned cognitive empathy is understanding their emotions, right? So let's. In the tack example, right, let's say you see a friend step on attack, you see their expression, right? They probably, they make some sort of like, ouch, facial expression. They start reaching for their Foot, right? You can tell that they're hurt. Cognitive empathy is. That is pain. I am recognizing pain. That's what they're experiencing. Emotional empathy is you feeling this sense of sort of revulsion, right? Of like, oh, my gosh. That, you know, and to really kind of make this clearer, let's replace the tack with like a gigantic thorn, right? Imagine someone stepping on a thorn. It goes through their foot. It's horrific. You're in the room, you're going to feel bad, right? You have a sudden emotional impact of, oh my gosh, this feels terrible. That's emotional empathy. So you're stepping into their space. We have these two different forms of empathy, cognitive and emotional empathy. And we have the capacity for both, right? We are born with the capacity to learn them. And that's the key word, learn.

[A]

We're not born with a certain amount of empathy.

[B]

A certain amount, sure, right. Because as a baby, you kind of like naturally mimic facial expressions and stuff. But really, empathy is shaped by our experiences to a large extent. And, you know, there's evidence that children with more emotionally responsive parents show greater empathy because it's sort of like you're demonstrating empathy, right? You're demonstrating that the baby is sad. You get sad, the baby realizes, oh, they're kind of responding to my emotions. And so you learn. And of course, you can imagine, you know, you're off to elementary school, it's your first day of first grade, and you push a kid down the slide and the kid starts crying and you get reprimanded and you're like, oh, that wasn't good. And that kid feels bad. And now I'm sorry, right? We learn empathy through social experience. And so to answer your question of are there long term sort of repercussions to this environment? I worry about kids. I worry about young people who are just sort of, you know, reaching adolescence. Maybe around now, who they have had, especially you added Covid in them into that, where they were isolated for a long time and a lot of their interactions came online. Now they're reentering this world where, again, a lot of their interactions come online. Social media is a major part of their everyday life. And I worry about what happens to a brain that learns empathy through a social context. That's not something we have scientific answers to yet. And it may be impossible, right, because it'll be like an entire generation. David Eagleman talks about this, that we can't really study the effect of social media because there are very. There's really no group that we can use as A control group that wasn't affected by social media. And so, you know, maybe we should be taking some metrics right now so that in 20 years we can compare the future society. But it's concerning for me.

[A]

Is there ever a time or has this ever been studied? Can there be too much empathy?

[B]

People can definitely feel like they're experiencing too much empathy. And a lot of people do. You know, when I post on social media about empathy, I have a lot of people comment and they're like, can I reduce my empathy? Like, how do I make this stop? Because I'm always feeling so bad for people. It's not like a recognized, you know, DSM 5 condition. Right. But, you know, I think empathy is a strength. I like to debunk this notion.

[A]

Probably depends on what your business is though.

[B]

You're right, you're right. But in for humanity as a whole, right?

[A]

Like, yeah, I would agree.

[B]

Because without empathy. So again, think about the stepping on the thorn example. If you felt nothing in response to watching your friend step on a thorn, you would be, you would have no personal stake, no personal motivation to step in and help them. Right. Feeling bad makes you say, oh gosh, this person needs help. And frankly, if I help them, it will alleviate this uncomfortable feeling I'm experiencing. Right. That's sort of the evolutionary purpose of empathy is to motivate us to help others. By giving us a personal state, we have an emotional reaction. But on the other hand, if we had too much empathy, like you're asking about, imagine your friend steps on the thorn and you feel the sensation of the thorn piercing through your foot. Way too much empathy. Now you're gonna go the opposite way. Instead of helping that person, you're going to run away. You're going to be like, I'm not going anywhere near that. That felt horrible. I don't want to expose myself to it. We would have no doctors. You know, nobody would watch UFC or MMA matches. Right. Our entire society would be different. So I think we're in the goldilocks zone. You know, it's like, it's not too hot, it's not too cold. We have the perfect amount of empathy. But of course, we exist in a, in a range. There's a spectrum like any biological trait. You know, some people are really extroverted, some people are really introverted. Some people have a ton of empathy, some people have less empathy.

[A]

And you were saying that there's a neurobiological component to empath, because there's the. What did you call it?

[B]

The.

[A]

My hypothesis no, the empigen, what was the empathy pill? What was it?

[B]

And pathogens.

[A]

And pathogens, yes. That's related to serotonin.

[B]

Yes. So mdma, that's what my research discovered, is that the reason MDMA makes people more empathic is because it enhances serotonin release in this brain area called the nucleus accumbens.

[A]

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[B]

Theoretically it would. Although you can't really compare the serotonin dumping effects of the two drugs because MDMA is way, way, way more intense. It's like taking like six months of serotonins or of SSRIs all in one day of a couple hours.

[A]

Don't do that.

[B]

Do not do that. Yes, please note, but there is some research showing that SSRIs do have sort of pro social effect. They can at least. Of course you know a lot of people who have used SSRIs, many people who have had success, many people who have not had success. And so what I'm about to say doesn't necessarily apply to everybody, but there's research showing that people who have, who take SSRIs, they show these like pro social benefits. So for example, there's one study where they had people do this incredibly frustrating task of both having one hand on an Etch A Sketch and trying to draw an object together, which and a stranger. Right. Imagine how frustrating that would be. And what they found is they gave half the people SSRIs for a few weeks before, and the other half placebo. And they found that those with on the SSRI's were basically just a lot more like understanding and they weren't. They were much less likely to sort of lash out and be demanding at the person. Does that mean that it increases their empathy or does that mean that it just kind of calmed them down and they were more tolerant? I don't know. But in another study, I'm sure a lot of people have heard of, like the trolley problem, where there's this idea of you have five people sitting on the train tracks, a train is coming towards them, you can pull a lever to divert the train and instead of killing five, it'll just kill one person. So you can save four lives, but you have to pull the lever yourself. A lot of people, as bad as that sounds, they will, you know, pull the lever. They will say that they will pull the lever. Obviously this is not a real situation that scientists are creating, but in an alternative version of this, they make it more personal where instead of pulling a lever, you have to push a person in front of the train to block it. So it's much more personal act, horrific act. And people on SSRIs rate that as much less acceptable. They say that they're, they're much less likely to agree to doing that kind of thing, which is sort of pro social. It's inherently pro social, right? You don't want to engage in this horrific social act. And this makes sense because this serotonin in the nucleus accumbens that we found to be important for empathy, there's also research from this, the same lab. So I was working with Dr. Rob Malenka at Stanford and Boris Heifetz also at Stanford. And Boris Heifetz did this project where he basically found that the serotonin release in the nucleus accumbens is also important for just like social motivation. And sorry, also Dr. Jess Walsh. Gotta credit these scientists for their good work.

[A]

And you guys will always hear that the really good scientists always credit other people and that. I mean, I think that that's what a true expert does.

[B]

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

[A]

And I both know this to be true. And the people that sit and don't stand on the shoulders of giants and make it all about them or not.

[B]

Yeah, totally. Anyway, another good sign of an expert is saying, I don't know, right? If you ask me a question, I'll probably say, I don't know here today just to make myself look like an expert. So there's these studies that show that, yeah, that serotonin release in this brain area not only drives empathy, but drives social sort of interest, you know. And by the way, this is in mice because we can't do these studies in humans where we can like manipulate serotonin activity. But if you basically give the mouse a choice between they can come over here and they can interact with the mouse, or they can come over here and play with a little like wooden block or an inanimate object, if you stimulate that serotonin, they'll start going over here and hanging out with the other mouse. And actually, interestingly, if you give the mouse over here mdma, if you give them both MDMA at the same time, then they spend even more time together, like the other amounts. Yeah, some of the research in mice is unbelievable.

[A]

Social connection, you said, is important. A lot of people watching this, I don't know, want to be better at relationships and they want to be better at dating. How do they become better at creating more meaningful social connection?

[B]

This is kind of half of the purpose of my book is. Half of it is to get people to understand this matters. And then the other half is sort of like. And it's not split in half, it's kind of woven together. But it's like, here's what you need to know about improving your life. And so I'm, you know, I'm trying to think of like what piece I can give.

[A]

I mean, I'll give you an example as to why I asked this question. I have heard people talk about neuro linguistic programming. I don't know the details of it, but it seems as if it's a way of creating a connection to bring people along. Maybe you're more familiar with it.

[B]

I don't. I might know that by another name. Yeah, I'm not sure. This here's me saying I don't know.

[A]

But it's ways. I don't want to say it's a form of manipulation, but I do believe it's a way of learning how to relate to people that create a close connection that may or may not be authentic, but the one individual is trained to do that.

[B]

Okay, so this is not like authentic relating.

[A]

We want authentic related.

[B]

Right, right. Because authentic relating is a thing that sounds where, you know, it's like this practice of relating authentically. I mean, I will say, I'll say that being authentic is important. There's a whole chapter in the book on the science of likability and what makes someone likable. And a big part of it is basically how easy to read Someone is. It's sort of. This is like my read of the literature that because some of the things that make people more likable, they are more emotionally expressive like they are. Their facial expressions tell you a lot. They are being. They're perceived as being authentic. They are talking actually more. You would think that people like you if you talk less. It's actually good to talk more obviously to a threshold. You don't want to be talking 100 of the time and bothering someone. You know, when someone's really emotionally expressive and their facial expressions are telling you what they're thinking and you can just read it right on their face and you perceive them to be authentic. Like that is a brain's dream, right? It takes away all the anxiety of like, can I trust this person? Are they really saying what they're saying? And so that also contributes to likability. There's a bunch of other things too, you know, and this is one of those things where like the chapter is way better than my brain because it's all. It's all there. But you know, like your appearance kind of unfortunately.

[A]

Well, what does that mean? Are people who look a certain way more likable?

[B]

People who are deemed more attractive are more likable. You know, we have this. Our brains have this sort of. This tendency to take information and extrapolate it to a person, right? So this happens all the time, by the way. So for instance, if you see a person who, you know, just to go there, but a really salient one, let's say they're wearing a shirt or a hat of a political party you don't agree with, right? And so your brain is naturally saying they're in the out group. And you're probably going to assume that this person is horrible in so many ways, right? The brain just extrapolates this. Another example of this is like also going to get myself in trouble here. But there's no scientific term for resting bitch face. But you see someone with a facial expression that says I'm upset. And people who, you know, when they're being seen as. When their facial expression looks unhappy, they are perceived to be less affiliative. They're perceived to be less like friendly in general, which is totally obviously false. And so that happens with beauty as well, with attractiveness. If someone is perceived as more attractive, you tend to give them all sorts of benefits. You know, people, they'll be judged as more trustworthy, more likable. You know, all sorts of things that are probably not true. But what about fitness level?

[A]

I Wonder if people that have more muscle or who look fitter are considered more likable.

[B]

That's a good question. I don't remember seeing any research on that when writing the book, but I would bet that that's a complicated one where there's probably a lot of like, personal identity tied to that. Right. So if you are a person who exercises and lifts weights and you're proud of your physique and you have built muscle and you see someone with muscle, you're probably like, oh, ye. I respect that person. But if you're the opposite and you feel bad about yourself because you're not working out enough and you know, you struggle with that and you see someone who's really fit, you're probably like that damn person. Right.

[A]

I did not know that about likability. What you're saying is that someone could become more likable if they are more expressive. I'll give you an example. My husband, who was a seal for 10 years, if you look at his face, he's like this. I mean, I don't know if you would call it resting bitch face, but even when we started dating, I would say that he's not someone who emotes. And a lot of guys are that way. And if they want to get better at dating or get better at finding a partner, they probably should learn some of these skills.

[B]

Yeah. Expressing your emotions through your face is.

[A]

I mean, but would someone practice that?

[B]

I don't know. I mean, I'm a pretty expressive person. Right. It's natural for me.

[A]

Immediately likable.

[B]

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, so I can't imagine doing that. I don't know. I guess, but I kind of could at the same time because it's like right now I'm on camera, I'm probably emoting more than I normally would. I think it's. I mean, it's totally doable. Some of the things that are linked to likability are things we can control, and some of them are not, you.

[A]

Know, and the things that we can control are.

[B]

There's a whole bunch of them. I mean, aside from.

[A]

Give me your top three.

[B]

Okay. Number one is. I've already covered it. I mean, expressiveness and being. Just being open and being like authentic. I'll just cluster all those into one another. That's really funny. Is mimicry. Not the kind of mimicry I mentioned before, but. So there are studies where person comes into the lab, they are meeting with someone, they don't know the person they're meeting with. Is an actor or an actress. At the end of the time, they are asked to rate how much they like the person. The whole experiment was about is that the actor, actress was mimicking their body position all the way along. So like right now, like I could do this, right? And if I did this for the majority of the interview and you change into a different stance and I kind of follow suit, right, and we find each other interestingly in the same bodily position a lot. You will probably rate me as more likable at the end of this.

[A]

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[B]

The second thing is, again, I hit on this already, but speaking how much you're talking, right? People often think that if you want to be better liked, you should allow the other person to have the spotlight and talk more. But when this has been manipulated experimentally, where people come in, they have conversations and they are assigned to talk for, you know, like there's literally a timer that controls how much they talk. And it's anywhere from like 30% to 70% of the conversation. What it, what turned out was actually people who spoke more like 50, 60, 70% were actually better liked. Again, don't do, don't overdo it. Another good thing to do is asking questions. So when you are talking a lot, you know, you can be sure to shift the spotlight to the other person, right? Ask them a question. And then lastly, the third thing, the brain gives so many benefits to people who are similar to us. So this is, I mean, for likability, for empathy. So there's this idea of self other overlap where if you think of a.

[A]

Self other overlap, yeah.

[B]

So if you think of a Venn diagram, right, you are one circle, I am the other circle. There's an intersection. Right. What do you and I have in common? The greater the overlap, you know, the larger the center area. Not only the, you know, more likable someone is. You're going to perceive them, you're going to like them better. But also there's a bunch of research in empathy showing that basically the brain's empathy areas will turn on more readily for that person. You will experience more empathy.

[A]

Give me an example. Would it be that, I don't know, if we had equal amounts of facial hair, which I hope would never happen, Something like a chat?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I think that's probably pretty low on the list. Right. But it could matter, right?

[A]

I mean, would it be the same brand of clothing are we talking about with the Venn diagram of the connection, the intersection between the two self. What was it?

[B]

Self, other overlap.

[A]

Self, other overlap. Meaning. What is similar about you and I is that we both like the doors.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or we both like, I don't know, Vin Diesel.

[B]

It can be. I love Vin Diesel. It can be everything. But I would say there's like a sort of a hierarchy, right. Where like, what's the top? It depends on who you are. Right. So let's say you are Jewish and you're really religious and you find out that someone else is Jewish, that sort of sort to the top, you're immediately going to probably see a huge self, other overlap. Right.

[A]

Nutrition.

[B]

Yeah, nutrition. Right. You eat the same diet and you understand you both are highly trained in nutrition. Totally. Yeah. It's very subjective, but. But that's what's important about it is that it is subjective. So you can meet someone who you actually have a lot in common with, but you find out that going back to this really well, suitable example, they have totally different politics from you, but you are otherwise like almost the exact same person. If you care a lot about politics, then you might not like them, even though you have a lot in common. I think one way to sort of remedy a lot of our cultural problems in America nowadays is to like look for, look beyond those sort of top of mind things. Right. Because you probably do have a lot in common. And I would say it can really be anything. I mean, it depends on what you're sort of paying attention to.

[A]

Is it what is in order of importance to the person? For example, if I'm someone who likes to train, I like to lift weights and I find out that you like to lift weights. The things that are important to me in the same magnitude would be important to you. Is that how you. How someone think about it? If.

[B]

Yeah, if.

[A]

I don't know if someone is watching this and they go, oh, gosh, I really like this person. I really like this girl. I am not so great socially. I'm not so great in terms of expressing my authenticity, but I know that we have a lot of things in common, and going to those things would create this connection and likability.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's about the way you view your identity. Right. Because. So forget about the Venn diagram. Let's just think about the self. Right. What makes up you. There's probably a few things that come to mind immediately. You know, maybe it's. I doubt it's your favorite TV show. Right. That's probably not the first thing that comes to mind. But, you know, there's a handful of things that come to. So that is your identity. And so how much does your perception of the other person's identity match with that? And yeah, so if you. If, you know, if you're looking to kind of win favor. And by the way, I do sort of discourage, like, manipulating these. You're not.

[A]

I totally disagree with. You're not manipulating. I am telling you. My husband was, for example, the best choice that I have made in my life so far, aside from studying nutritional sciences. He is not good at dating. And there was no way for the first two months, when he expressed interest, I told him, don't ever call me again. Right. And part of that was because he was a seal and blah, blah, blah. But also he wasn't that good interpersonal. He was very stoic. That is not romantic. And also it gives off serial killer vibes I don't want. And again, he was a great choice. And I feel for a lot of the guys that cannot kind of overcome or are maybe not programmed to be as warm and open with their talking and their feeling. They're just. It's a skill, especially with social media. They don't have to have that.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely a sort of, like, pressure. Not even a pressure. There's like a desire in men to be mysterious. Some men have that pressure. You know, I'm not that kind of person. Like, I will share my. All my information here, like, with an audience, doesn't matter to me. But. But there's definitely a type of guy that wants to be that. And I think there's also, like, sometimes that's really intriguing to a partner. Right. Sometimes People go for that. But I think in general, if you want authentic connection, it is good to be open and to be expressive and smile and whatever and be yourself too.

[A]

I appreciate you saying that a guy shouldn't do this to. You're not encouraging anyone to manipulate and I would disagree and say you're not manipulating, you are learning how to be a better communicator and more likable with this self other overlap. Is there more to this self other overlap?

[B]

Just in the empathy component, you know, and that, that's where it's really. I, I like to highlight that because I think you think, you know, we've been talking about how can you bring or what happens when these circles are really close together. But let's also think about what happens when these circles are very far apart. If you perceive someone as having very little in common with you, your brain's empathy systems are legitimately going to be more resistant to firing up. You are less likely to experience empathy. And so I think that's concerning. The reason for that probably is, is evolutionary, right? Long, long time ago when we lived in tribes, you know, you come across a member of the opposing tribe who has been hurt and if your brain says, oh I feel so bad for this person, I want to help them, you could be actually jeopardizing the well being of your tribe. So it's actually beneficial. Like at some point the fittest humans, right? Survival of the fittest were the humans who had the most empathy for their own group and didn't care about the others because it allowed that group to survive. And so now we live in a very different world, right? We do not live in tribal tribes. We live in very blended mixed cultures. And so when you see someone who's very different from you and your brain's empathy systems don't turn on. That was great, you know, a couple hundred thousand years ago, but not anymore. And I think that's concerning. And so because again, empathy is what brings us together. It's one of the things that allows us to survive so well in groups. And it's also something that's kind of absent in. Not absent, but it's declining in modern culture.

[A]

Do we know that to be true?

[B]

It's been kind of bouncing around, but there is some research showing that it was like on the steady decline throughout the 2010s. And then I think it, a recent survey showed that it had come back up. But I think that last survey was a couple years ago. And I don't know, I mean from the feeling of being a human in America, it feels a bit like it's declining.

[A]

Any other tips or tricks or things that we should know about, about how we can be more likable?

[B]

There's something called the likability gap. This has been discovered again, crediting Dr. Erica Boothby. This idea is that people underestimate how well liked they are.

[A]

People underestimate, yeah. Not the narcissist.

[B]

Right. On average, the average human being, you know, if you poll people and ask them, they have an interaction and then you ask them after, how much do you think that person liked you? They're gonna score lower than the person actually scored them. And so it's very common to not think you were very well liked. You know, it's very easy to doubt yourself, but most often the other person actually probably likes you better than you think.

[A]

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[B]

I think it's anxiety. I think that it benefits us to care a lot about how we perform socially. Right. Because again, the reason that we get benefit so much from interaction is because we are wired for it. Our brains reward us for being around others because at one point, being around others was the only way to survive. And so we care whether we are liked. You know, we want to be liked. And we have. Everybody has some level of social anxiety. You know, it's almost impossible to leave a social interaction and be like, I did perfect.

[A]

Not my husband.

[B]

Some people can do it. Sounds like your husband's quite the anomaly.

[A]

I'm totally kidding. I'm just taking on him because again, he doesn't even listen to this podcast. But he does.

[B]

I might send him this episode so you can know what's really going on.

[A]

I think he represents a lot of the guys out there. And I just want to make sure that this topic is so fascinating.

[B]

I'm glad you think so. I mean, this is what drove me to study neuroscience. You know, I always thought it was interesting.

[A]

Which part?

[B]

The social. The social element, you know, just sort of why everyone's different. You know, why is your husband such a different person than, let's say, me or anyone else? I mean, and it started when I was young, when I was in elementary school. I remember legitimately, I can, like, see it looking around my cafeteria and seeing, you know, some clusters of my classmates who were really loud and, you know, having a good time and laughing, and then other clusters who were, you know, kind of seated more sparsely. They're, you know, one or two in a long table, not really interacting with each other. And I thought at first, I remember thinking, you know, where. Where do I stand on this sort of continuum? And then, why is. Why does this even happen? You know, how come in this class of 300 kids or whatever, there's clicks, there's. Yeah. And there's so much difference. Right? And obviously, when I was, I don't know, 10 years old, I wasn't thinking about it, like, from a neuroscience lens, but now I am, where it's like, that difference I noticed legitimately reflects changes in brain activity and the way these kids brains work based on their genetics and their lived experience and the way they were parented and their innate levels of extroversion and all sorts of things that originally got me to study psychology because I was admittedly kind of afraid of neuroscience. I thought it was intimidating. And then in my second year of undergrad, I had a nightmare that was so horrifying and jolting that I woke up and I laid in bed all night. And I thought, how did my brain do that? How did my brain just create this environment that I was engaging with? And they were characters and storylines, and I was having dialogue, and I was thinking I was behaving like I was conscious in a world that my brain was, like, simultaneously creating. And I just thought that was the most impressive thing. It pulled me out of thinking, oh, why? Why do the kids at this table talk less? And why do the kids at this table talk more? It's not about behavior. In that moment, for me, it became about the brain. You know, this organ is just unbelievable. And so I ended up shifting to neuroscience and then combining the two and studying the neuroscience of social behavior.

[A]

And it drove you to write this book. You had said that your goal is, number one, to really understand the Social connection and how to be better at. And it, it. These are things I have never heard about. And I tried. I studied psychiatry for two years as a psychiatrist, believe it or not, as a psychiatry resident, we had never learned about the likability gap or this self other overlay or self other overlap, the likability gap. Why does it exist for us to do better, be more vigilant and. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

[B]

I. Yeah, no, no, that's fine. I mean, I think we should be motivated to connect, right? We are better off together in so many ways. You know, a couple hundred thousand years ago, it meant we were more likely to survive. Now it means our brains are healthier. You know, and there's a ton of research showing that more isolated people are less healthy. In many ways, we can go there too. But I think, you know, we have systems in our brain that when we around. When we're around others, we experience social reward. We experience our brain's release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxytocin and serotonin that make us feel good and say, let's do this again. And so people leave interactions in a better mood. On the other hand, when people are isolated, they feel much worse. Their rates of anxiety go up, depression go up, suicide go up. All sorts of negative effects. And the body perceives isolation as a form of stress. It activates the HPA axis, it drives cortisol levels up. We feel worse, we have health effects. And I think that's our brain's alarm system saying, you are alone. Go find community, because you're more likely to survive in community. Again, based on long history of roots. And so I think this liking gap is maybe the brain's way of saying you can never get too comfortable, right? If you are cast out from your tribe, you could die. And so for you to make sure that you're pleasing the people around you and that you're comfortably situated and safely situated in your community, you should always maybe underestimate how safe you really are so that you can continue to work harder. But I think that can also be to our detriment. You know, one of the chapters in the book, I lay out all these shortcomings of our social brains. And we tend to do all sorts of things. We tend to think in certain ways that's unhealthy for connection. You know, we. So we like, for instance, we underestimate the value of an interaction. We always think that scientifically, on average, people don't expect that interacting with someone Else will make them feel as good as it actually does. For some reason, we underestimate it.

[A]

Does it have to be, Is it a text exchange? Is it a zoom? Is there something about being physical and in person?

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. We get the most mood benefit from interacting in person. So generally the less lifelike it is. So like a text is much less lifelike than a zoom, for instance. The less lifelike, the less benefit we experience. But having some form of interaction, even if it's just a text, is still better than none. You know, I definitely encourage, like, wherever possible, try to replace virtual digital interactions with in person interactions. For sure.

[A]

You were mentioning the things, negative things that we do that are, did we complete the positive for increasing our likability? Have we gotten to a handful of them? Which again, I think are extraordinary. We ended on the likability gap. Is there anything else that we need to be aware of to improve our chances of deep authentic connection?

[B]

Not that I can think of. I mean, I think a lot of the other things are more. They're less impactful and they're sort of less controllable and, you know. Yeah, things like your name, for instance. Like you could be judged by your name.

[A]

Where, like, give me an example.

[B]

So there's research showing that, that people who are, who have more difficult to pronounce names are judged as being less trustworthy. And if you ask people to classify traits like, you know, respectful, trustworthy, attractive, whatever, honest, positive traits, and you give them a name, they are more likely to assign positive traits to more common names. So on paper at least, having less common names or having more difficult to pronounce names could affect how you are judged. Also, I guess names have this sort of inherent attractiveness to them. Some names, they do.

[A]

I mean, I agree with that.

[B]

Yeah. And so some names are judged as more attractive. And there's like research showing that even if you take a picture of someone and you, you know, change the name that you pair with it, especially for women, it can have a significant effect on how attractive people view them. So if you take the same woman's picture and you put a, you know, traditionally less attractive name with that image or a really attractive name, it can make like a 10% difference in how attractive they judge the same image. It's wild.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For all new parents thinking about how they're going to name their. I mean, again, this probably doesn't impact them, but it's something to think about.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, and you know, again, I hate, I always hate bringing in politics. I Never want to upset anybody. But it's interesting and it's relevant and it matters. I was thinking about how harder to pronounce names are judged as less trustworthy. And when Kamala Harris announced her presidency, it was like, is it Kamala? Is it Kamala? Like, nobody knew how to pronounce it. And you're vying for an office that is really. You need to trust the person. And I've thought a lot about, like, I wonder how much of an impact that they had that when the people, they heard the name for the first time, they didn't know how to pronounce it. They were like, I can't even pronounce her name. How can I trust her to run the country? You know, it's just funny how these things in the back of our brains.

[A]

Decision making, influence.

[B]

Yeah. The lives that we live as a.

[A]

As a country, what should we not do? You said that there are things that we maybe do or ways in which we think on an internal landscape that would affect us negatively.

[B]

So one of them actually pertains to likability. Don't use your phone. Phones away. Throw them in the garbage. If you even leave your phone out on the table and don't use it, there's evidence that it can impair the quality of your interaction. Obviously on a more sort of aggressive level. If you are just like, like, everybody hates that. Right. Like, imagine if I just took my phone out right now and started just scrolling.

[A]

That would be epic.

[B]

During a podcast. That would be pretty wild. But, you know, if this was like a dinner conversation, I started doing that. It's so disrespectful. And. And people, like, know it, but they still do it. People tend to excuse their own behavior more because they're like, oh, I know why I'm doing this. I need to answer this email. And so it's justified. Or I'm pulling up a photo that I'm about to show you. So it's justified. But they still understand that when others do it that it's, you know, not a great thing to do. So there's a study where they were just. They weren't even looking at likability. But for part of the study, they needed to create an unlikable character. And so they had this actress play two different conditions. And half of the. For half of the participants, she was likable. She was, like, really friendly. She, you know, they chatted about, like, what they have in common. You know, all the things that sort of what we have talked about. And then for the Unlikable condition. She, like, brought up something, some controversial topic, and then waited for the other person to voice their opinion and then voice the opposite opinion and, like, had her phone go off. So she set an alarm on her phone to have it go off, and then once it went off, she continued scrolling and texting on it. And by the way, there's a term for that. It's called fubbing ph. Like snubbing, but with a phone.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

And that was actually like a. I think an Australian, like, marketing agency came up with that, and now it's actually become sort of a scientific term. But. But yeah, it's just. It's not a good thing to do. I mean, the fact that when scientists were for an experiment, they had to create an unlikable person and they incorporated that, that should tell you a lot about what the science shows on this. Other than that sort of a general, like, lens to view social interaction and the sort of these miscalculations that we're prone to is that you're probably a lot more anxious and judgmental of yourself than is necessary. Where if someone said, hey, you know, I'll give you five bucks if you go start a conversation on a, you know, on your train ride or your bus ride or whatever, you're probably gonna feel very nervous about that and worry that if you start this conversation, the person's gonna think you're weird, they're gonna reject you. You know, you. You have these sort of internal barriers. A lot of people do, at least, but those are largely fake. You know, if you actually start a conversation with someone, they're very, very likely to, like, it's going to be a good conversation as long as you're not super weird about it or, you know, do something bizarre. But, I mean, this is also from studies where, again, Dr. Nicholas Epley did these studies where the. These people on their commute were asked to talk to a stranger, and they expected that over half of the time they would be rejected. Just flat out, like, leave me alone. Turns out in, like, hundreds of experimental cases, nobody ever rejected them. Every single person on the train welcomed the conversation. And not only did the people who were asked to start the conversation feel better after the other person also felt better too. You know, socializing is like. It's this wonderful, like, ripe fruit all around us that we don't really harvest and use that much, but it's everywhere. And I think we ignore it because of these false predictions about where it's going to go that we think it's. It's not going to be worthwhile. You know, we're not going to feel better after they're going to reject us. We also tend to underestimate the value of things like, like generosity and compliments and things like that. We think that when we're staying in conversations for longer that they're going to just get worse and worse, which is also not true. We have all these errors, we make all these predictive errors about interaction which again are probably just based on this anxiety. I mean, it's a high pressure sort of situation, right? You don't want to be unlikable, you don't want to be rejected. And so it's often easier to just avoid a situation instead of risking that refusal. But most of the time, you know, again, as long as you're acting civilized, it's probably going to be fine.

[A]

And are these conscious thoughts?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's sort of like a background noise that influences our conscious thoughts. Right. It's like there's this worry wart in the back that's like, don't, you know, don't compliment that person. What if they think you're weird or you know, all sorts of things like that. And so it, it sort of trickles into our consciousness for sure. But that's kind of one of the things I hope people can do is, is reprogram that to recognize this is a like well established, documented thing that a lot of people feel this way all the time, but it actually turns out to be fine. And more importantly, what, what lies on the other side of that anxiety is an interaction that will make you feel better, it will be beneficial for your well being. You know, it will have all sorts of benefits on your, your health and brain health and all these organ systems.

[A]

In your body makes your brain healthier.

[B]

Yeah, for, for many reasons. I mean, one is just the mood benefit, right? It's always a happy brain, is a healthy brain. I guess I'm hesitating because it's obviously.

[A]

It'S not, it's not as simple but.

[B]

Yeah, but it's a good thing, right? Like if you are upset all the time, it's not going to be good for your brain health. If you are happy, it's going to be a good thing. Right. When we're thinking about the, the biological benefits of interaction, it's sort of twofold. So one is what does interaction do for us and then what does avoiding isolation do for us? In a lot of these studies, when you're comparing people who are, you know, more Socialized, they interact a lot more, they, you know, build more social forward lifestyles. The control group is your average person. And nowadays the average person is very isolated. You know, we're spending much and much less time together.

[A]

Is that just because people are working from home more or less on their phone more?

[B]

It's a lot of things. I mean, there's obviously Covid changed things, changed a lot of things, right? It made remote work more acceptable and it spawned all of these new systems that replace interactions. So like think about when the first ATM was created, right? It used to be you drive up to the bank and there was a human teller. And now we have Automated teller machines, ATMs. That is one less interaction, maybe, I don't know per week. I don't know how often people go to the bank. Then we have, let's say Instacart, you used to go to the grocery store, you see your community, you cash out at the cashier, you get some meat from the butcher, right? You have all these interactions. Now you have Instacart, someone else shops for you, drops it at your door, you don't even have to go outside. And also a Covid thing, right? Started in Covid, people realized it was super convenient. Now it's here, working out, right? A lot of people who used to go to the gym, maybe they built home gyms during COVID or they got a peloton bike and now they can work out without interacting with another human. There's so many examples of this. I mean, you can, you can tour a house that you're looking to buy virtually, you can see the doctor through telemedicine, all these things. And I think that what's happening is that we are like progressively stripping away these sort of like micro interactions from our days that we don't really pay attention to, right? If someone said, oh, what's the social highlight of your day? You wouldn't be like standing in line at the grocery store silently with people around me, right? Like that's not an interaction, but you are immersed in your community and that is important. You know, your brain likes to have this, this sensation of being safe and surrounded by allies. And your community can be your allies. The data are real, that we are interacting less, very real. I mean, the amount of, you look at it from almost any angle. You know, how much time people spend alone, how much time people spend online, how many friends people have, you know how lonely people feel. Like all these things are going in the wrong direction towards loneliness. And I think that given how bad for Us isolation is. And again, we can go down that route. We're not taking it seriously enough. You know, like the Surgeon General issued this loneliness epidemic report. We're in a loneliness epidemic. What does that mean? Well, being isolated is as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Wow, that sounds bad. But, like, what does that actually mean? Right. The truth is, you know, being isolated is associated with higher risk of mortality. You're just more likely to die. There's studies showing track like 300,000 people for a decade and stratified them by how much they're interacting. Those on the low end were 50% more likely to die by any cause over the course of the 10 years. Unbelievable, right?

[A]

So imagine, and to be fair, correlation doesn't mean causation. These aren't randomized controlled trials. And maybe they have a different type of lifestyle.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

But you can't totally discount the fact that they would be in more social isolation.

[B]

Yeah. And I think when you look at the biological data, the explanation is there. I mean, to simplify it, I mentioned that isolation is perceived as stress, Right. When you're alone, your cortisol levels go up. If you're alone chronically and you're not getting enough interaction, you have elevated chronic levels. You're basically exerting the effects of chronic stress on your body, you know, increased risk of dementia, increased risk of heart disease. And I think, you know, sure, of those 300,000 people that, that died in this, in that lower group, some of them were probably random car accidents, things like that. But in general, when we are exposing ourselves to chronic stress, which is associated with chronic inflammation that can interfere with the, you know, healthy function of our brains and hearts and tissues, we're more likely to experience, you know, adverse effects like strokes and heart attacks and things like that. And so it's really a significant factor in modern life.

[A]

Do you think that AI or AI people that they can generate, that they can generate to smile and mimic, do you think that that's going to solve for some loneliness? Are we going to replace direct human connection with these AI robots?

[B]

I sincerely hope not. I think it's possible. I think we could go that route as a species. And that kind of worries me. You know, if you look at the data on, there are these tools, like one is replica AI and, you know, not sponsored at all. They, they create these avatars, right? It's an AI powered avatar and it's basically intended to function as your friend. When, when researchers have asked people who use these avatars and have them as basically Friends or companions or even romantic partners.

[A]

We're going to actually talk about that tomorrow on the episode. These AI sex bots kind of.

[B]

I can't wait to watch that episode and hear that perspective. People who use those more, basically, it becomes normalized for them. You know, they rate that. It's good for them, while those who don't use these things generally are like, that does not seem good. Right? And I am. Maybe I'm falling into that trap where I'm a person who doesn't use AI for friendship, and I think it's bad for us. But I'm also looking at it from the neuroscientist lens. So the only reason I raise that data point is because it shows that. That if we all sort of collectively accept these AIs as friends, we will, as a society, start to think it's not weird anymore. But the thing is, there's some evidence. This is very new, obviously, but there's some evidence in neuroscience that the brain processes human social information distinctly. And so, for instance, one of the studies I'm thinking about is in Social touch. So if you, if. If people came into the lab, kind of like blindfolded or put in a brain scanner, they can't see their legs and they receive a massage, like a foot massage, from either a human or a robot, the brain activity will be different if it's a human. Wow. And one of the things that's different is that they have greater oxytocin release, which makes sense because when you're being massaged by a human being, you know, especially if it's someone you care about. Right. Like your romantic partner, for instance, your brain is saying, oh, look at this person doing this for me. I want to bond with them. Right. Oxytocin is this like social, like love hormone. It's this. I think of it as social glue. It's really what drives social reward in the brain, so it makes us feel connected with that person. If it's a robot, there's no purpose in releasing oxytocin because there's no human on the other side of the massage to connect with. And there's no research on this that I've seen about whether that happens with AI friend bots. But I would imagine that. That, you know, if you are recognizing that this is not a human being, your brain is. It's going to behave differently. And one of the things about oxytocin that's really, really important. And one of the reasons why interaction is so important is that oxytocin doesn't just help us form social bonds. Oxytocin is also, it's been referred to by some researchers as nature's medicine. It has all these benefits in the body. Like it can be anti inflammatory, neuroprotective, it's been shown to maybe support immune function, social anxiety, bone growth. It's, it's good for you. Oxytocin is good for your body and it makes sense because again, I, you know, I'm sort of like an evolutionary biologist at heart. I tend to think about everything from an evolutionary perspective. But evolutionarily, you meet a mate, you have the potential to make a child, which is like the best thing you could possibly do evolutionarily. Right? You want to propagate the species, you want to make more human beings. So you're in a position to mate, you're falling in love, you're full of oxytocin. You need to be healthy so that you can not only successfully procreate, but then also be healthy to support that young one and raise it. I think that's probably the reason why oxytocin has all these benefits, is that it allows us to stay alive and not have a heart attack or whatever in the midst of parenting and trying to raise little ones. But I mean, you think about the fact that the human touch stimulates more oxytocin release. If we replace all human contact with AI, is it going to lead to this sort of flattening of just like human oxytocin levels that we could be getting from human contact, whether it's 1% or 20% higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer's and heart disease and all these things, who knows? It could be a small thing, but I mean, also, why would we do that? Right.

[A]

And you had mentioned that isolation is a risk factor for depression. I believe you also mentioned that it was a risk factor for Alzheimer's or, or any type of disease. Is that, is that fair?

[B]

Not any, but yeah, a lot. I mean, heart failure, dementia. Yeah. Diabetes. And then of course, mood conditions. Depression, anxiety, suicidality.

[A]

What are your top three ways to keep a brain healthy? Do you. Have you thought about that in terms. I bet you have, yeah, of course, yeah.

[B]

I mean, they're going to be boring. They're going to be ones you've heard of. And I'm going to give you four. Sorry, the fourth. I'm just going to throw it out now at socializing. Right. I think it's clear at this point. But besides that, sleep, diet, exercise. Right. There's a reason that, like any doctor, if you go to the doctor and you're like, doctor, what should I be doing? And they're like, sleep, diet, exercise.

[A]

But is it in that order or is it socialization? Think about this. When you're young and you're really socializing, I don't know, maybe some people do this now, but you. Or in college, you're up all night hanging out, you get three hours of sleep, you're going to class and you're doing the same thing all over again. Again, maybe that's a terrible way to live. But do we know it's actually sleep, diet, exercise, social connection, in that order? Or is it. Could it be social connection? Exercise, sleep, then diet.

[B]

I'm sure that. Yeah, sorry, this is like a really scientific answer. I'm sure you could like statistically model which is the most effective. Personally, I would put sleep first, I would put socializing second, I think. And then I. Oh, gosh, I hate to like put any of these at the bottom, but I think that I would go exercise, then diet, maybe, or maybe, I don't know, maybe diet. I don't know. But also I'm. I'm brain like your. Yours probably is different. I would imagine you probably put diet. Exercise at the top. Right. It's a lens that we see through.

[A]

Would I put down an exercise at the top? I would probably put exercise number one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then I would put diet number two. And then I would put social connection and then I would put sleep.

[B]

Okay. And that's probably influenced. You're probably really good at working with sleep deprivation.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Guess from that.

[A]

Yeah, it's not a. And there's actually genes. Certain people have genetic mutations. They can and again sleep for four hours or they just get less sleep and they're fine.

[B]

Yeah, I'm the opposite again. This is one of those things where I'm like overly transparent. I have a sleep disorder called narcolepsy, which I'm sure you're familiar with. But for those who aren't, if you've ever seen the videos of a wiener dog running around and then it passes out. That's what I.

[A]

Have you seen the narcoleptic sheep?

[B]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Or they're like stiffen, Right? So that's cataplexy. So narcolepsy, Sorry, massive tangent.

[A]

Sorry, but important, but it matters.

[B]

So. So yeah, narcolepsy, it's a condition characterized by random sleep onset. You fall asleep randomly.

[A]

So what is the potential?

[B]

Did I fall asleep?

[A]

Yes, during this podcast.

[B]

Zero. So the thing is, I've actually. My case is unique in that I don't experience that symptom. I've actually never, well, in the last, like 15 years, haven't fallen asleep against my will because I've learned to manage it right. Sleep for me is like top. I get like eight hours of sleep every night. We were talking before we started recording. I have a daughter coming next week, so I'm worried about the sleep, you know, deficit. But narcolepsy is often comes with this condition called cataplexy, which is where strong emotions trigger muscle weakness or muscle like relaxation. And so that's what's happening to those goats and the wiener dogs is they're. They're really excited, right, that the goats, like, they usually make that like bat noise and then they go down and like the wiener dog, they're running, they're having the best time. I don't know why it always seems to be wiener dogs. I don't know if they have like a high risk factor for narcolepsy, but yeah, that's what I've got. I don't have cataplexy, though.

[A]

Your wife would be really angry if she was delivering the baby and then all of a sudden you had this huge emotional surge and you were out. Just would not be favorable.

[B]

That would not be.

[A]

You would decrease your likableness. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to go off on a tangent either. And I'm certainly not making fun of anyone with narcolepsy or cataplexy.

[B]

Interestingly, there seems to be totally anecdotal. There seems to be a high representation of people with narcolepsy in science and medicine. I've noticed. It's so odd. The only time I've ever met anybody with narcolepsy, they're either like doing their PhD or going to med school. And I, I don't know what that is.

[A]

I've never met someone.

[B]

Well, so now I'm a scientist. Now you can say you agree with me on that anecdote, right?

[A]

Well, considering how many scientists that I talk to on the regular, Unless they're not forthcoming, they might not be forthcoming about it.

[B]

You should ask around.

[A]

Alcohol, drugs, mdma, Molly, ecstasy. Do these things have a negative impact on the brain? And the reason that I'm switching gears a little bit to brain health is Alzheimer's is very, very scary. It's increasing. They call it type 3 diabetes of the brain. People are terrified of cognitive decline. Social isolation makes these things worse. We don't know or I don't know if MDMA will affect Alzheimer's, but it's, it does improve PTSD and depression. There are probably, okay, not depression. There are probably other psychedelics that improve brain function. And then there is, there's the structured use and then there's the unstructured use where people are potentially partying and drinking alcohol. I'm curious as to what those effects would be if we're talking about brain health, if we're going to end the segment talking about how do we improve brain health and, and what are the negative consequences of different lifestyles.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, Andrew Huberman.

[A]

What's up, Andrew?

[B]

Yep. Shout out to Andrew has, you know, really popularized this idea of alcohol is bad for the brain. Right. And, and it, through sharing very real research out there, that those who drink more are at higher risk of, you know, dementia and cognitive decline.

[A]

If he knows, sexual dysfunction. Depending on the amount.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, alcohol is a neurotoxin. It is bad for the brain. Brain cells do not like it. And I think the only reason why it is so popular is because it's a, it's like oil to the social brain. Right. It's, it makes every social interaction easier in general. And probably the reason for that is because it acts sort of like certain anti anxiety medications, you know, benzodiazepines. It can also turn down activity in the amygdala to reduce those emotional reactions. Probably also the reason why come home from a stressful day and you know, a lot of people have a glass of whiskey or something, you know, have a stiff drink to take the edge off. It's acting similarly to a anxiolytic drug. I think if humanity moved away from alcohol, it would probably be better for the brain. It would almost definitely be better for the brain. I don't personally take as strong of a like zero tolerance, you know, position on it. I mean, I think if it was fully illegal, I would probably be that way. Way. But I think that the problem is we have intertwined alcohol with our social lives thoroughly. That if you think if it's Friday night and you're like, I really could use some social connection, what are your options realistically? Right. You can have a one on one interaction in the safety of your home or you can go out somewhere, you can meet people somewhere, and where are they probably going to be? At a bar, they're going to be at a concert, they're going to be at some sort of event where alcohol is involved. And you know, I think that says a lot. I think it's interesting that we as a species have sort of quietly, unspokenly agreed to spend our weekends, our free time, collecting in various places with using alcohol and. Which makes social interactions easier, right? Like, we could be using that time for anything. If we were wolves, we would probably spend our Friday nights hunting, because that's probably very pleasurable, right? But for us as humans, it's pleasurable to gather and to feel relaxed. I mean, if you want to, like, proof your brain against Alzheimer's disease, I mean, for sure, alcohol is not a good thing to be doing, right?

[A]

Alcohol is poison.

[B]

But also, I mean, everything I said, right? Sleep, exercise, diet. I mean, there's correlations between all of these things and Alzheimer's risk, right? You want to be getting more sleep. There are certain diets, you know, this, like, Mediterranean diet, sort of ingredients, like omega 3s, things like that. That higher intake is associated with lower risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. And then exercise. The great thing about exercise is there's a ton of research in. Not in humans yet because we sort of can't measure whether new brain cells are born in humans. It's very difficult. But a ton of research in animals showing that exercise induces neurogenesis, literally creates the formation of new brain cells, which is obviously a good thing. And that's rare. You know, that's one of the reasons, like. Like running cardio, things like that. Again, no clear evidence in humans yet, as far as I'm aware of, but very likely that it probably induces.

[A]

We're gonna have to change the stigma. Dumb jot. We carry a lot of preconceived notions for healthy brain. You would say no alcohol, diet, exercise, sleep. What about sex?

[B]

Sex? Oh, I mean, sex is great for.

[A]

The brain, but is sex good for the brain? Only if it's releasing oxytocin.

[B]

Okay, so the brain signature of sex has been studied. There are studies where people have been put in brain scanners and have a bright. They don't have sex. They don't have sex in the scanner. It's actually quite shocking. This is like the third or fourth thing that I'm gonna say in this pod to regret immediately. But they basically get hand jobs in FMRI scanners. There's just, again, no scientific term for that one. And they've measured their brain activity, and it's interesting. I mean, they've shown that opioid release. So we have these endogenous opioids, right? People know morphine, things like that. But we have these same chemicals or chemicals that act on the same receptors in our brains that we can release for Natural pain relief that seems to be released. There's generally, it seems like sexual arousal. So the period leading up to orgasm is characterized by this sort of like, rise in brain activity all over the place. You know, I couldn't tell. I couldn't even tell you what brain area is. It's a bunch of places. And then during orgasm, the activity kind of peaks, but it sort of changes. It seems to shift to, like, a different set of brain areas and then it kind of like falls back to its typical humor. And what's interesting is that oxytocin does seem to be an important player because. And this comes from more animal studies, because in animals and rats, for instance, we can actually look in their brains and look at the neurons and what they're expressing. Whereas in humans, we can only look at, like, peripheral blood markers. But what they've seen is that the activity of oxytocin producing neurons goes up during that sexual arousal phase and then peaks at orgasm. Or at least more of these neurons are activated if orgasm was achieved. Always funny talking about this in scientific terms. Right.

[A]

I mean, and it's great information, but.

[B]

The reason that matters, first off, we've already mentioned oxytocin is good for us. Right. Another, by the way, good way to induce this similar sort of oxytocin rise is through massage. You could touch. If you have a romantic partner, give them a massage massage.

[A]

It has to be someone else and not yourself. Right. Have you ever tried to rub your own feet? It does not feel as good.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And for real.

[B]

And again, oxytocin is social glue. Right? Someone's massaging you, your brain is saying, I want to bond with this person. They're doing this thing for me. Massaging yourself, you're not going to bond with yourself. Or you take one of those, like, chairs, you massage your back.

[A]

It doesn't work.

[B]

There's no purpose. The brain's not trying to bond.

[A]

It all makes sense now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And by the way, in our. I have a medical clinic. I'm still a practicing physician, we use oxytocin nasal spray.

[B]

What do you use it for?

[A]

Postpartum moms. Helps with milk let down sometimes we'll use it for mood enhancement. We'll always try a more natural route. Yeah, there's a whole host of reasons.

[B]

On that note, when I was writing the book, I learned something. I learned a lot of things, but one of the coolest things that I learned is about that, about. About oxytocin in moms. There's this research showing that when, when the Baby is coming. You know, like, birth has sort of begun. Right. The early stages of labor, mothers will show, like, oxytocin pulses. And as the baby gets closer to being coming out, the pulses get larger and they get more rapid and they last for longer. And so you might think that this is the brain preparing to meet the baby. Right. Of course. It's well known oxytocin has a role in also, like, the.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Birthing process, but in the brain. Right. So it's like, why is this happening? Well, it turns out that this oxytocin from the mother can actually flow into the baby's brain and influence the baby's brain signals. Again, this is in animals. We don't know this in humans yet, but it's presumably the same. It lowers the activity of neurons. Why would it do that? Well, on the way out, as the baby is squeezing through this canal, it's very likely that the baby will suffer reduced oxygen. Right. There'll be some sort of. Of restriction of blood flow. And so in that time of restricted blood flow and restricted oxygen delivery to the baby's brain, if neurons are less active, they can sort of hold their breath for longer. And so these biological signals in the mother that they are completely unaware of is. Is literally neuroprotective. The oxytocin is neuroprotective for the baby's brain as they are born. And this is, like, it's incredible. It's amazing. And it's one of those things where it's like, science is so cool, you know, like, we would never know this, Right. Because it's not like, as. I mean, obviously I can't relate to giving birth, but when people give birth, they're not going to be like, wow, I can feel this oxytocin. I know why it's protecting the baby. Right. Like, there's no way that would be detectable if not for these experiments. And I just think it's awesome that we are all born under the protection of these, like, ancient systems in our bodies. It's amazing.

[A]

Truly extraordinary. Well, Dr. Ben Raine, thank you so much for coming on. I have learned a tremendous amount, and you are extremely likable. I think that the audience is going to love this and love your book and. And really, again, thank you so much for your time.

[B]

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's been great.