The Loneliness Epidemic Is Worse Than You Think | Neuroscientist Dr. Ben Rein Explains

29:11Even when you don't want to at all, just being neurodivergent, I'm the person that's like, I say yes to an invite. And then it comes to the time and I'll sometimes even drive there. I'll park and I'll be like, I ain't got it in me. I gotta go. I gotta go. And I've had friends that are like, I saw you outside my house. I'm like, I know. But like, I just, uh, and before I figured out that I was autistic, before I got diagnosed, I'm like, I don't know what's wrong with me. I just only kept the energy to like have a conversation. I don't know what's going on. And then I'm like, oh, masking check. Okay.

29:43Okay, so number two is online friendships affect the brain the same way in-person ones do. That one's got to be false. Well, that one's false. You talked about it in your book. Well, you came up with these points. That one's definitely false. Let's go. That's the tricky thing is that there's like what you said and how you said it in your brain, and then there's how I ask it. I think we're like having our own little neuroscience experiment right now. Okay, number three, chronic loneliness raises stress hormones and inflammation. True. That is the one that we've already, that was the hint earlier that we already discussed.

30:17Okay. So let me ask you this though, because we did talk about social media earlier. What do you think social media in the current way, it is showing us divisive content, trying to rage bait us and pitting us against other humans is actually doing to our brain and our ability to form meaningful relationships? Because what happens on Instagram doesn't stay on Instagram. Yeah. I mean, there's no question that social media is not social. It incorporates social elements, right? Of course, we are seeing content. Like I'm thinking about the Instagram feed scrolling experience. You're seeing someone you know posted a picture.

30:58Look, they're in Greece. They're with their mom or whatever. They got married. They bought a house. Like it's social. You're taking in social information. But it is in no way comparable to a real life social experience, social interaction. uh and and the data suggests that that is true you know when you look at the the mood benefits of well not even social media but just online interactions so if you actually have a real interaction where you're you're facetiming with someone or you're phone calling or you're texting with them not just scrolling on social media uh people don't feel as good after those virtual interactions compared to in-person interactions.

31:38And for me, the reasoning seems very clear. I mean, we are interacting face-to-face right now, which is awesome. I love doing in-person podcasts. It's a rare thing. But we have all these cues that we can detect, and your facial expression, your body language, your vocal tone, those cues are going into my brain, I'm not thinking about it, my brain's just a computer that does this, it's just processing and computing an assessment of your mood and your feelings and your reaction to what I just said, and you know, whether you're kind of done with this topic and ready for the next thing, you're getting a little bored, right?

32:13Like there's all this information that's going in here and just happening, and your social cues are what's doing that. So when we go to even a video call, for instance, we could be doing this through a screen, we would lose two things. We would lose social smells, which we don't detect anything, probably, I don't know, maybe there's some social smells going on here, but it might not be doing that. There definitely is. I mean, even if you can't, even if like the olfactory center is not like, you're smelling, I'm still detecting you, you're still detecting me. I mean, that is to go back to the evolutionary, you know, what I think is interesting is that they've done studies on like, when women are ovulating, when they're not ovulating, when they're in menopause, when they're on birth control pill, And we see that there are different interactions.

32:56And on the flip side, where women's hormones are at are also dictating who we're perceiving as who we want in our environment. And this isn't just what we see. You know, I don't know if you're familiar with the research on like women picking up like the whole pheromone thing being more about MHC complexes and compatibility. And like, I'm reading your immune system right now. And I'm also, I think that, you know, there's the social cues of being sick, right? But there's also the like, I got to detect that because you'd be a threat, right? Yeah. Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema.

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34:04Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Epclus and visit epclus.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. That may be an olfactory thing. It might be something you smell. But the other thing we lose in video interaction is eye contact, right? It becomes impossible because you would have to both be looking at your camera and then you're not looking at each other.

34:38So you lose eye contact, which is important. You know, studies show that, not to go on a whole tangent, but eye contact is an important trigger for intra-brain synchrony. when two brains synchronize. And let me just say, I've had this weekend three sexperts, okay, like psychologists who specialize in human sexuality who have all said eye contact is one of the most important things that couples are missing out on. So you saying that, like, I'm like, oh, you just like made this huge connection for our audience. Yeah, no, I mean, because intrabrain synchrony, now I don't want to, this could be like a 20 minute diversion.

35:14I'll make it 30 seconds. when people are working together, you know, uh, on the same wavelength, right. Thinking kind of the same things, certain brain areas can synchronize. And it's not like there's some like quantum leap where like our brains are, we're not telepathic. No, it's not. It's that we are just sort of, we're just on the same page, right? We are thinking the same things. We understand the situation from the same way. At least that's my take. I mean, there might be neuroscientists out there who think it's some sort of quantum thing. I don't, um, there's probably few that think that way.

35:43Anyways, that's important because people actually, there's, there's studies showing that when people are experiencing interbrain synchrony, it improves cooperation in certain ways on certain tasks. And, um, romantic couples are at a higher likelihood of experiencing interbrain synchrony and specifically during eye contact. So it is an important thing. And so, you know, when you're, you think about long-term couples that you're FaceTiming and maybe you're more likely to get an argument or something like that, right? We're kind of we're distancing we're losing some of the social texture for our brains yeah and so you know you can imagine what happens as we go down this like pyramid of uh of digital interactions you go from video call to phone call okay now you can't see any body language you can't see any facial expressions you're losing more of that that my brain our brains are just soaking in and using to form an understanding of each other without that what happens well you struggle to understand each other and why would my brain perceive that i'm interacting with a human being when all of the typical cues that tell my brain this is a human pay attention to their emotions are not there and so i actually have a theory on this or hypothesis i call it the virtual disengagement hypothesis in other words when we interact virtually digitally the i believe the brain areas that drive empathy disengage because typically what well that explains so much social media behavior exactly exactly because typically what happens when we perceive vocal tone and all that stuff i mentioned that it kind of just goes in my brain just picks it up right that's empathy so the brain has empathy related empathy systems that they turn on when this social information is detected and it helps you understand what someone's thinking on social media we don't have those cues and so we may not empathize as much and empathy at its core is defined as the sharing of someone else's experience right you take on their emotions so you know if i were to step on your toes right now and you were to be hurt by that i would feel bad because your pain hurts me because of empathy right i take on some of that negative experience but if i comment something really mean on your social media i and you might have the same sort of painful response i'm not there to witness it I don't experience your social cues.

38:04So my brain is completely free to go. I can just move on with my life without feeling bad at all. And so I use this analogy in the book about placing a tack, right? You place a tack as a kindergartner trying to prank a friend and then you move on. And now years later, a child just sat on the tack in your childhood elementary school and they're crying and they're in the nurse's office. Do you feel empathy, right? It's kind of like, does a tree that falls in the woods by itself make a sound. How can you feel empathy when you are not witnessing the cues? You are directly responsible for that child's pain, but you're not aware of it.

38:41And so on social media, we are not present for the moment where whoever posted steps on the tack. We just don't witness it. And so I think that is a big driver behind our hostility. And what I particularly worry about is empathy is something that we largely learn through experience, through childhood and in the modern world where kids are interacting more and more online in their early life i worry about whether what happens to a brain when the key social moments where you learn about empathy are happening in digital environments yeah where our brains are potentially behaving differently would a person in that environment still develop empathy the same way.

39:29And I worry that it may not. Um, and so, you know, when it comes to what's the net effect of, of social media, I mean, I think it's, it's destroying our attention. You know, this, I, this is sort of like one of those social media things where it's like, people say it on social media. Like I actually agree. And anecdotally, it's like, even myself, I mean, I, I have felt my attention span shrink, which is really sad because I, it used to be stronger, but we are all just, you know, there are so many forms of entertainment constantly competing for our attention. And it's like anything in life, right?

40:05Like I remember learning in high school or college that when you're in a relationship, what's the most likely thing to break up a relationship? It's a strong alternative, right? So if you meet someone you really like, that's a major threat to your relationship because you have something else. Like that's pretty much what we're experiencing on social media all the time. You're watching a video that you like and you're enjoying it, but then you're thinking, oh, the next video on my feed might be something even better. And then that impulse grows stronger and stronger. And like, I've actually experienced this where I'm enjoying what I'm watching and then, and I want to watch the end of it.

40:39I'm like, nah, I'm going to see what's next. And then I just kind of move on. And like, I don't think that's good. It also is changing people's behavior overall because the way the algorithm is conditioning people to capture attention, to continue to entertain, to shock. And I think about that. And I think about how we're going to look back at these. I think a lot about doctors who do takedown content, who are like, this stupid influencer is a scammer and a grifter, and this is why we hate them kind of content. I think that's one, it's really solidifying not to trust doctors and that we are egotistical assholes.

41:19I think it's like, how do we build, rebuild trust when you behave so poorly? I have just within my own house, I have two boys. I have to raise them to be men that people want to be in relationship with. And I'm always talking about kindness. So for me, I'm like, I can't go on social media that lives forever and be a contradiction to what I'm teaching my children. My son is the only kid in his class who's not on social media. And he tells me that he's like, I'm the only one that doesn't have social media. And the first time he asked me why I was like, because I love you. And I was like, that's not to say that their parents don't love them.

41:54I just can't know what I know and be okay with you being on social media. It's always going to be there. But also you and I close similar ages. How much stuff are you so glad was never documented? Like, I mean, I was like a first user of Facebook because they opened it up to college students. But we just like poked each other. I still don't get that. Decades later, but it was how we formed study groups. That's what we used Facebook for. But I look back to like the college experience and stuff and like how much stupid stuff I saw at parties, but nobody had a cell phone. Nobody was documenting anything.

42:31So I also think about that aspect. But back to my point about like the doctors and the takedown content and all that, I think we're going to look back and be in 20 years and be like, that was really bad. We should have never done that. We should have never. That was very toxic for like human brains altogether. Before we started recording, we were talking about like people's selfishly being kind because it's good for them, selfishly seeking relationships. And it's something that as you're talking about social media, when I get hateful comments, I often will go and be like, I'm leaving 10 positive comments for someone else.

43:08or if I see someone, there was this pregnant woman on TikTok who was just getting hated on in the comments for this dress she wore. I would never wear this dress because I don't have her confidence. But seeing all of that, I was like, I am so glad you are so confident in your pride. I left this comment that was positive and then the way people pounced on me and I was like, well, in some ways I just like took the heat away from her because I was like, you're affecting a fetus. Okay. You're affecting a baby in the future. But it's all to say that like Like I will, when I'm like, oh, that comment hurt.

43:41I'm like, okay, what will make me feel better? I'm gonna, like, I see a chef who made a good plate and I'm like, I'm so like proud of you for like trying this or like, thank you for sharing this with me. Like, and I will go and do that. Like, I'm gonna just leave 10 positive comments and I'm like, then I feel so much better. So let's talk about that. Like the selfishness of like, I'm gonna be positive and put out positivity because it makes me feel better. are we just being selfish jerks out there or are we having a positive impact? Well, first, let me just comment on the video you're talking about with the pregnant woman.

44:15You know this video? I don't know the video. Okay, okay. I just want to draw back to it because it's such a good example of this. Like, if you were walking on the street and you saw this woman or anybody, anybody who commented on the video something mean, if they saw that pregnant woman on the street, they would never, even if they met her and were talking with her, they would absolutely never be like, Like that dress looks terrible on you. You should be ashamed for wearing it or whatever people said in the comments. Yeah, that would never, ever happen because of empathy, because we know that it's going to hurt the person.

44:42But on social media, we just have this distance. And so it's like, I don't know, it's like this this carelessness, like you just like your consciousness just goes away and you are just so much more prone to leaving comments like that. And it's it's horrific, horrific. I mean, like you said, it's affecting a fetus. It's that's so terrible. But I think that's a good example of it. Okay, so as for the, you know, the kindness and the positivity, I mean, yes. Selfishly kind. Yeah, well, so people do feel better when they are nice, actually. You know, when you give people compliments, you know, when you express gratitude, things like that.

45:18Those are natural mood boosters. They make us feel better. And I do have this belief that in a world where we are feeling more and more divided from each other for so many reasons, not just like physically divided and social media getting between us and all this stuff, but also, I mean, politically divided. And, you know, there's so many reasons why we are separating from each other. I think that if people can understand that being nice to someone is actually good for you, then maybe it sort of gets around those divides and those barriers that we've placed between each other. Because, you know, this concept I also bring up in the book, I call it selfish selflessness.

45:59Is that controversial? I don't know. I mean, maybe in certain instances, that's what is needed to sort of get the job done, right? But I think another related concept to this is that we often do look at what makes us different. The brain has a tendency to focus on that. And once it detects that, once it detects that we are, there's something different about someone, the brain starts to treat that person differently, much more negatively um you know they the main thing is again this comes back to empathy you know those empathy systems they rev up a lot more when we detect that someone is like us and you know it happens to me all the time when i'm passing someone like i'm from buffalo new york if i see someone in a bills sweater or something i immediately just like i like them more oh i was like is he not a bills fan is he a bills fan people are going to be commenting being like i pay the bills angry jets and dolphins and patriots fans but yeah you know i it just there's something about it where you just like snap into this respect for someone when you see that they're like you and then on the other hand i mean how does it feel when you see someone who's unlike you i mean all over the country we have people outside protesting and rallying and you know how does it feel when you drive past people rallying for a cause that you don't believe in a lot of time these outdoor rallies and stuff are political, right?

47:20So if you didn't vote for Donald Trump and you see people out there waving around Trump flags, the distance that you feel from those people is real. You know, the brain treats them differently and vice versa. If you voted for Trump and you see people waving, you know, Kamala Harris flags or whatever, if anyone would be doing that at this point. But that's to me concerning because I think we've gotten really, really good at identifying all the various ways that we can be different from someone. You know, it didn't used to be as salient, that we didn't pay as close attention to all the ways that we are different.

47:54But I think right now we have this like, and social media is actually feeding this a lot where we're building this culture around identity where like, what is your gender identity? What is your sexuality? What is your religion? What is your political identity? There are so many ways that these very personal things are being pulled to the surface of someone's identity. And that's often also what's underlying the hostility and criticism and harassment and all that terrible shit that's happening on social media is that person is different from me. I disagree with your beliefs. And so I'm going to let you have it, especially because my brain's basically turned off right now while I'm attacking you on social media.

48:38Do you hear that? Sounds like breakfast is ready. Because Quaker's coming in hot with morning nutrition. 100 % whole grain oats and a good source of fiber to fuel the rhythm of your morning and kickstart your day and that sounds absolutely delicious fuel to start whatever's next quaker official sponsor of fifa world cup 26 and so what i really want people to think about is what that does to the brain. You know, we're talking about isolation. We're talking about the negative health effects of not being connected. What happens to your brain when you are living in a world where you perceive that you're surrounded by enemies, right?

49:23That's a very bad thing. And also what happens to your interactions when your empathy systems are turning off? Because the first thing you're thinking about when you see your uncle is that they voted for the other political candidate. And so you're different. And so you don't respect them the same. And I just want people to get back to what do we have in common right and that may seem like such a ridiculous request at this point but it's a really good starting point because you know there's so many ways to do it you can go to like meetup events where let's say you love um mountain biking you know you can find groups who are mountain bikers and you can go and that particular example is going to draw all sorts of different people from all sorts of different backgrounds.

50:08And you will share something in common that you all love mountain biking and that you're all mountain biking together. And it gives you something to pull to the surface over those other identity measures. And I think if we, especially in the U.S., if we really want to climb out of this, you know, these trenches of isolation that we find ourselves in, I think we're going to have to sort of shake off some of the importance of identity and allow us to just recognize these other human beings are a lot like me and being around them is good for my brain. What's the incentive of the trenches though? Who's benefiting from it?

50:41Because there are definitely people who want to keep us divided, who want to make sure that we are distracted, that we are cultivating negative thoughts. Like why? Without going fully conspiratorial. I don't know though. Like, you know, it's funny how like in like 2020, we're going to talk about the pandemic because I got questions about that how everything became a conspiracy theory yeah and I'm like but wait a minute like so many things have some truth to them we have to explore and then it's like oh everything is like you're this crazy tinfoil hat person if you ask like these questions and it's like you know like it's just normal to have questions as a human and like and so go be a conspiracy have the conspiracy have the hypothesis we'll just call it that and be like and we'll see how it shakes out later, right?

51:30Sure. Yeah, I mean, I mentioned that isolation is a form of stress. The other thing is, you know, it's not just stress. There's more to it. And one of the ways that isolation affects the brain is it alters social information processing. There's literally, you know, studies that basically when people are isolated, they show different brain responses to social information. So for instance, people who are more isolated, When they see negative social images, like in this study I'm thinking of, one of the images they used was a man slapping a woman. Isolated people show larger brain responses in certain brain areas, like the visual cortex.

52:08Does that mean they are showing hyper-responsiveness to negative social information? Maybe so. I mean, evolutionarily, that makes a bit of sense that when you're cast out from your tribe and then you enter a new tribe and you're exposed to more social information, you should be paying close attention to your environment and you should be a bit skeptical, right? Because if you find a new tribe and they welcome you in, well, can you really trust these people? And so in that same vein, there's also evidence that isolated people struggle with trust. They are less likely to trust others. They're also less likely to be trusted by others.

52:41And so if you think about when people are isolated, they have they struggle with trust. OK, they also pay closer attention to negative social information. Interesting. That person is extremely vulnerable to conspiracy, actually. Right. Because as we present a conspiracy, I mean, yeah. Yeah, and whether there is a, you know, I don't necessarily believe that there is a they, right? Like, I think - I'm going to jump in here. I 100 % believe that the major media sources want to keep us in this loop of being addicted to negative content. And we see this by evidence of what does the news present? What else?

53:27So what will Meta tee up for you? we know that uh if you open up if you're male you open up a new social media account youtube tiktok meta you name it they're gonna show you like very polarizing negative things so there is definitely and so everybody listening they might be jumping to like oh so she must think like something let me be clear what i think i think it's advertising dollars yeah i think it's if you can captivate and hold attention and you've got, I mean, look at food science. Okay. So my, my degree, food science and nutrition, we figured out what your neurochemistry is and how to manipulate food to hijack your natural inclinations.

54:11Social media has done the same thing. Media at a whole has done the same thing with our neurochemistry of like hijacking us. And it is all because more eyes is more dollars. And so that's my conspiracy. You guys is that it's about advertising dollars is about generating money. I'm sure some people are going to be like, this is political manipulation or this or that. Maybe. I don't know. I haven't put much thought into that. But I think it's more about like, if I can keep you addicted and keep you here, I can show you more ads and I make more money. No, I agree. And that's the direction I was headed, you know, because...

54:43Sorry, then I shouldn't have cut you off. No, no, no. I'm glad you said it. You're like, she can take the heat. I could simply endorse. No, but I mean, because that's really, that's where I was going. You know, what I was starting to say is I don't think there's a they, right? Like, because you can go real deep into this where it's like, wow, well, like, did, you know, major, did mainstream American media start the COVID pandemic? Like, no. But when conditions change and we end up in certain circumstances, capitalism is going to capitalism, right? Like, if we are, if we are isolated and suddenly, like during the COVID pandemic, we are now more likely to struggle with trust.

55:21And so we're going to be more focused maybe on stories that reaffirm our distrust of certain institutions. We are paying closer attention to negative social signals. Suddenly the news starts playing more negative information because they recognize, hey, when we do this, our viewership goes up. And so we can, you know, charge more for ad slots, right? Like, I think that there's a very coincidental, circumstantial shift that was probably triggered by COVID, where, like, because we were so isolated, we started to process information differently. And so, yeah, like, the news just followed the money.

55:58And now here we are, years later, still in this shit stew of whatever the hell this is, you know, and a couple months ago. There was the whole thing where Donald Trump said something about transgender mice. Oh, yeah, the transgenic mice. Yes. Which is a good example of why scientists need to be collaborating with everyone. Because that one word can be very confusing. So I wanted you to make your point, but I think we also should explain people what the difference is. Right, yeah. So transgenic mice, in my research I've used transgenic mice. you're altering the genome of mice. Like, for example, in my research, we were looking at genetic risk factors for autism.

56:43And so we would, you know, there are certain genes that, you know, genetic changes that are associated with autism in humans. We want to study what those, how those genes are affecting brain function. So we would introduce those specific changes into the genomes of mice. We're changing trans, their genome, genic. So those are transgenic mice. And so whatever. So there's a quote where Donald Trump said something about, oh, they're making the mice transgender. I think he meant transgenic. Maybe he didn't. But anyways, I saw that and it upset me because I thought, my God, yeah, like you said, we need more scientists communicating with political leaders to make sure that they understand what's going on.

57:20But then what also upset me was that I saw a video going super viral on TikTok, I think it was, where someone was correcting and they were like, Donald Trump is so stupid. You know, he said transgender. he meant transgenic. This is what transgenic mice are. And then the guy in the video explained completely wrong. Oh, was that the video where he was like, they're injecting human DNA? I can't remember the exact explanation, but it was completely wrong. And what upset me was that people were going wild rallying in the comments being like, you know, share this, everyone share this. We need to make sure that everyone knows like the truth.

57:53It's like, this is not the truth. And what frustrated me about that was that for people who oppose Donald Trump, that video was such a satisfying slap in the face of Donald Trump that it didn't even matter if the information was valid or not. What does that say about like our neurochemistry and bias? Yeah, I mean, exactly. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing the opposition be defeated, right? And what frustrates me is that we are allowing our in-group, out-group dynamics to become more important than the quality of information. And there's this problem in America that's been happening for years that has been referred to as truth decay, right?

58:31We are losing a sense of truth, right? Anything can be labeled as misinformation, fake news. We are losing a sense of what is reality. You know, news outlets can report whatever they want and, you know, and then be cited as a reference when the actual information is wrong in the news outlet. It's concerning. And I think that, you know, this is just my opinion, but I think evidence should be our primary guide. and you may be more likely to trust evidence when it comes from someone who you share opinions with, but the in-group identity of someone does not necessarily make them a trustworthy source of information.

59:08The fundamental reality of what happened and what information is true is different depending on your political lean. And that to me is just like the scariest thing in the universe. It is so concerning. Yeah. I think it's also concerning that when someone doesn't understand something that is complex science, how quick people are to say, you're stupid. Let me say, people who are truly smart don't tend to have to step on someone else to demonstrate their intelligence. But when you see that, I'm always like, this is why people are afraid to ask questions. This is why people are afraid to have statements.

59:46We all have our level of expertise. Like, I can sit here with you. I have probably already said something dumb, and I'm going to say something dumb again in the context of if I'm held at the standard to have the same level of knowledge as you. But I think that's like a really slippery slope. You brought up, though, like listening to experts. You are an expert in autism. You have done research in this arena. We have seen this go so political. and I see there is no left or right or and everybody's getting so much wrong in so many ways. What do you think are some of the big things that people are getting wrong, especially when it comes to like the cause of autism?

1:00:27In the year 1998, a scientist named Andrew Wakefield published a study and the study said that the MMR vaccine increased the risk of autism. And it was in like, there was like 14, I think, patients. It was maybe 17. It was small. And this study hit the news and everybody was like, oh, you know, yikes, vaccines, autism. And then what ended up happening quietly in the background was it turned out Andrew Wakefield was involved in a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company. And so he had fabricated the data to use in court. So he was, it was made up data. And, and the thing that like crushes me about this is like, nowadays we have so many people who are like, you can't trust any science because all science is funded by pharmaceutical companies.

1:01:23First off, that's completely not true. I've been, you know, I've published 20 plus papers, worked with hundreds of researchers. I've never heard of anybody having a research study funded by a big pharma company. Never. Sure. It can happen. I've never heard of it actually happening. But the people who say that they're like, you can't trust that study because there's a conflict of interest. They're funded by Big Pharma. And then oftentimes people with that opinion will also believe that vaccines are associated with autism. Well, they believe vaccines cause autism, right? That it's a direct cause.

1:01:52Right. And the irony about that is that the original paper that suggested, and by the way, the only paper that suggested that vaccines cause autism had a conflict of interest because he was embroiled in a lawsuit against the vaccine company. And so he fabricated the data because he had an incentive to do it. And so it's the exact same issue with saying, oh, you know, you could say the studies that say vaccines are safe are funded by big pharma, so you can't trust them. Well, the studies that say vaccines cause autism were trying to oppose big pharma companies. Anyways, so the paper was retracted, the one that was published in 1998.

1:02:21And ever since then, people have believed that vaccines cause autism. Naturally, this has triggered scientists to say, well, we should probably like check, right? And so there are studies with millions of children comparing vaccination status with likelihood of autism diagnosis, and there's no relationship. So it has been shown time and time again with massive sample sizes that there's no link between vaccines and autism. And yet it's continuously a topic, right? We have, this is very much a political topic now, but I mean, that's, again, I allowed the data to lead me and the data say that there are no links between those two things.

1:03:00When it comes to the actual causes of autism, genetics is a major component um those estimates are all over the place but let's say to be fair maybe like 40 to 60 percent of autism cases are related to genetics um and that was the the basis of my phd was studying specific genetic changes and how they influence brain function the activity and socially you know social related brain areas um then there are also so there are environmental factors that is a real thing uh which can be you know things like maternal stress during pregnancy maternal sickness during pregnancy inflammation obesity yeah yeah age exposure to environmental toxins in utero um like pollution and things like that or like diesel gas like things like that and then there are certain drugs like valproic acid vpa so in utero can also is associated with autism And what's interesting, by the way, is that when scientists want to study autism in mice, there are ways that basically we will induce, we'll try to induce autism in a mouse.

1:04:05And, you know, it's obviously it's not autism, but it's, they show similar changes. They're less social and things like that. And some of the ways that that happens is one mouse is called maternal immune activation. So they're triggering an immune response in the mother while pregnant. Another is valproic acid exposure. So exposure to VPA while in utero. And then the others are mostly genetic. And then lastly, there are also what's called idiopathic cases, which are basically we don't know what's going on. And that's usually where people will say, well, that's probably where the vaccines come in.

1:04:37But, you know, again, and truly, I hate to have this conversation after having just had a political conversation because it's impossible for a listener to say, this guy's totally neutral. I try to be. But, you know, the data say that there's not a role for vaccines. so. Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement.

1:05:11It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. that's freedom to be use as directed i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you like straight up as somebody who just sold another book that i met with publishers publishing houses who literally said to me on the call you cannot talk about anything political if you were to work with us and i asked them well how because i'm in health i work in women's health i didn't choose to be political like politics chose us and like and we're just in the ring and i'm just like trying to help people sort through this.

1:05:46So, you know, going back to what you said, we saw recently announced that acetaminophen, cause of autism. And I want to ask you because you're the expert in this arena. So there's another variable, which is maybe the health of the mother lurking in the background that is associated with both increased risk of using acetaminophen and increased risk of child having autism. And there's another study that came out a couple months ago that was just like this terrible garbage study that was produced by these scientists who are like very clearly desperate to find evidence that vaccines cause autism. Like they like lead this organization that's all about vaccines and autism.

1:06:26The paper has been retracted like multiple times and like they've been trying to publish it forever, but they finally got it published, published on a website that is like meant to look like a scientific journal, but it's actually just this guy's website. And it was peer reviewed by the editor of the journal who's also in the organization that they run anyways so you want to talk about conspiracy when people are like this is funded by pharma i think every piece of science that comes out like we have to sit through the lens of like what it's really lame too right for science to be like that where we have to be like okay who are the players who are the players especially when it is flying in the face of like years of data exactly when something comes out it makes no sense the initial response should be to call bullshit.

1:07:10If it goes against the existing data, yeah. But we have to be cautious, right? Because hand-washing was once upon a time bullshit, and we institutionalized that guy. So I will say, like, things do change. Yeah, absolutely. They do change. Yeah, I think it depends on the context. Anyway, so this study that I'm talking about, they basically found that people who went for more vaccines were way more likely to have autism. And again, it's like, that's like, holy cow, 117 times, like, definitely not vaccinating my kids. Okay, hit the brakes. What is the confounding variable in this case? Well, more doctor's visits, screenings.

1:07:43Yeah. That's my first thought. Yeah. If the people who, the parents and the children, I guess too, but mostly let's think about the parents because they're really making the decisions in this case, who are more likely to take their kids for all these doctor visits, which incorporate vaccines are also much more likely to take their child to the doctor for an autism assessment when their child starts demonstrating some sort of social symptoms. And so, yeah it's like the the thing about that study is it really brings to the light this important dilemma which is that like science it very much can be political and it depends on how it's presented it really does because you can easily control for other variables there but or you could not right and in this case they did not and so it creates this this bar graph where you And you're like, whoa.

1:08:32Right. And this happens all the time on the news, too, where there's like funny examples of this on social media where there's a bar graph and it's like, you know, they'll have like number of mass shootings and they'll be like 40, 60. And then like this year, 80. And it's like, why is the difference? You know, it's like it's also a 20 difference, but it's like massive. And it's just like the way it's presented. And as a scientist, I absolutely hate that people have decided to start basically using data as a way to, you know, manipulate people who pay attention to the news, you know, but it's really concerning.

1:09:05And I also, I empathize with people who are distrustful of science. I understand, you know, science has done a lot wrong, right? We've like the way that science works that if I were to publish a paper today, I publish it in a scientific journal. They'll be behind a paywall. It'll be full of jargon. There's basically no way for the average person to read and understand it. That's a huge problem, right? How can we expect people to respect and listen to science when science is so withdrawn from society? That's a problem. And on purpose. You know, I think about that journal article that came out and their whole game was if you put it into like chat gpt or ai to read it it's going to give you the wrong stuff and i'm like you're jerks you're absolute jerks if you're listening you're a jerk um because like this was an opportunity to make science accessible like i have literally on this podcast told people take a study put it into chat gpt and first thing say what are all the flaws and limitations of this study.

1:10:08Now you know, okay, I'm going to go into it this way. Okay. And then you can start prompting chat GPT to like, okay, so like, what were the findings of this study? What should I read to verify these studies? Like you could use AI to teach yourself how to understand a scientific study. I mean, it could literally coach you. During the pandemic, I think it was Yale that had a course that they put online of like how to understand science so that they could get more people science literate. AI comes out, people have that opportunity. And then you have this like journal article come out. And I saw people putting it out, these scientists being like, you can't just use AI and see it.

1:10:48I'm like, why would you handicap people from being able to understand science? You want them to trust it? Like, what's your end goal to be like the expert, the gatekeeper, or to actually make science accessible? I would hope it would be the latter, but like, I don't know. I don't want to play with you because you don't play nicely. Yeah. Oh, I think that that also raises something that's important is that scientists are human beings and all human beings have opinions. All human beings sometimes do things that we disagree with. You know, even people we love, like my parents, like people close to me, I love them to death.

1:11:22They often do things that I'm like, why would you ever do that? Right. And so it's entirely possible that you and I, if we were sitting down with that scientist, we would agree on everything except that one decision. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I love that you say that because people will think if you disagree with one thing, you hate that person. And that is not, I'm like, there is no human on this planet that I agree with a hundred percent. And like, I find confrontation and conflict to actually be a good thing sometimes because it's what actually challenges me to reframe, rethink, grow my knowledge.

1:11:54I think that's actually another part of what's sort of happened culturally in the last few years is like, is that exactly what you just said, right? We disagree on one thing, Therefore, I am not able to permit you in my life whatsoever, you know, and that's actually. That's like fundamentally at the root of what I care about so much is that if we do that, if we allow people, if we allow ourselves to create distance with other people just because we disagree about something, we're actually doing a major disservice to our health and our biology. And that's a problem. Let me play devil's advocate here going back to the vaccine and autism because there are absolutely parents who are like, I gave my child a vaccine.

1:12:31They were a different person later. is it plausible that born genetically you are autistic and at the under underpinning of that there is immune system dysregulation and that perhaps any immune stimulation what whether it's naturally acquired or it's vaccine acquired could tip the scale and further the autism expression in my mind not really because okay let's think about like why why would a genetic mutation or genetic change, increase the risk for autism, right? Like this is literally what I've studied in my PhD. This is why I'm asking you. And because I know someone's in the comments right now, they've already left the comment.

1:13:17Yeah, 100%. 100%. I'm sure there's a lot of comments that I won't be excited to read later. I mentioned before that we have 86 billion neurons, they all have a thousand plus synapses, right? So this is all this interaction that the interaction that happens between neurons at those synapses, those junctions, is called synaptic transmission. And it's the, you know, we could think of like, you've seen the textbook image before, right? There's two ends of a neuron, or two neurons are interacting. There's like the pre-synapse, the post-synapse, a neurotransmitter floats across and it binds to a receptor, right?

1:13:49Y 'all better be on YouTube right now because he's doing all kinds of hands. I got my hands. Yeah, so, you know, look it up if you're listening, or if you're not listening, if you're viewing too, like just look up a picture of a synapse so you can like remember what I'm talking about. So there's so many players just in a single synapse, right? You have the like actual like membrane, like the outer skin of the cell. You have the neurotransmitter itself, like dopamine or serotonin. You have the little vessel that carries the neurotransmitter. You have the little proteins that take that vessel and fuse it to the membrane and allow the neurotransmitter to sprinkle out into the space between.

1:14:24On the other side, I mean, gosh, It's not even like a tenth of it on the one side. On the other side, you have all these receptors. You have all these intracellular messengers where the receptor activates and then maybe there's some downstream cascade. It's really complicated and there's all sorts of players, right? So there are a few different sort of explanations for what's happening in the brain in autism. But one that is very prominent and that I personally think is a key player is this idea of excitation, inhibition, and balance. And what that means is sometimes those signals between neurons are excitatory, which means that they turn up the activity of the receiving neuron.

1:15:03So one neuron is telling another neuron, become more active, or it's the other way. They're saying, become less active. That's inhibitory. There's a delicate balance between those plus sign and minus sign signals. And if you have a sort of imbalance, whether that's too much activity or too little activity, specifically in certain brain areas like the prefrontal cortex which is involved in social cognition and understanding what people are thinking if you have an imbalance in that activity in either direction it can alter basically social interactions and the way people process social information and so this is thought to be one of the potential like sort of causes like brain causes of autism so sorry i mentioned this is like a huge topic i'm trying to explain all of it.

1:15:45So I know I'm like, dude, in 30 seconds or less. So I'm almost there though. So, okay. Genetically, right. How can we get there to an imbalance? Well, it's probably because one of the genes that codes for any of those proteins I mentioned, right? So we have the vesicle, we have the neurotransmitter, we have the receptor, we have all these different things. one of those genes may have changed spontaneously when the baby was you know a pack of 20 cells before it continued growing and became a human being there was just a random genetic error because every time a cell divides it needs to take all these i don't remember 20 000 20 30 000 genes that humans have that's something i should know sorry um hey nobody's perfect uh whatever however many thousands of genes we have the cell has to copy and replicate all of those genes.

1:16:39So imagine if you had to sit down with a pencil and copy all 30 ,000 genes, how many errors would you make? You'd probably make a few. Every single time the cell has to do that when it divides. So errors happen randomly. If the error is, let's say, in the gene that codes for the receptor that takes in the neurotransmitter, and that receptor normally, when the neurotransmitter binds to it, it makes the cell more active. That neurotransmitter is now broken in some way. There's something wrong with the code, the protein is like misfolded, and so it's not causing the cell to be activated. That can lead to this imbalance, right?

1:17:16And that would probably lead to the lower end where the cells are less active because they're not getting this positive message. Okay, here we are now at the conclusion here. So that change in this micro molecular stuff in your brain would change how your brain cells interact all the time. This protein, this receptor is just all over your neurons and it's not functioning properly. And this is basically like how the genetic part of autism works. It may be the receptor, it may be something else, but it's some part of this signaling mechanism is disrupted in some way or another. So that's just a genetic code change, not something that's like altered by experience.

1:18:00So if you were to get a vaccine or have a cold or something like that and ramp up immune activity, it might temporarily exacerbate the effects of that change in the brain. Maybe. I mean, who knows? But it wouldn't necessarily like set off something or trigger something that would permanently change the way the brain functions because it's, you know, another example that I like to use of this is like the the blueprint for this chair i'm sitting in if it was if it was accidentally like misprinted so that when you got this chair from wherever it was ordered from there was no fourth leg and so the chair was just leaning this way and i'm leaning forward the whole interview right and then like some water rushes in here and floods the chair and the chair gets wet like the chair is just always this way it doesn't matter if it got wet now it's just wet too but it doesn't change like the way that it is because that's just how the gene is is encoded and i hope that makes any amount of sense um after all that explanation but in that particular case it which is like most of the genes associated with autism come back to this signaling mechanism there are some others that are involved in like immune activity and things like that and you know who you never know about a certain case, but like generally this sort of like vaccine induced injury model, um, just like does not necessarily make sense, you know, combined with, uh, like genetic, predominantly genetic cause of autism.

1:19:27Could you, do you have a hypothesis of what might be going on? Because I don't think moms are lying when they say my child was one way and then they're another. Are you familiar with pandas at all? No. He is pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with strep. It's something my son went through. He, and I'm always very clear about this. And then somebody seeks to misunderstand me. He did not get a vaccine first. That doesn't mean I'm anti-vax. I'm saying it for the context of he had a strep infection because everybody always comes and says, your son was vaccine injured. I'm like, he didn't have a vaccine.

1:20:02he had a strep infection. Then I say that and people say, well, you're anti-vax. And I'm like, okay, that's really fun. Can we just stay with the game that we're playing right now, which is that he got strep, his brain had an autoimmune attack. And that left him from a child who at six months had his first word. He's walking fine. He's hitting all the milestones early. And then at five years old, he regresses. He can't speak. He can't walk. He can't use the bathroom on his own and it was an inflammatory issue that happened. My child was a different human overnight. Oh, we worked on that. We resolved the infection.

1:20:41We brought on anti-inflammatories and he came back. Some things residually were left affected, like dysgraphia persists because of the area of the brain that was affected in this. So having had that experience, I do tend to believe moms when they say something happened, my child was different. And so I think too often doctors jump to autism. It was something with my son. They were like, he must be autistic. And I'm like, maybe, yes, and there is this other thing going on. Like somebody doesn't change overnight. And so sometimes I wonder if in these cases of what's going on, maybe it's not actually autism.

1:21:24Maybe it's actually something else. And I have the tendency to believe moms. But I also wonder if the tendency to be dismissing moms, dismissing stories, and also being like, you know, not like not ever vaccines. And, you know, if they even bring that up, I think bias comes up in a doctor's mind really quickly where they're like, I can't hear this story because she's just an anti-vaxxer right now. I mean, even as I tell my story, I had to be like, and this and let me caveat because I don't want you to misunderstand me. so i just wonder like what could something else be going on and it's not even autism yeah i mean first off like i believe moms too like parents generally i mean i think i i completely understand how frustrating it must be for people who experience something like this where suddenly they see a change in their kid and then you know they're listening to this interview and they're just like screw this guy he doesn't get it right like the science he's just a scientist yeah and And I guess, and I like, if I, I mean, I have a daughter coming next month, my first child, if that happened to my kid, I would probably feel exactly the same.

1:22:30I would be equally skeptical of vaccines and science. And I would be skeptical of people like myself being for dismissing the idea. I guess what I'm trying to say overall is that within our current understanding of autism and vaccines and the immune reaction that it triggers, it doesn't really fit in that it could be triggering autism.

1:23:18them. like maybe what we're missing is it's not actually autism. Something else is going on and we're just calling it autism. We're also seeing that with intellectual disability, everyone's calling that autism. And I'm like, intellectual disability co-occurs with autism, but it's not autism itself. And the slippery slope in that is that if we just call everything autism and we try, and right now, what do we do with autism? There's no treatment. There's no intervention. really there is like cognitive behavioral therapy and there is like uh you know going to occupational therapy there's all all of these things but like if at the crux of it is something else going on then we're it's a missed opportunity to actually treat what the cause is yeah i mean the funny thing about all this is like autism is a man-made condition right like we call it autism because psychiatrists came together and said okay hey we're noticing that there's a lot of kids who are having these like social challenges and they also happen to have a lot of repetitive behaviors let's take those two things and pair them and call it autism yeah right autism spectrum disorder like this is like a tough perspective to share because it's like it's complicated but it's like human beings every trait we have exists on a spectrum you know like i mentioned introversion extroversion, right?

1:24:45Like athleticism, how funny you are, you know, like anything like that, how fast you can run, whatever. We all exist somewhere in a continuum. And for some of these things, we have decided that if you exist at some place beyond this continuum, that is a disorder and it's in the DSM-5 and it's diagnosable. And in some cases it's treatable. And completely subjective most of the time. Yeah. And so it makes sense that if you're going through something that at the time that you see the doctor for the autism diagnostic observation schedule the ados to get diagnosed with autism if you are showing social deficits and repetitive behaviors you will be diagnosed with autism right because it is what our current psychiatric lens allows us to categorize a person into right but if humans were slightly different we might not have classified those two things together and it could be something else so and like we used to have Asperger's, right?

1:25:42And that was removed, right? Now it's just autism spectrum disorder. And so the experience someone could have in a clinical context 10 years ago or whenever that change was would be completely different because we had just different names for these things. And so there's plenty of medical cases that are not necessarily explained by our current understanding and the current diagnoses that we have. And so it is totally possible that we're missing information. And as an autism researcher, there's a lot that we don't understand about autism, for sure. I mean, there's like a thousand genes that are associated with autism.

1:26:19And so, whereas if you have a change in the genetic code, it can increase the risk of autism. we are nowhere near understanding the contributions of all of those things not to mention the environmental roles you know and then we have the idiopathic where we are just openly saying we don't know right and also the other thing about autism this is also something i want people to understand about autism social interaction social behavior in general is so complicated and involves so many brain areas. And so there are so many places where a change in brain function can manifest as what we would call autism.

1:26:57And so it's almost like by the design of what we characterize as autism spectrum disorder and how broad it is, we are just taking all these different neurobiological differences and classifying them all together, which may not necessarily be right. And I can almost guarantee you my prediction is that in the next, you know, whenever the next DSM comes out, or maybe it'll be 20 or 50 years from now, we will have all these different subtypes of autism or maybe even an entirely new condition that we refer to because it's a spectrum, right? It's autism spectrum for a reason because it can manifest in so many different ways, which makes sense considering that there are so many different brain systems involved.

1:27:39Yeah. And so, you know, I'm conscious about, you know, saying like, well, you know, when it comes to vaccines, like anything's possible. But like the truth is, I am cautious about that because I don't want my words to be like taken and, you know, used as look, here's a guy who studies autism saying it's possible. Yeah. And because like you are also you have a whole book where you've done all this research about social connection and how humans are behaving and how humans are behaving online. And so, you know, better than anyone else, how someone is absolutely listening to this right now, being like, how can I take him out of context to fit my agenda and then run that and make it viral?

1:28:14Right. Right. And so, you know, I want to be scientifically responsible, which would be to say the evidence says no, but you can never rule anything out. The problem with saying that is that, like you just said, it can be used to support a notion that I don't necessarily think is true. And that also is very political. Yeah. Well, I also think that when it comes to science, people have to understand that science is constantly questioning and willing to be wrong and saying right now, based on the evidence that we have, here is our current understanding of things. if I am presented with new evidence that shows me otherwise I am open to having my mind changed about that and I think especially as we've talked in the context of this conversation and way social media has gone and media as a whole trying to shape us it is that you are in this camp or you're in that camp and I think the pandemic contributed significant the the whole trust the science don't question it.

1:29:19People who question are conspiracy theorists. And I was like, yo, yo, yo, science is questioning. People should ask questions. People have absolutely right to ask questions and get the answer. And as health professionals, we have to also say, we don't know either right now. And I don't think enough people were comfortable saying that during the pandemic of like, we didn't get a playbook to this. We don't actually know. Like we're doing our best. This is our best hypothesis. It was a lot of like, fake it till you make it kind of mentality in a way. I don't really like that term, but the whole like, we have to be strong experts who demand these things of you, otherwise you won't comply and we could have a higher risk.

1:29:58And I think that in a lot of ways that we rolled out of the pandemic with, there are people who disallow questioning science now, and then there are people who will never trust science. and that is part of this podcast of like, how do we get back to the middle where it was like, you can trust science again, but you also do it critically. Like you shouldn't, it's not religion. Like it's not faith-based. It is something that is meant to be questioned and meant to be understood. Yeah, I mean, I 100 % agree. I mean, I think what COVID did to science was, you know, it lost a lot of people's trust because it made science pretty much the focal point of all of humanity.

1:30:39Everybody was sitting at home every day and being like, please, science, figure this out. Save us. Yeah, let us out again. And then I think a lot of people had to reckon with the fact that like medicine doesn't have all the answers and we can't always save you. And like that was like a big like, oh, my God, kind of moment for people. Yeah. And that like, you know, I think that it was a it was a major failure of public health messaging because there, you know, there was a an unnecessary level of certainty injected where it's like nope you know what was the controversy in the beginning they were like tony fauci was like don't wear masks and then right after he was like wear masks and like i think the reasoning for that was that he was trying to prevent people from taking all the masks so that medical providers could still have some in hospitals but then people are like why would you say like don't wear masks why wouldn't you just be honest about it like we've got a ppp supply chain uh issue and like we can't have the general public wearing masks right now so like we have to get it to healthcare providers.

1:31:38Like there was, it was a lot of like trying to do the right thing, but justifying being dishonest with people because what your intention was, was a good thing. But being dishonest about any step of the way, I think was just the wrong move. Yeah. I mean, I think it, some of it might come down to media too, right? Where like in, in mainstream media in general, like certainty is not good, right? They don't want a lot of what i've been doing on this podcast where i'm like well this could be it also could not be right like they want nobody likes the nuance that's not sexy that's not clickable exactly right like i'm failing as a podcast right no you're not but yeah that's like what that's i think what the the pandemic demanded was for someone to come out and say we have a vaccine you know and you know and then people are like they're looking in the background they're like wait a minute this vaccine hasn't actually been tested yet.

1:32:36Like I want it to meet like standard requirements and it's not. And, and actually what the scientists meant on TV, I'm making, this is a fake example, but like what they actually meant hypothetically was like, we're on our way to a vaccine and we're testing it. But like, I think it was a miscalculation of public health messaging. And it was a miscalculation that insulted the average person's intelligence where it was like, if we tell them everything, they're just going to be confused. So let's just tell them not to wear masks. Right. It's like that's completely wrong. Transparency is absolutely necessary.

1:33:08And and yeah, I mean, science lost the respect of a lot of people, which is which is sad because the pandemic and the science that had to be done to try to figure out what is happening and what vaccines might work and all this is not at all representative of how science actually works. It was a window where everybody started paying attention. And, you You know, they were actually reading the news about every scientific development because it mattered to them and their lifestyle. And they wanted to get back to like leaving their house. But that's not actually how science works. Science moves much more slowly.

1:33:39It doesn't go to the news until it's a real like much more certainty. When it does, it often conveys nuance. You know, there's not public decision making hanging in the balance of what the science finds. And so it's it's a real shame that it all went that way, because for a lot of people, they'll never trust science again and i mean i don't know like what to say as a scientist of like come back like it's you know maybe it's it's not as bad well you know i so i ended up being first wave covid i got severe covid i spent four months at home on oxygen i ended up long haulers i had doctors who were like you're faking it for attention and like all this stuff people making conspiracies about me like suddenly like this conspiracy went around social media where the reason why I was actually sick is because I just got breast implants and I had breast implant illness.

1:34:27And that was the real truth of why I was so sick. And I was like, thank you for thinking that I've had a baby and that I've had breast implants. But no, that's not what happened. I hate to tell you this. I was also like, what are you looking at that even makes you arrive to this? Like, what am I putting on social media? But even me just showing up on social media, talking about my experience, Meta totally shut me down. I got shadow banned like crazy. Just being like, I actually have COVID. And many people were like, this is not real. And I'm like, I'm telling you, it's real. Meta's like, shut it down.

1:35:00Meta lied. Meta lied and said, oh, no, we're not shadow banning. We're not doing any of that. Then like what, four or five years later, Meta's like, we did. Actually, the government asked us to like hide all of your stuff. I'm like, why is everybody lying so much and then being like, but still trust us. I want to ask you though, because like your book is all about how brains thrive with social connection. Brains and bodies die when they get isolated. Their risk of mortality is like skyrocketing. The COVID pandemic was non-consensual, okay, in terms of like what we were all put through, right? And this is not to blame anyone.

1:35:38There's a lot of doing the best you could, right, with the information you had. But it was a global experiment. And from the jump, when we went into lockdown, I was like, somebody better be taking data here because when in history are we going to do this? What do you think happened to humans based on the research that you have in your book going through that kind of global isolation? Okay. Well, first off, I mentioned that, you know, loneliness is associated with depression and anxiety, you know, depression and anxiety went up, right? And there's evidence showing that the longer people were quarantined or whatever, isolated, the worse their depression was, right?

1:36:18And people who were, gosh, what's the word I'm thinking of? Not quarantined, but like the shelter in place, basically. Lockdown? Yeah, lockdown maybe is the worst. It was literally like what they told us it was. I was in Puerto Rico. They were like, y 'all need to go home. They sent out this text. They were like, everybody needs to go home and be in your house by this time. And we were out to dinner with a group of friends. And I was like, we're not coming back out. We're not coming back out. And there were several doctors in the group one, an ER doctor. He's like, I don't think we're coming back out either.

1:36:45And then we went home and then everybody got the text. You are not to leave your house. And I was like, that is not how, and that was like a jumpstart to like bad move, bad move. And then like, we had lots of threats there. Like if you left your house more than two, you could only go out two days a week to get food or medical treatment. And if you're caught outside based on your license plate, it's six months in jail,$5 ,000 fine. And I'm like, what do you think this is doing to people? Like, um, the governor at the time, the world praised her. Every time she got more strict, the whole world praised her.

1:37:20She made the news everywhere. So what is she going to want to do as a human? Right? I'm getting praise stricter, stricter, stricter. At one point we were like having to line up in the grocery and follow this exact line. And I was like, this is a perfect way to catch an infection. The way you're isolating our movement there were just so many things that i was like as somebody you're also logical i cannot i cannot handle logical contradictions like it makes my whole nervous system like want to rage where i'm just like it's like sirens um anyhow i just took a tangent and interrupted you let's get back to let's get back to what the expert has to say so yeah so i mean people obviously felt bad right their depression went up um and yeah what i was going to say is people who who sheltered in place, I don't know, with people.

1:38:06What a pretty name for it. With others managed much better, right? People who were locked down alone had much worse mood effects. But the group that I'm most concerned about the outcomes of this COVID period is children. Yes. Because we have what's called this, you know, the social sensitive period where in early life, the first couple of years of life, just like, you know, there's like a language, it's a critical period for language, right? Where the brain's really plastic and ticking language. And so like children can learn like five languages, no problem. Whereas an adult, it's like impossible to do that.

1:38:43Trust me, I've got a four-year-old who's completely bilingual and the 40-year-old, the 40-something-year-old is like trying so hard. And I'm like, oh my God, you're preaching to my life right now. Exactly. And it's because the four-year-old has a much more, you know, a lot more plasticity in the brain. The brain can is more receptive to the world around it can change more easily and stuff so they're just it's biologically easier to learn from to learn language there's also a social sensitive period where in early life these social brain areas are taking in information and it's shaping our worldview it's shaping our understanding of you know what's right and wrong how people express emotions right we're learning empathy we're learning we're basically establishing this like moral structure of the world.

1:39:28And so if you do not experience socializing during those early periods, it's possible that basically you could be missing out on certain important brain shaping. And there's a specific brain area that seems to be very sensitive to this, which is the prefrontal cortex. I've mentioned it before. In humans, well, let me start in mice. In mice, there's studies showing that if mice are isolated in early life, like the first couple weeks of life, when they get to adulthood, they show like immature synapses in the prefrontal cortex, which basically means that neurons are not interacting as effectively.

1:40:09And so I think what happens is that the sort of exercise of interacting, you know, when we interact, it stimulates brain activity, the cells are firing and synapses are releasing neurotransmitters. And so the synapses that are being used are getting strengthened. New synapses are forming because the cell is more active. There's all sorts of, you know, biology happening, but it's shaping and developing the brain. So in the absence of those interactions, it makes sense that you would see immature synapses because they're not sort of exercised as much. Then in humans, it's also been shown that isolated children are also, they show smaller prefrontal cortex, which also would make sense because without that exercise, they're not establishing new synapses and so there's a reduced volume of this area so and also those children show like conduct problems more more often than not which makes sense because if they're not establishing a sort of social model of the world of oh if i step on your foot right now it hurts you it's bad then you know you're more likely to violate others um and in the context of what you're talking about with socializing children is it with children of their own age is it other children in general or is it just being in a family unit enough like what are we talking about here i mean i think any socializing is is valuable right um but probably more like diversity like family distant family cousins other you know classmates the more you have the better right okay i think it's it's all just learning right the way i view socializing in early life is it's a learning process.

1:41:43You are just giving examples of different types of ways people present their information, different social cues, different opinions, all sorts of stuff that's important for shaping the child's understanding of the world and their brain too. And so anyways, I think that in the absence of interaction for a couple of years during COVID, it, there's probably a very major change in like certain generations of kids who went through that. And what's interesting too, is that this is anecdotal, but I've heard from many teachers that as soon as they came back to school, when it was actually in person again, they had way more kids with conduct problems.

1:42:26And I, there was one teacher who told me this story specifically where this kid would just like, basically, I was actually on zoom, but it was like, they were meeting in person they had certain classes on zoom and this certain students would just like unmute and just start talking to each other and like calling the professor names and like and this is college like the ridiculous college i was college yeah like nine-year-olds they don't know how to use zoom but like college college freshmen oh and to me it's just it's concerning and then you know i also think about now i'm getting like this is a little bit of a reach but prefrontal cortex if socializing helps shape the function of the prefrontal cortex prefrontal cortex is also super involved in attention and executive decision making and stuff like functioning as a human overall right and being successful right and yeah planning all sorts of things but specifically attention and so and and actually there's you know studies showing that um in addiction there can be certain areas of the prefrontal cortex that are smaller and so theoretically with this reduced volume with this reduced brain power to control your impulses you may be more vulnerable to addiction.

1:43:32Whether that's the cause or the effect, who knows. But you think about how a whole generation of children who may have suffered a failure to develop certain brain areas that involve focus and attention, and then all of a sudden, cell phones, social media, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. And so I worry that the pandemic may have been like the perfect neurological trigger to make us so reliant on our phones and so easily sucked into just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. And, you know, I think that it'll be interesting down the road. I would like to see studies comparing like certain generations of children, those who went through those periods of isolation, which is those who didn't, because I think there probably would be some noticeable differences maybe in brain structure.

1:44:17But I would start by looking at just like behavioral differences. Yeah, it's very interesting. I want to ask you, you've had this whole like on your social media, this supplement series, because there are so much of like, you know, there's people that are like, I'm a, you know, uh, Osiris researcher. I'd like this supplement does everything for the brain. And then there's some stuff. I know who you're talking about. Yeah, I know. I've seen it like a thousand times. And I'm always like, listen, I love lion's mane. I love a lion's mane frittata. Like I lived in the Pacific Northwest. I'm all about lion's mane.

1:44:52the science isn't totally there yet am i still going to eat it consume it put it in my coffee sometimes yeah i'm going to totally do it um but i'm doing it knowing that like this one supplement is not going to prevent alzheimer's like there's like many many things that you need to be doing right alzheimer's is complex but my question is what supplements do you feel are worth the hype as a neuroscientist. Yeah. So that's why I created this series is because there's so many, you know, well, I was going to say prescriptions. That's, I guess, the wrong term, but there's so much advice online about supplements.

1:45:29And in reality, there's actually a ton of data on supplements telling you, telling us whether or not they actually do what people claim online. And so I just wanted to like lay it all out there. And, you know, so I'd be going one by one for those who aren't familiar with the series. It's just each video is a different supplement and I I analyze all the literature and I basically say, you know, here's what I think. Here's what the data says, not even what I think. So when it comes to supplements, first things first, I think supplements work best as supplements when you are supplementing a deficiency.

1:45:57So I have a vitamin D deficiency. I have a magnesium deficiency. I take those two supplements because what I've learned as a neuroscientist through my experiments where I'm actually going in and manipulating the activity of neurons or various systems is that it is so much easier to take a deficient biological system and restore its function than it is to take a healthy biological system and augment its function. Like it's, it's unbelievable. There have been like, for example, in my studies, we will do things where it's like we find a certain brain area that's like less active and the mice are also less social.

1:46:34And so we go in and we stimulate that brain area and the mice become more social. So we are taking a deficit and we're restoring it. So you might think then that if we go in and we stimulate that brain area, that the mice become, that the mice that don't have a deficit, they all become more social too. Not at all. And that, and that happens on all levels. Like that's a behavioral example, but also like, you know, like this protein interacts with this protein. So if you turn this one up, you might turn this one up. Nope. Only if it's deficient, you know, then they both go up. But if it's, if it's healthy, it doesn't influence this thing.

1:47:03So taking a system that is already functioning well and trying to supplement more, more often than not, is not going to do anything. But with that said, there are certain supplements that do. And so my sort of favorites are the ones that are like most supported by data are omega-3s. So I can't name all of them off the top of my head, but there are so many benefits to omega-3s. And gosh, I can't remember right now. I have a video on this that explains it very well. This often happens to me where I read the literature and I explain it in a video. Give us the video. We'll link it in the show notes.

1:47:36Okay. I'll send it to you. Perfect. People can see it. Because there's multiple forms of omega-3s and one of them, one form, like, because you can have omega-3s that are like higher in one version than the other. DHA versus EPA. Yeah. And I forget which one. I think it, I think, gosh, it'll be in the video, but one having a higher dose of one than the other is a better, is more associated with lower risk of dementia and others are better for like heart conditions. Um, but those are like very solid. I also take an omega-3 whenever I try it or whenever I, is your wife taking omega-3? Uh, she's taking a prenatal right now, which probably has, I does have, yeah, both of those.

1:48:11My sons, like people will be like, oh, they should play football, which sometimes they mean American football and sometimes they mean soccer. Uh, and I always joke that I choked down way too much omegas during my pregnancy to have them compromise their brain. Yeah. Right. Honestly. So aside from those, um, I also do like magnesium. I also like magnesium is the only supplement that I personally take that I'm like, wow, this is noticeable. Um, and I take it at night for sleep and you know, a lot of people do too. There's evidence showing that, you know, people who take, especially for those with insomnia, magnesium can help improve the duration of sleep.

1:48:52It can help people basically sleep a little bit longer and fall asleep faster. Again, I have a magnesium deficiency. When I take magnesium, I sleep way better. No question about it. I can't promise that the average person will experience that, but they may. So love magnesium specifically at night. I take it like an hour before bed and I get like noticeably drowsy. Okay. So this is an interesting one. Saffron. So saffron is, there is like unbelievable evidence suggesting that it could be anti, an antidepressant. There's some skepticism around it. I'm just going to say that saffron literally is something that saved my mental health.

1:49:34I had to be on Lupron injections, which put me into chemical menopause like that. I took these Lupron injections for my endometriosis. Super stupid. Retrospectively, would never have done it at the time. Three doctors told me this was the best thing. I never respected the cognitive change that menopausal women go through when they lose estrogen to the degree I did when I experienced it. And I did a bunch of research on things because I was even doing ad back therapy of like, I'm just going to put on an estradiol patch. I'm going to take progesterone at night. And I was like, this is not enough.

1:50:11i am so sad i am weep all the time brain fog so bad i bought multiple of the same christmas presents and wrapped them so expensive most expensive time of my life um anyhow but saffron was one that i was like if it wasn't for saffron i think i would have lost like my mind like just in terms of like also like i didn't even know until i started saffron how much it helped with hot flashes as well but you were saying saffron's super controversial well it's not super controversial. I mean, here's the thing. When you look at the data, if you go to the PubMed and you search Saffron and you look at the data, there are a bunch of studies showing that it has really powerful effects on depression.

1:50:51That people, when they take Saffron, they show all these tremendous remission of depressive symptoms. They feel way better. And when compared directly to SSRIs, it sometimes even outperforms SSRIs. By the way, St. John's Wort is another one that's like that. And also just a medical note that some of these can have complications taken with other medicines in general. St. John's Wort and birth control, don't mess with it unless you want to have a baby. And then you can also get photosensitivity with St. John's Wort so your skin can be more reactive to the sun. Interesting. Those are big ones to definitely know.

1:51:25Yeah, I've heard that St. John's Wort can sort of reduce the efficacy of other medications in general, but also if taken with SSRIs, that it can be harmful. Also, saffron, I believe, with pregnancy, there's like a study that pregnant women in a field were like working in a saffron field were a higher rate of miscarriage. Anyways, so, you know, with any supplement, right, like there's no doctor telling you, hey, these are the complications like they would with the prescriptions. Please always, you should look online and make sure that there's nothing to worry about. But also talk to your pharmacist.

1:51:54If you're filling a prescription, pharmacists understand on drug nutrient and drug herb interactions better than your doctor will. Dietitians as well are another resource. Most average doctors have no clue about supplements. They're just told they're always bad and don't tell people not to take them because that's like the safe default. But leveraging your pharmacist, they're super, super brilliant people that can help. Yeah. Yeah. So the thing about saffron though, and I didn't know this or even realize this until I started talking about it on social media and people mentioned on social media.

1:52:28So in Iran, saffron is like the number one export or something like that, or like the number one country that exports saffron is Iran, something along those lines. It's heavily exported by Iran. And all of the studies that I saw about saffron and its mood benefits were all done in Iran. And so, you know, this is one of those where it's like, there could be, you know, a sort of incentive, right? Because If there's all these studies that it's antidepressant, then, you know, it boosts sales and helps Iran as a country. And so these scientists, maybe whatever, who knows, you never know what's going on in the background.

1:52:59That's sort of a like conspiratorial perspective. The other, like, maybe more sensible perspective is that they're just studying it because it's the number one export. And so it's on the mind of people in this country and scientists, too. It makes me wonder. I want to check the studies now because there have been studies saying, you know, when you use an SSRI, like one of the big side effects that nobody talks about and everybody hates is lack of sexual desire and anorgasmia, inability to achieve an orgasm. And there have been studies showing if you take saffron with that, it can help mitigate that side effect of an SSRI, which I always bring up in the conversation because I think a lot of people like to be either or, where they're like, only use drugs.

1:53:39Or they're like, no, use the supplement. Drugs are bad. and it's like, well, maybe you're on an SSRI and you can actually do things so that you mitigate those side effects because sometimes people are on a medication and it really is working for their objective and then they're having all these side effects. So I always think it's wise to look at like, how can we lower the side effect? If you're getting the intended effect, but you're having these side effects, how can we lower that? But now I'm like, hmm, I should look. Is that study out of Iran where they're like, this helps? Yeah, it's funny because that's another one of those dilemmas where supplements versus prescription drugs, there's often this sort of like division where people who love taking supplements, they're like, oh, I only use supplements.

1:54:19I don't take prescription drugs. People who take prescription drugs are like, oh, I don't even mess around with supplements. But like in reality, you know, supplements are just prescription drugs that have not been regulated yet. It like studied well enough to cross over into this threshold, right? So like there's a blend of allowing the evidence to lead. And there's some medications that are, you know, prescription and, you know, are not extremely effective. They're effective for some people, but not others. Yeah. I mean, at saffron, I will say I, I, when I read these studies, I was like, this is wild.

1:54:47I'm not diagnosed with depression. I generally have a pretty good mood, but I did take saffron for a little while after that, just to see. And I actually did feel like I felt a little bit better. How much were you taking? Uh, gosh, I don't know. It's somewhere in my medicine cabinet. I couldn't tell you. I'm just asking because like when I went through this whole Lupron thing, like I kept coming across supplements that were like 15 milligrams, but all the research is like 28 to 30. And so I was really frustrated that I was like having to double things because I'm like, if the research is saying hit 30, then I want the therapeutic dose on that.

1:55:16But I was just curious, like anecdotally, like, did you feel better at like 10, 15 or what was the mark for you? I definitely remember. Report back. Yeah. Whatever dose I did, it was based on the studies that I had seen that I was trying to fall within like the sort of, because generally what I see in the literature is that when there's studies looking at supplements, they all use like roughly the same dose. Yeah. And that's the thing about the saffron is like 28 to 30 milligrams. I'm like, is that two milligrams making a difference? Like that's a big question mark here for that. Absolutely. For sure.

1:55:46I mean, I think that's the other thing about like supplements in general. And the big question mark that everyone always brings up is like you buy a supplement, it says it's saffron. Is it actually saffron? Right. And people don't have like these drug testing kits at home to test for saffron. So it may say 30 milligrams of saffron, it's actually four milligrams of saffron. And then the rest is whoever, you know, whatever the heck is in there. Yeah. Yeah. That's where third-party testing and verifying it is really important. So I want to hear from you. I read your book. I want to know what is your intention with putting a book out about how, I mean, I love the title of it, but how community is so important to longevity, to, you know, preventing adverse outcomes.

1:56:30What is your goal? What was your passion, your desire? Like you only write books if you can't not write the book. As an author, I say that. Like it is the most taxing event of your life. You're like, you're about to have a baby. You'll still find the book writing process harder, I'm sure. And so with that said, like what made it where you were like, I have to write this book. I have to get this out there. People need this information. Yeah. I mean, I've been working as a neuroscientist for a decade now doing research, you know, And all my research has always had something to do with interaction.

1:57:02You know, my first study I ever did in undergrad was looking at an interpersonal intervention for suicide prevention. So teaching, training students to, you know, recognize when someone may be suicidal and intervene and help with them, you know. And then in my PhD, I started studying autism spectrum disorder and the biology. And then in my postdoc at Stanford, I studied empathy. And so I've always been in this sort of realm of social behavior. and I just think that experience that this decade of my life has totally transformed the way that I just view the world naturally right this is your medical training has completely changed the way that you see the world and what it has afforded me is a deep and genuine appreciation for a how complex our brains are and what the socializing it allows us to do and also b how important that is for our health and well-being.

1:57:53And so, you know, in a, what I call a post-interaction world where we're, we're spending less time interacting with this loneliness epidemic, you know, this, all the data, there's so much evidence for it. You know, how much time we spend alone from 2013 to 2022, I believe the number of hours people spend per month alone went up by 36 hours per month. Wow. We're spending a work week alone that we didn't use to. Like there's just, there's so much data. It's all pointing in the wrong direction. And my concern is I see why this matters. And the U.S. Surgeon General from the last administration was like, hey, this matters.

1:58:27But I don't think people really like get it or care. And even since there's been a public shift in how we talk about it and recognize it, I still haven't noticed like anything changing. And so my goal with the book was to like this. Imagine if nobody knew that sleep, like not getting enough sleep was bad for you. And then a book came out that was like, here's why not getting enough sleep is bad for you. Like, that's kind of what I'm hoping my book is. It's obviously not only about that. It's like, you know, why brains need friends. It's about why socializing is important. But it also, truth be told, that whole conversation is really only the first, maybe, I don't know, 60 pages or so.

1:59:06And then the rest of the book is like taking that knowledge that I've gained and sharing with you and then placing it into context of all these different situations in real life and, and like all these different things that I think about that matter. So like there's a chapter on drugs and how they influence our social brain. There's a chapter on dogs and how they can be important for, you know, supplementing interaction. There's a chapter on likability and the scientific factors associated with likability. And so I'm really just trying to encapsulate my understanding that has changed my life and my, my perspective of, of interaction and put it all in one book.

1:59:40And most important of all, make it accessible. You know, I'm sure you appreciated my first page is the no big words clause. There should be, there's no reason for jargon. It's unnecessary. Like this book is for everybody. And so I genuinely hope that people will, you know, A, read it and B, find that it shifts the way that they process their daily encounters with others. And maybe, just maybe, it will make them want to incorporate a few more encounters of course to the level that makes them comfortable and does not exceed it. People who implement what is in the book, how can their life be transformed over the next five years?

2:00:18I mean, immediate mood benefits, right, to socializing. I think... And it's easy enough to be like, oh, I don't have to read this book. I'm just going to socialize my friends. And that's fine, too. You know, nobody has to read the book. But I think what I try to do in the book is explain, like, taking this broad prescription of socializing and actually making it make sense for you and understand, like, where do you stand on this level of introversion, extroversion? Like, what sort of social interactions are important for you? and so I think in doing so and being very intentional and thoughtful about how we are the social lives we are living and the social diet we're feeding ourselves that I think we can a immediately experience mood benefits you know which may benefit you know anxiety depression all sorts of things right there's all these benefits associated with being more socially connected but in the long run I mean being isolated increases the risk of like Alzheimer's and dementia, for example, and isolated seniors with dementia, their memory declines twice as fast as those who are not isolated.

2:01:16So depending on where you're at in life, you know, if you're like in your 60s or 70s and you're super isolated, then within the next five years, I mean, you could be talking about a dramatic difference in your brain health. If you're in, if you're, I mean, if you're five years old, I guess probably this book is maybe too high of a level for you. But, you know, if you're at that - But your parents could read this book. if you're at the if you're the parent of a five-year-old and you start implementing more social interactions then it may change you know the next five-year window it may change the development of your brain who knows but i think for anybody i'm just i'm hoping that people will read this and broaden their viewpoint of their current life and just start i can't even explain it well enough which i should be able to but like starting to see the daily happenings of our lives completely differently where it's like oh like well you know what you ever have the experience where you could just walk outside to check what the temperature is but instead you check the temperature on your phone yeah like it's like that if we do that i also don't trust myself i'm someone who's like if it's 72 degrees i'm like it's so hot yeah true but that but that convenience right where it's like yeah we have thermal receptors on our bodies to tell us what temperature it is.

2:02:32Instead, I'm going to check my phone. It's like that. Like, you know, I could go meet with my friend in person, but instead I'm going to just give them a call. Like, well, why? Like do it in person, you know, or, you know, I could go to the grocery store. Instead, I'm going to order groceries. Like, I hope people will start to see interactions less as inconveniences and more as like a health sustaining feature that we are lucky to experience in our everyday life. And when you have that too, I think it also sort of transforms your relationship with that part of your life where, you know, my book's not out yet, candidly, at the time of this recording, but...

2:03:06And I got to read it already. I feel so special. Well, so few people have read it, and thank you for reading it genuinely. And the people who have read it have said that, that basically they're like, wow, like, you know, when I'm standing in line at the grocery store now, I'll like start a conversation with the person next to me. And like, I feel so much better. And that's exactly what I'm hoping will happen, is that we will start to sort of once again, in mesh with each other and form connections and feel connected to our communities that the sense of belonging we experience is actually tied to real meaningful in-person connections versus like these horrible dividing moments we experience online, which are becoming a increasingly large part of our lives.

2:03:47Well, the book is fantastic. I literally couldn't stop writing questions. There were so many things from this book that I wanted to talk to you about that I think I have like 30 questions we didn't even get to. I can talk to you all day. We're going to bring you back. You're going to have a baby first. My wife is, but you're going to be there as a support system, which will give time for more research to come out as well. So I want to encourage everybody put your questions down so that we can come have you back and have another conversation. But for now, I have to say thank you so very much for writing this book, putting this out into the world and for sharing your time with us.

2:04:21Thank you so much for having me and for your interest in the book genuinely, especially at this stage where the book's not out yet. And I don't know what people think of it. Your enthusiasm actually means a lot to me. So thank you. And it's been an honor. Yeah. Legally, we can't say drinking Storm makes you smarter and more focused. But with zero sugar, 200 milligrams of caffeine and immunity support, you're smarter and more focused for drinking Storm. Storm, good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 50 % off custom window treatments during the 4th of July mega sale at blinds.com.

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