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hey, it's it's still at the at the mall

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that's never on. you are here you are

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here for part two of Please tell me

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that you started Please tell me that you

0:56

started with part one. Even if

0:58

you don't remember it, start with part

1:00

one because this is the thrilling

1:02

conclusion. and the director of UC researcher, and the

1:04

director of UC Irvine Center for the

1:06

Neurobiology of Learning We're Memory, he is

1:08

amazing. This We're gonna get into it,

1:10

but first, this is a wall -to

1:12

-wall episode of Questions from patrons. and if if

1:14

you'd like to submit some time, time you

1:16

two join join as low as a buck a

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a month upper tears can can submit audio

1:20

questions. Thank you to everyone getting

1:22

Ologies oligismurch.com and thanks to everyone

1:24

leaving us leaving us boost the show

1:26

so much and each week I remember

1:28

to read them all and I

1:30

pick I just written one one. Such is

1:32

this one from Sule Singh who wrote, wrote

1:34

this podcast saved my life. It's

1:36

like spending an hour at the

1:38

most amazing library ever where you

1:40

find exactly the right book that

1:42

you didn't know that you didn't know

1:44

that you needed. Sule Singh left a review

1:46

I have read it left a review, I

1:49

to the it. And thank you. on

1:51

to part to the we answer

1:53

your questions about two, where to

1:55

remember names and faces, what

1:57

causes Alzheimer's, photographic memory, short

1:59

term memory. -term memory, how how

2:01

to prevent dementia, cannabis

2:03

in memory, goldfish brains, and why

2:06

smelling sunscreen makes you

2:08

wanna cry sometimes. cry

2:10

With with professor, researcher and

2:12

memory expert, expert, nimanologist, Dr. Michael

2:14

Yassa. Oh,

2:33

Oh, I have have questions from

2:35

listeners. Can I ask you

2:37

one million? I Of course. one million?

2:39

Of the best. the best. Okay. So, this

2:41

question was on the minds

2:44

of minds of patrons, Isopardi, who's a

2:46

first -time question question-asker, Anne, face-name, forgetter, Diana, to

2:48

Resinick, Dean, Lily, and audio questions, wanted to

2:50

know. to know. Hi, Ellie. Summer from

2:52

New Zealand here. here. What

2:55

I find really interesting is

2:57

that I remember faces. But

2:59

sometimes I can't remember

3:01

where I've seen that person

3:03

before, that even in what

3:05

country I've seen them.

3:07

And I'm wondering why we're

3:09

so good good at faces

3:11

and remembering remembering face, but

3:13

knowing none of the details

3:15

around that face. face. What

3:17

is it about remembering certain

3:20

aspects of a person

3:22

or a connection? I know

3:24

some people have total

3:26

face blindness as well. Either

3:28

evolutionarily how do we do we

3:30

look at faces where we and

3:32

say, who is person? Yeah,

3:34

that's a fantastic question, Summer.

3:36

summer. So you've already mentioned one version

3:38

of this, which is blindness, right?

3:40

And I'm not I'm not saying

3:43

that Summer has face blindness

3:45

at all. In fact, I

3:47

think all of us us with

3:49

faces to an extent. extent.

3:51

condition is medically known as as

3:53

prosopagnosia a 2023 study in

3:55

the cortex titled, what is the What is

3:57

the prevalence of developmental prosopagnosia

3:59

an impure? of different diagnostic

4:01

cutoffs found that developmental Prasopignasha, meaning its

4:04

lifelong and not caused by injury to

4:06

the brain, is more common than previously

4:08

thought and that it lies on a

4:10

spectrum of severity. I was doing some

4:13

reading on it from people who have

4:15

it to try to figure out what

4:17

it feels like, and I've read it

4:20

described as seeing a tree and then

4:22

trying to pick out that specific tree

4:24

in a forest, or telling the difference

4:27

between two different cows in a field.

4:29

And if this sounds like you, and

4:31

if you watch movies wondering, wait, is

4:34

that the same guy, or is that

4:36

a different guy, you may be one

4:38

in 33 people who have it, which

4:40

is cool, but also awful. So don't

4:43

let anyone make you feel too bad

4:45

about it. Now faces are a very

4:47

important piece of information. When you look

4:50

at somebody's face, you can tell by

4:52

their expression whether they're a threat to

4:54

you, whether they're a friendly person, you

4:57

can choose to approach or avoid. You

4:59

can base a lot of your decision-making

5:01

based on a face. If somebody's face

5:04

has an expression of fear and they're

5:06

looking behind you, they might warn you

5:08

to something and you might react accordingly.

5:10

So we evolved, and not just our

5:13

species, many social species have evolved, to

5:15

try to always interpret faceses and facial

5:17

expressions. But recognizing a face and remembering

5:20

whether a face belongs to a certain

5:22

name is this thing that happened much

5:24

later in evolution. And I don't think

5:27

our brains are just very good at

5:29

it yet. I think we're developing that,

5:31

but we're still sort of half-baked when

5:33

it comes to connecting names and faces.

5:36

So number one complaints that I hear

5:38

from everybody is I remember faces, but

5:40

I could never connect when I see

5:43

it. So face names, associations like that,

5:45

they tend to be the most challenging

5:47

for us, humans. But one of the

5:50

reasons why faces are really important is

5:52

because of this evolutionary survival sort of

5:54

significance, things around fear, things around pleasure,

5:57

reward, all of that. We get our

5:59

cues. our cues from faces. I learned

6:01

a trick once on a film set

6:03

where one guy worked with, it was

6:06

Adam Savage from MythBusters. He knew everyone's

6:08

name on this huge set we were

6:10

on. It was like,

6:12

okay, half this trick where that woman's

6:15

name is Dorothy, and I think of

6:17

Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. That

6:19

person's name is Ben, and I have

6:21

a brother-in-law named Ben. And so as

6:24

soon as they said their name, you

6:26

had to pay attention, but then you

6:28

made a connection. Absolutely. You know, there's

6:30

lots of folks out there who try

6:33

to train you on how to make

6:35

your memory system better. And many of

6:37

them, you might know, they're memory champions

6:39

out there. They're sort of memory grandmasters

6:42

out there. And they've learned tricks that

6:44

have been used by the Greeks for

6:46

a long time. Ancient Greeks, I should

6:48

say, like mind palaces and so on.

6:51

And all of these methods are based

6:53

on forming strong personal associations. So if

6:55

you have never seen The Wizard of

6:57

Oz, it wouldn't have made sense to

7:00

you to associate it, right? But if

7:02

you've seen it and you can picture

7:04

the Dorothy in the exact movie, right,

7:06

that makes it much more personal. So

7:09

they tell you to try to be

7:11

able to remember people's faces and names,

7:13

make that something that is emotionally significant

7:15

to you, but making those connections and

7:18

making them as vivid as possible, seems

7:20

to be the trick that works for

7:22

most people. So I hope that helps

7:24

Clay Trover, Sarah McEichurn, Eric Gizeg, Jennifer

7:27

Frow, Elise Waiple, Hannah Nolan, Jacqueline Church,

7:29

Noamselorm, or Bennett Vanderbosch, Ellen, Liss, Zuleika

7:31

Pevic, Califong, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly Larson,

7:33

Carleen D.H, and Connor, they them, all

7:36

of whom say that they are garbage

7:38

at remembering names. It's okay, obviously, based

7:40

on that list you are not alone.

7:42

And patron Jackie G said that a

7:45

tour guide shared this tip with them,

7:47

that you introduce yourself first, then you

7:49

can actually listen when other people say

7:51

their names instead of mentally rehearsing your

7:54

own introduction. And Jackie G says it's

7:56

amazing and has worked wonders for me.

7:58

So perhaps that'll make some of you

8:00

less anxious. Oh, speaking of anxiety and

8:03

trauma and emotions in general, many, many

8:05

of you. Miss Particular Camilla Gimino, Susan

8:07

Singley, Maddie Cakes, Popsicle Emperor, Joshua Towson,

8:09

Sarah Arguetta, Rowan Tree, Michelle, Gregos, Ali

8:12

Brown, Patricia Evans, Katie Hammond, and Rachel

8:14

Brasteko wanted to know how emotions affect

8:16

retention. And Nick Alston asked, what's the

8:18

chemistry behind emotional memories? And also, patron

8:21

Ryan asked. Hi, this is Ryan from

8:23

Los Angeles. I was wondering if you

8:25

could speak to the effects that negative

8:27

emotions, such as shame and guilt, have

8:30

on working memory and long-term memory. Are

8:32

people who experience heightened emotions, either with

8:34

anxiety or pretty happy people, do they

8:36

keep those memories more because there is

8:39

more of an emotional connection? There's no

8:41

doubt that having an emotional connection strengthens

8:43

the way that you store a memory.

8:45

So certainly if you tend to have

8:48

much more emotional reactions to things or

8:50

the experience that you're having are much

8:52

more emotional, they will have the capacity

8:54

to be stored for longer, to be

8:57

able to influence your actions and decisions

8:59

for longer. And again, there's the evolutionary

9:01

significance for that, of course, more emotional

9:03

things may be a little bit more

9:06

involved in your survival, right? That said,

9:08

emotion doesn't always improve your ability to

9:10

store things. It colors the experience for

9:12

sure, but it also kind of zooms

9:15

in on certain aspects of the experience

9:17

and zooms out from others. So you

9:19

may recall certain details incredibly well, but

9:21

there may be other things that are

9:24

kind of lost on you because of

9:26

the emotionality. So it creates this competition

9:28

between some central features of the experience

9:30

and then a lot of the peripheral

9:32

stuff kind of doesn't win out in

9:35

that competition and that can be forgotten.

9:37

Many of you wondered about what is

9:39

normal given our very chaotic and our

9:41

very chaotic and technological world such as

9:44

ollogist from the caribology episode Megan Lynch,

9:46

Amelia Frank, Ginny Bateman, Katie Britt Klein,

9:48

Margarda Nuska, Miranda Pan irregular K, Wasp's

9:50

ollogist, Errikar, Tiny Nature, and first-time question-askers

9:53

Julie Willy Julie Willy Willy. Loves Chocolate,

9:55

Theokline, Tara Villanova, and some folks who

9:57

are distracted by stress, Don Ewald, Holly

9:59

Cole, Eric Masterson, and Helen Langiel. I

10:02

wonder if our lack of presence, because

10:04

we were distracted a lot with our

10:06

phones and internet stuff, I wonder if

10:08

that lack of presence is making our

10:11

memories a little bit more Swiss cheesy.

10:13

I like this Swiss cheesy. It's a

10:15

good way to think about it. Certainly

10:17

every time that I've lifted up my

10:20

phone and tried to record a video

10:22

of my daughter playing basketball as opposed

10:24

to put the phone down and actually

10:26

watch her play, I feel like I

10:29

have Swiss cheese in my brain. Yeah.

10:31

So 100% I think that you're right

10:33

when we replace actually experiencing something in

10:35

its full glory. three-dimensionality and all of

10:38

that with some two-d version of what

10:40

we're recording on the phone or being

10:42

distracted by looking at something at the

10:44

same time and not being fully aware

10:47

fully cognizant of what's happening of course

10:49

it's going to change how these memories

10:51

are stored and how they're represented. And

10:53

I do worry about that. I think

10:56

that there's no doubt that there's value

10:58

to having the electronics and having, I

11:00

mean, look at us, we have, our

11:02

devices are out all the time. And

11:05

that's just the nature of what we

11:07

have to do to be able to

11:09

deal with the situations around us and

11:11

the rapidly kind of evolving world and

11:14

all of the stimulation. But I think

11:16

it misses something about experiencing something. fully

11:18

and truly with all of its three

11:20

dimension, four dimensionality I should say. And

11:23

with all the emotional contexts that come

11:25

with it, right? And to be able

11:27

to have that genuinely, you have to

11:29

be there. So immersion, I think, is

11:32

really key for good memory storage. So

11:34

those four dimensions are like a 3D

11:36

object on the X, Y, and Z

11:38

axis, but with the added dimension of

11:41

time. It's interesting because we're experiencing it

11:43

less in the moment, but we're able

11:45

to recall it more with that video

11:47

footage, and it's such a weird tradeoff

11:50

that it's like, well, I can remember

11:52

it later, as long as I don't

11:54

fully explain. is a weird tradeoff because

11:56

what you remember based on the video

11:59

is this weird sort of two-dimensional version

12:01

on a screen and you're never able

12:03

to piece back being there fully in

12:05

three dimensions. But if that was your

12:08

experience, that's what you piece back. So

12:10

it comes back with all of the

12:12

pleasure, the sensory experience that came with

12:14

it. as opposed to if you're looking

12:17

at the screen, that's your version of

12:19

that reality, and that's what comes back.

12:21

It's just that two-dimensional, more impoverished version.

12:23

Yeah. And that, to me, I think,

12:26

is the big concern. That's funny because

12:28

I, my husband and I got married

12:30

three years ago, and a good friend

12:32

of mine was like, let's watch the

12:35

video on your first anniversary. My husband

12:37

and I can't watch the video. What

12:39

we remember from it is what we

12:41

remember from it is, what we remember

12:44

from it. Because we are kind of

12:46

always, like you said, reconstructing those memories

12:48

based on input, right? And you don't

12:50

want to change the version that you

12:53

have in your brain. Yeah. Especially if

12:55

that version was beautiful and something that

12:57

you want to hold on to. Now

12:59

I have the, anytime anybody tells me

13:01

to watch a video of myself, so

13:04

I just can't do it categorically, that's

13:06

just something I don't want to do.

13:08

But I can totally resonate with what

13:10

you're saying if you've experienced it fully

13:13

being there. being able to piece it

13:15

back together in this two-dimensional version and

13:17

looking at it on a video is

13:19

just never the same. And it kind

13:22

of alters your, you know, actual recollection

13:24

of that experience. And a University of

13:26

Chicago study recently recruited users of this

13:28

app called One Second Every Day to

13:31

hop at an MRI and look at

13:33

quick videos of strangers' lives versus one-second

13:35

clips that they had recorded themselves using

13:37

that app. And the study found that

13:40

different parts of the brain light up

13:42

if it was their own memory versus

13:44

just in taking a stranger's video. And

13:46

other neurobiologists at the University of Toronto

13:49

are exploring how video diaries like that

13:51

could help Alzheimer's patients connect more to

13:53

their own past. So to patrons Antifa

13:55

and Rosalie Delaforee who recall more. when

13:58

prompted by photos and videos, that's some

14:00

real science right there for you. Everyone

14:02

else, that app was called one second

14:04

every day if you want to log

14:07

little chunks of your whole life. Now,

14:09

what if you don't need physical memorabilia

14:11

or pixels to jog your memory? What

14:13

if your mind is a camera? So,

14:16

Alia Myers and Erica Perryandri, among others,

14:18

had questions about that. Well, on the

14:20

topic of photographic memory, many people asked,

14:22

Mariah Kay said, this question has been

14:25

on my mind for so long, all

14:27

caps. I know there's photographic memory, but

14:29

are there different versions or levels of

14:31

it? Read Barry wants to know what

14:34

actually is photographic memory. This question was

14:36

asked by Cybermans, Erica, Mary Andrie, Rachel

14:38

McGill, Earl of Gramelkin. What is photographic

14:40

memory exactly? Okay, fellas. This is myth

14:43

bust in time. Okay. Ready? Yeah. Photographic

14:45

memory does not exist. How? How? And

14:47

it's so uncomfortable to hear that. Well,

14:49

so photographic memory is, or what we

14:52

sometimes refer to as idetic memory, you

14:54

know, the way that it's defined, it's

14:56

that you have this perfect recall, perfect

14:58

recollection of something that you've seen, potentially

15:01

only once, right? And if it's in

15:03

the context of, say, reading, you're talking

15:05

about like, you're remembering page numbers and

15:07

all of that. The evidence that that

15:10

exists historically is slim to none. We've

15:12

been lied to. There's maybe a very

15:14

small handful of cases of Savant syndrome

15:16

where somebody could legitimately make the claim

15:19

for a true photographic memory. But aside

15:21

from that, there's no real evidence that

15:23

photographic memory to this sense exists. That

15:25

said, there's really, really, really good memory,

15:28

and this really, really, really bad memory.

15:30

There's a whole spectrum. And a lot

15:32

of times, when we're thinking about photographic

15:34

memory, it's not exactly that, but it's

15:37

close. It's really good memory where you're

15:39

memorizing where things are laid out on

15:41

the page, where you may be memorizing

15:43

things like, you know, the page numbers,

15:46

and where the figures were, where the

15:48

pictures were, all that kind of. To

15:50

the extent that we can tell whether

15:52

or not, you know, that's actually helpful

15:55

in a day-to-day learning experience, it's not

15:57

clear whether or not that actually helps

15:59

you. And while a true photographic memory

16:01

is at this point just flim-flam. There

16:04

is such a thing as idetic memory.

16:06

where someone can see a visual and

16:08

look at it or sometimes hear something.

16:10

And once it's removed, they can recall

16:13

it in great detail. It's as if

16:15

visually they're still looking at it, but

16:17

it's not 100% faithful and it does

16:19

not last a lifetime. Your brain's like,

16:22

I don't really need that fancy of

16:24

a feature. Because remember, what we're trying

16:26

to learn and remember on a day-to-day

16:28

basis is not necessarily the details of

16:30

the exact words on a page or

16:33

the exact details of what happened. It's

16:35

the gist. It's sort of the overall

16:37

experience kind of abstracted. It's whatever knowledge

16:39

it can abstract from that experience and

16:42

be able to use it to guide

16:44

my future decision making. So if you

16:46

start to think about memory a little

16:48

bit differently, that it's not really about

16:51

the past, it's all about the future,

16:53

this is no longer uncomfortable. It's okay

16:55

to sit with that, that there's no

16:57

photographic memory, because there's no rationale, there's

17:00

no reason for it to exist. So

17:02

though we debunked learning styles in Part

17:04

1, what about people who don't retain

17:06

things as well visually but through sound?

17:09

Hey, first time question askers Kimberly, Kirsten

17:11

Cornell, as well as E. Jordan, Sean

17:13

Thomas, Kay, Matthew Walter, Lisa Gorman, Maria

17:15

Kay, Josh Walden, S. Vanessa Adams, Daniel,

17:18

Ben Voren, Jennifer Frow, Debda Science, Alicia

17:20

Clarkson, and Sam, wanted to know about

17:22

sound and memory, including song lyrics. Well,

17:24

I know because we have obviously a

17:27

lot of listeners who learn by auditory

17:29

memory, are some people better at recalling

17:31

things if they hear it? Yes. Okay.

17:33

Yes. So, and this takes us back

17:36

to the conversation about learning styles. So

17:38

I want to be very clear, right?

17:40

It is a myth. Learning styles is

17:42

a myth. There is no one way

17:45

to be able to get to your

17:47

brain and it could be visual for

17:49

you or auditory for you. That said,

17:51

people do have individual differences in how

17:54

much they learn visually and how much

17:56

they learn through their ears auditorily and

17:58

how much they learn through other senses.

18:00

But at the end of the day,

18:03

the most effective learning is the one

18:05

that combines the most senses. So as

18:07

a species, we are far more visual.

18:09

As a species, collectively. If you look

18:12

at rodents, for example, rats, they have

18:14

a much stronger sense of smell than

18:16

we ever would be motivated by, right?

18:18

That does not diminish our sense of

18:21

smell, does not diminish our other senses,

18:23

but it says that primarily because we

18:25

are not nocturnal, we operate usually in

18:27

daylight and the sunlight, visual information seems

18:30

to be really important to us. We

18:32

tend to... kind of prioritize that. We

18:34

have a lot more real estate in

18:36

our brain dedicated to processing of the

18:39

visual sense than to other senses. So

18:41

when somebody says, well I learn better

18:43

if I hear it, I'll say I'm

18:45

willing to bet that you'd learn better

18:48

if you heard it and saw it

18:50

at the same time. So don't just

18:52

rely on, oh I just want to

18:54

hear it. So for example if you're

18:57

reading. and you say I'm just not

18:59

a reader, well try reading out loud

19:01

so you're also hearing it and listening

19:03

to yourself say the words and you'll

19:06

notice that that is a bimodal kind

19:08

of learning and things will stick a

19:10

lot more. We did a

19:12

reading episode recently and there was a

19:14

big question as to whether or not

19:16

audio books were reading, whether they count,

19:18

whether you can count them in your

19:20

book. Oh, I sure hope they count.

19:22

Yeah, I know. Me too. So we

19:24

talked about this in the recent anagnosology

19:26

episode all about reading, and I'll just

19:28

give you an excerpt from that with

19:30

Dr. Adery and Johns, who is a

19:33

professor and historian and who authored the

19:35

book, The Science of Reading. It's actually

19:37

interesting that e-books, or actually audio books

19:39

more, the idea that you could as

19:41

it were read a novel or something

19:43

by having it read to you by

19:45

a machine, there are schemes for those

19:47

going back as far as the, pretty

19:49

much the origin of recording. So the

19:51

late 19th, early 20th century, there were

19:53

visionary schemes for having things like, oh,

19:55

you know, vending machines where you could

19:57

put your money in and there would

19:59

be a speaker, you know, a speaking

20:01

trumpet that would speak a book. It's

20:03

not like there's something that is that

20:05

radically new about audio books per se.

20:07

Having said that, I mean, my own

20:09

sense of it, kind of crudely, is

20:11

that I think with audio books, it's

20:13

really that you're having something read to

20:15

you rather than reading. And part of

20:17

that has to do with the control

20:20

of the pace of it. So you

20:22

can slow down recordings, you can pause

20:24

it and all of that kind of

20:26

thing. But it's

20:28

not the same as doing what one

20:30

does with mine's eye all the time

20:32

in reading a page where you're constantly

20:34

shifting the speed and considering things and

20:36

going back, you know, without unnecessarily thinking

20:38

about it. You don't have to press

20:41

a button or something. E-books, on the

20:43

other hand, I think are just reading.

20:45

I mean, I don't have any issue

20:47

with those at all. So Dr. Johns

20:49

is a reading scholar and I am

20:51

a lady recording this while not wearing

20:53

a bra, but whose entire life revolves

20:56

around reading to people. So we'll have

20:58

to arm Russell for dominance. But I

21:00

will say that her an ancient study

21:02

from the late 1960s titled Retention and

21:04

Recall, incidental learning of visual and auditory

21:06

material in the Journal of Genetic Psychology,

21:08

that visual memories tend to be better

21:11

for recall, but there is quote, a

21:13

decline with age for recall of visual

21:15

material. but virtually no deterioration in performance

21:17

on the auditory task. So I'm going

21:19

to amplify that data in my favor.

21:21

Now what about smell? Cody Burdock, Vanessa

21:23

Adams, Christine Hurley, the dark next door,

21:26

Amanda Regan, Guy Hutchinson eating dark hair

21:28

for a living, Renee Vandenhoven, Just H.

21:30

Fiona, Elizabeth, Carol Young, and Estasia Press.

21:32

All wanted to know about smell and

21:34

memory, and Susan Singley asked, why do

21:36

some aromas bring back such clear and

21:38

nostalgic memories, like cut grass, old books,

21:40

coconut sunscreen, ocean waves, and that smell

21:43

after rain? But yeah, earlier Mike mentioned

21:45

that rodents have a much stronger sense

21:47

of smell than us, and I wonder

21:49

if they feel nostalgic for smelling certain

21:51

garbage. I bet they do. Well, you

21:53

mentioned smell and rats. have an excellent

21:55

urban rhodontology episode about rats that made

21:58

me cry with affection for rats. But

22:00

Amanda Regan wanted to know why do

22:02

smells or sounds trigger memories sometimes? And

22:04

I have heard that it's difficult to

22:06

really know what a smell is. You

22:08

have to have a memory of that

22:10

smell that it goes straight to some

22:13

memory center. What's up with that? couple

22:15

things so let me break this down

22:17

because you asked a couple of really

22:19

really interesting questions but they're a little

22:21

bit different from each other so the

22:23

first one is maybe whether or not

22:25

we can sort of label smells you

22:28

can label a sound and people that

22:30

have perfect pitch can tell you exactly

22:32

what note it is and so on

22:34

and you can certainly label visual things

22:36

objects. We have things that colors, right?

22:38

But with smells, it's a little bit

22:40

different. And we don't have a great

22:43

lexicon for smells. A lot of times

22:45

we're relegated to kind of like lavender,

22:47

kind of like and fill in the

22:49

blank, right? Something that you're familiar with.

22:51

But that's the rub. You have to

22:53

go back to something that you're sense

22:55

before. And that may be just an

22:58

evolutionary thing, like we haven't really evolved

23:00

to prioritize this kind of information, smell

23:02

information. We don't use it typically to

23:04

navigate around the world, although if you've

23:06

got a nice baking cake in the

23:08

kitchen you might navigate your way there.

23:10

So in some situations maybe it's helpful,

23:12

but we tend to navigate mostly based

23:15

on visual information. So our sense of

23:17

smell isn't keen enough to save us,

23:19

essentially, so it remains pretty mid. And

23:21

think back to any time you've tried

23:23

to describe a smell, you've probably said

23:25

it smells like and thought of the

23:27

last instance or the strongest instance of

23:30

smelling something like that thing. we tend

23:32

to kind of know what we need

23:34

to do based on visual information. So

23:36

because it was never prioritized, we never

23:38

sort of bothered to create robust labels

23:40

for it. And when you don't have

23:42

labels for things, your brains struggle to

23:45

kind of store it with that fidelity

23:47

because you don't have that verbal thing

23:49

that you can attach to it. I

23:51

know what a coffee mug is because

23:53

I have a verbal label for those

23:55

coffee mugs, right? that's one piece. The

23:57

other piece, which I think is fascinating,

24:00

is that especially smells can trigger memories,

24:02

sometimes long lost memories. There's certain smells

24:04

that will remind me of my grandmother's

24:06

house, certain smells that remind me of

24:08

specific people in my past, because that

24:10

might have been the perfume or clone

24:12

they wear or something like that are

24:15

similar to it. And then the experience

24:17

of going back sort of it like

24:19

washes over you. You kind of go

24:21

back in time, you're immersed, you're exactly

24:23

in that moment. The sense of smell

24:25

almost has this incredibly privileged capacity to

24:27

do this. And we don't know why

24:30

this happens, but we suspect that it's

24:32

possible part of it is the fact

24:34

that your sense of smell, unlike all

24:36

of the other senses, it has direct

24:38

access to your hippocampus, your memory bits

24:40

of the brain. And it's not clear

24:42

why that is, but it's sort of

24:45

co-evolved that way. The sensory systems in

24:47

the brain that are outside of smell,

24:49

so vision, audition, all have to go

24:51

through the thalamus, which is this sort

24:53

of major hub in the brain, before

24:55

they get to the memory parts of

24:57

the brain. There isn't like this direct

24:59

access, whereas everywhere else. This happens for

25:02

our sense of smell, it doesn't happen.

25:04

Our sense of smell doesn't go through

25:06

the thalamus. It, like, directly has this,

25:08

you know, revolving door straight into our

25:10

memory bits of the brain. And we

25:12

have no clue why the hell that

25:14

is. It's just this weird, quizzical thing.

25:17

And I don't know to what extent

25:19

that means it's truly privileged, and that's

25:21

the reason why we remember things so

25:23

vividly. But it's right there. It's like

25:25

an express train. Yeah, yeah. So exciting.

25:27

What about as someone who has had

25:29

a nasty concussion? Hope, Lauren Gallario, Addie

25:32

Capello, Adam Foote's wife Anna, a bunch

25:34

of people wanted to know how studying

25:36

concussions or TBI has influenced work or

25:38

influences our memory. You know, it's challenging.

25:40

concussions or TBI traumatic brain injury because

25:42

there's no two injuries that are the

25:44

same. So that is a particularly difficult

25:47

set of conditions. It depends on the

25:49

severity of the concussion, the location, all

25:51

sorts of things. And we're learning a

25:53

lot more about this. Clearly it impacts

25:55

a variety of different memory systems memory

25:57

being one of the key ones that

25:59

gets impacted. But depending on the kind

26:02

of injury, whether it's a coup, counter

26:04

coup kind of injury, where they're sort

26:06

of stretching and shearing of some of

26:08

the brains, white matter, pathways, the connections

26:10

between different regions, all of those things

26:12

tend to happen. There's inflammation, there's sometimes

26:14

frank injury, you can actually see evidence

26:17

of that. But it's not clear how

26:19

much of that is, first of all,

26:21

common across individuals, because again, the extent

26:23

of the injury is different. The ideology,

26:25

the root of the injury, the cause,

26:27

it can be very, very different. But

26:29

the fact that memory is impacted almost

26:32

in all concussive injuries is an interesting

26:34

phenomenon. And I always go back to

26:36

our memory system, or at least the

26:38

hippocampal memory system, is one of the

26:40

most vulnerable systems in the brain. It

26:42

tends to feel the brunt of pretty

26:44

much anything. Patients Rye of the Tiger,

26:46

Heidi, Brinipolensia, and Christine Hurley asked about

26:49

what is loathsomely called mom brain or

26:51

in Tim Farr's words, I don't feel

26:53

like I know things anymore and it's

26:55

horrible. I myself do not have kids

26:57

but I have damaged my brain with

26:59

a hospital grade blow to the head.

27:01

I feel for you. and not just

27:04

concussions, but even if we're sleep deprived,

27:06

even if we're anxious or depressed or

27:08

anything that's happening to us tends to

27:10

impact the system. It is one of

27:12

our most primitive systems in the brain.

27:14

It's one that we shared with all

27:16

the mammalian species and many others. Even

27:19

though it's tucked in the middle of

27:21

the brain, it seems like it would

27:23

be nice and enveloped and covered up.

27:25

It has kind of weird positioning. The

27:27

vascular around it is quite vulnerable. It's

27:29

also very close to the most poorest

27:31

parts. the blood brain barrier so toxins

27:34

can get into those limbic structures much

27:36

more easily than in other places in

27:38

the brain. So remember from part one

27:40

that memories are stored all over the

27:42

brain, kind of like coins hidden in

27:44

the sand, but the hippocampus, that seahorse-shaped

27:46

organ, acts as a sort of metal

27:49

detector to find and retrieve those memories.

27:51

So the hippocampus is this wicked combination

27:53

of really important and very delicate. Just

27:55

be careful. So it's just a hub

27:57

of vulnerability. And it's one of the

27:59

reasons why we studied so excessively in

28:01

my lab across a variety of different

28:04

conditions because we believe that it is

28:06

very vulnerable. And if we develop ways

28:08

to be able to protect it or

28:10

treat it, that will generalize across a

28:12

number of different conditions. And is it

28:14

rather new that we even know that

28:16

the blood brain barrier is permeable at

28:18

all? Yeah, I would think, I mean,

28:21

we've always known that it's permeable to

28:23

some things. We know this because there's

28:25

a lot of things that are in

28:27

our blood that get through the blood-brain

28:29

barrier very quickly and get into our

28:31

brain easily. Alcohol is one of those,

28:33

right? That gets straight from the blood

28:36

to the brain. So there are things

28:38

that we've known about for quite some

28:40

time that can traverse that barrier with

28:42

great ease. But there are new things

28:44

that we're learning about now that we

28:46

didn't realize can get through the blood-brain

28:48

barrier easily that seem to get through.

28:51

And some of these things may be

28:53

inflammatory in nature, some of them may

28:55

be toxins. So when we talk about

28:57

the connection between the body and the

28:59

brain, that is. real and it's always

29:01

been there but we've only really started

29:03

to study the sort of mind body

29:06

or brain body connection much more in

29:08

recent years and trying to understand how

29:10

our gut for example influences our brain

29:12

how our brain influences our gut this

29:14

back and forth which has to be

29:16

able to kind of get through some

29:18

of those barriers in the blood brain

29:21

barrier being the key one. One of

29:23

the most interesting things that happened in

29:25

terms of technology recently is there is

29:27

actually an approach technique using what's called

29:29

focused ultrasound to open up the blood

29:31

brain barrier to be able to transform.

29:33

through because it's

29:36

always been a challenge

29:38

for us in

29:40

developing drugs and interventions,

29:42

of pharmacological interventions,

29:44

how to package something

29:46

to right to get

29:48

it through the

29:51

blood -brain barrier. it through the

29:53

this may be

29:55

this other approach. It

29:57

seems a little

29:59

scary, I know, but

30:01

with focused scary, I know,

30:03

but what's called microbubbles

30:05

we can actually

30:08

open up the blood

30:10

-brain barrier and get

30:12

some things open up

30:14

be our larger barrier

30:16

that normally wouldn't get

30:18

through maybe our to

30:20

go through the blood

30:23

-brain barrier. that normally wouldn't

30:25

of fun activity these days in research on the

30:27

blood -brain barrier. barrier. Well you something about the

30:29

gut connection the gut People are talking

30:31

a lot about the vagus nerve. the

30:33

Just a quick background on that vagus

30:35

nerve. that the longest nerve in your

30:37

body and it plays this key

30:40

role in your parasympathetic nervous system, which

30:42

is the chill side, which is the the

30:44

rest the rest and digest. the vagus nerve

30:46

carries messages between your heart and your

30:48

brain and your guts. guts. And according

30:50

to this to this study, childhood trauma

30:52

and syncope burden among older adults, researchers

30:54

say that vasovagal syncope, where your heart

30:56

rate and blood pressure fall suddenly, which

30:59

can cause dizziness and sweating or

31:01

fainting, According to the study, it's

31:03

governed by the autonomic nervous

31:05

system and it's often precipitated by

31:07

a highly salient emotional situation. And

31:09

researchers found that the report

31:11

of childhood abuse was independently associated

31:13

with frequent syncope in youth. youth.

31:15

So So what role does this

31:17

physiology have? Does Does that vagus

31:20

nerve play a role in

31:22

memory at all? It certainly does. One

31:24

easy way to think about that known

31:26

has been known for quite some time

31:28

is that this is one of

31:30

the ways by which the adrenal hormones

31:32

can impact the brain. So when

31:34

we think about cortisol and cortisol release,

31:36

when we think about those kinds of those

31:38

kinds of things do have a

31:40

way to be able to impact the

31:42

brain through its impact on the

31:44

vagus nerve. But it's way beyond that

31:46

now. a There's a lot of literature

31:48

now suggesting that vagal stimulation, for

31:50

example, could have some really interesting effects,

31:52

therapeutic in some ways. And we're starting to starting

31:54

to understand a little bit

31:56

more about how that that of

31:58

communication is operating. is operating. there

32:00

and it's again one that we

32:03

stand to learn a lot more

32:05

about. I feel like this is

32:07

all a really good endorsement for

32:09

meditation and deep breathing. Well I

32:11

mean that should be endorsed right

32:13

off the bat all the time.

32:15

You know you're mentioning toxicity in

32:17

the brain, blood brain barrier, alcohol,

32:19

many people wanted to know Matthew

32:21

Walker, Allie and Julian and Neil

32:23

Anderson asked about different opinions of

32:25

alcohol affecting memory, but others have

32:27

more herbal questions, such as Allie

32:29

Myers, Adam, Michael James, Storm, Saricity,

32:31

and Olympia Rental, and first-time question-askers

32:33

Craig Steinberg and Zach Gary, and...

32:35

Chris Bullock asked, why does marijuana

32:37

make memory so shitty asking for

32:40

a friend? Winky face. Okay, asking

32:42

for a friend. Can't say that

32:44

I've had firsthand experience on this,

32:46

but I can say that, first

32:48

of all, there's different kinds of

32:50

memory that are made, you know,

32:52

shitty to different extent by marijuana.

32:54

So it doesn't impact all kinds

32:56

of memory. It might impact your

32:58

recollection for things that you were

33:00

doing previously or sort of around

33:02

that same time. Not exactly clear

33:04

why that happens, but I can

33:06

tell you that one of the

33:08

things that's really interesting about marijuana

33:10

is that when you think about

33:12

how it impacts the brain, there

33:14

are particular receptors in the brain,

33:16

what we call endokinbanoid receptors. that

33:19

are specifically geared to responding to

33:21

cannonoids, which is essentially the active

33:23

species in marijuana. But the interesting

33:25

thing is that endokinoid receptors are

33:27

involved in long-term potentiation in memory,

33:29

in plasticity. So in some ways,

33:31

it's not surprising that it impacts

33:33

your memory. It's surprising if it's

33:35

always shitty, because I think there's

33:37

probably an optimality, I'm not telling

33:39

it, you should use it to

33:41

improve memory. But there may be

33:43

some realm in which you can

33:45

actually improve plasticity as opposed to

33:47

make it worse. That's very difficult

33:49

to get at an individual level.

33:51

But the fact that you have

33:53

receptors in your brain, and especially

33:55

in your memory system, specifically geared

33:58

to responding to the impact of

34:00

marijuana, I think is a very,

34:02

very cool thing. And it also

34:04

tells us that we need to

34:06

invest a lot more energy and

34:08

a lot more time and a

34:10

lot more resources in understanding exactly

34:12

how it's impacting the brain, how

34:14

that changes from individual to individual,

34:16

on what background and what context

34:18

with everything else is happening in

34:20

the brain. So recreational use versus

34:22

use for depression and anxiety, other

34:24

things. some more sort of therapeutic

34:26

uses. All of those are really

34:28

interesting questions. And now that we

34:30

are seeing the legalization sort of,

34:32

you know, across many states and

34:34

a desire from the National Institutes

34:37

of Health to really support research

34:39

on this front, I'm hopeful that

34:41

we'll be able to have a

34:43

lot more answers. A lot of

34:45

my colleagues here actually are studying

34:47

this exact thing. Would there be

34:49

a difference between the CBD component

34:51

and the THC component? Definitely. So

34:53

they're different chemicals and they have

34:55

different potency and different binding properties

34:57

and so on. I don't know

34:59

that there's as much evidence for

35:01

CBD in terms of brain active

35:03

kinds of things or psychoactive kinds

35:05

of things. There may be a

35:07

little bit out there, but certainly

35:09

the impact of THC has been

35:11

the one that's studied much more

35:13

and there's a lot more literature

35:16

on that. So a 2023 paper

35:18

in the journal Biomolecules, titled Effective

35:20

Cannabis on Memory Consolidation, Learning and

35:22

Retrieval, and its current legal status

35:24

in India, acknowledges that, quote, the

35:26

role of cannabis on cognitive functions

35:28

is a matter of long debate.

35:30

but that generally THC is responsible

35:32

for cognition-related deficits while non-psychoactive CDD

35:34

has been shown to elicit neuroprotective

35:36

activity. However, because it's a restricted

35:38

substance, There's not enough research on

35:40

it, they say. And contradictions exist.

35:42

And some reports showed low THC

35:44

dose improved learning and cognition. So

35:46

I guess keep an eye out

35:48

for emerging studies. And as discussed

35:50

in the recent surgical angiology episode

35:52

on veins and arteries, smoking is

35:55

not the best way. ingest it

35:57

if you're going to. So remember

35:59

to protect your blood plumbing for

36:01

the long term. Oh patrons Lila

36:03

Weller, Carleen D.H. and Barb Miller

36:05

had questions about the long and

36:07

the short of it all. Well

36:09

you know I feel like some

36:11

people talk about short-term versus long-term

36:13

when it comes to that but

36:15

the difference between short-term memory and

36:17

long-term when does it become a

36:19

long-term memory? When does it get

36:21

filed? When I talk to people

36:23

about long-term and short-term memory, typically

36:25

they're complaining about their long-term memory

36:27

and they're saying my short-term memory

36:29

is okay. So I can remember

36:31

things from yesterday or the week

36:34

before, but it's like, you know,

36:36

long-term memory that's impaired. Or my

36:38

mother, if they're talking about maybe

36:40

their mother with developing Alzheimer's or

36:42

early dementia, it's her long-term memory

36:44

is okay. And I kind of

36:46

have to stop and say, okay,

36:48

let me just clear up the

36:50

terminology so that when you're talking

36:52

to a physician or talking to

36:54

somebody, they understand what you're talking

36:56

about. Both of those are long-term

36:58

memory. You're talking about recent versus

37:00

remote memories. Short-term memory is very,

37:02

very short. We're talking the span

37:04

of seconds. So that's at least

37:06

the way that these things are

37:08

defined in psychology and neuroscience. Short-term

37:10

memory is extremely short. It's what

37:13

we also call working memory. If

37:15

I were to give you a

37:17

phone number, not that you would

37:19

have to dial a phone number

37:21

these days. But if I were

37:23

to give you a phone number

37:25

and say, hey, hold on to

37:27

this phone number and then you

37:29

have to dial it, you might

37:31

sort of rehearse that phone number

37:33

to yourself for a few seconds

37:35

and then you dial it and

37:37

then what happens to that number?

37:40

goes away. So you stored it very

37:42

briefly in your short-term memory store, your

37:44

working memory, which is there to be

37:46

able to help you store things for

37:49

a very short period of time, you

37:51

can get distracted out of it very

37:53

quickly, and also I can exceed your

37:55

span very quickly if I just yell

37:57

out a whole bunch of numbers out

38:00

to you, things are going to fall

38:02

out, right? it's not intended to store

38:04

any more than just a few, a

38:06

handful of items. People used to say

38:08

seven plus or minus two, but that

38:11

number is likely closer to three or

38:13

four. Okay, he just threw a whole

38:15

bunch of numbers at you, but seven

38:17

plus or minus two means that brain

38:19

scientists used to think we can hold

38:22

five to nine items in our short-term

38:24

memory, but turns out we don't even

38:26

have that much room. It's like three

38:28

or four things. It's like three or

38:30

four things. So then everything beyond that

38:33

is actually long-term memory storage, but when

38:35

we think about memory for yesterday or

38:37

last week or the month before versus,

38:39

you know, years ago, we're talking about

38:41

recent long-term memories versus remote long-term memories.

38:44

And as we get older, our memory

38:46

for things that happened way in the

38:48

past could be very preserved because we

38:50

talked about how memory over time gets

38:52

strengthened and kind of linked to a

38:55

whole bunch of different regions of the

38:57

brain, so it becomes more robust. more

38:59

resilient to forgetting. Those are typically the

39:01

last memories to go. say for a

39:03

patient experiencing dementia, they're going to remember

39:06

those memories much later in the progression.

39:08

But memories of the last few months,

39:10

the last year, the last few years,

39:12

they're going to be the ones that

39:14

are the earliest to go. Because they

39:17

have not been solidified as much. They

39:19

have not been stored in all of

39:21

these parallel networks in the brain and

39:23

made kind of more resilient to forgetting.

39:25

They're still somewhat dependent on the hippocampus.

39:28

And the hippocampus is kind of the

39:30

culprit in early dementia, right? It's one

39:32

of the places that's changing very early.

39:34

So as we think about long-term versus

39:36

short-term, that's typically what people are thinking

39:39

about. Why am I not remembering as

39:41

much of the recent things, but I

39:43

remember memories in the past for longer?

39:45

We experience that as we get older,

39:47

but much more dramatically in the context

39:50

of dementia. Yeah, so it's just a

39:52

little bit of a misnomer, but I

39:54

think, you know, being able to kind

39:56

of divide it into recent versus remote

39:58

covers the same question. Yeah. Oh, I

40:01

had no idea. And I do want

40:03

to ask about dementia. Alzheimer's as well,

40:05

but a quick detour with short-term memory.

40:07

Many people mentioned having the memory of

40:09

a goldfish. Jasmine Patino, first-time question asker,

40:12

whose dear wonderful boyfriend is a goldfish

40:14

in that capacity, and Caitlin Tyndale, who

40:16

compared themselves to a fish cognitively. True

40:18

or false, goldfish remember for two minutes,

40:20

and then they don't know why they're

40:23

in a bowl. You know, I'm trying

40:25

to remember finding Nemo now and thinking

40:27

about whether it was truly two minutes.

40:29

You know, I don't know if it's

40:31

exactly two minutes, but it is very

40:34

short. It is thought to be one

40:36

of the shortest memory spans. How do

40:38

they test that on a goldfish? It's

40:40

difficult. I think that whenever you're testing

40:42

things with animals, you have to be

40:45

clever, right? So you have to figure

40:47

out a way that the animal can

40:49

kind of indicate to you whether or

40:51

not they recognize something. Maybe it's by

40:53

the amount of exploration or the amount

40:56

of time they spend in the vicinity

40:58

of that thing. If they're more familiar

41:00

with it, maybe they'll navigate to something

41:02

that's newer. So you can position things

41:04

in the environment in a way where

41:07

you can see how much they explore

41:09

one over the other and be able

41:11

to tell, oh, yeah, their memory is

41:13

shot, or maybe their memory is really

41:15

good. I love the idea that they're

41:18

like, you know this guy? And they're

41:20

like, no, no, no. The name is

41:22

not coming to my, I remember the

41:24

face though, anywhere, but yeah. We're in

41:27

luck because yeah, people study this, of

41:29

course they do. And according to a

41:31

recent paper, distance estimation in the Goldfish

41:33

in the proceedings of the Royal Society

41:35

B of Biological Sciences Journal, Goldfish can

41:38

accurately estimate distance after learning it. And

41:40

another study in the journal animals titled,

41:42

visual perception of photographs of rotated 3D

41:44

objects in goldfish, trained six goldfish to

41:46

tap either a photo of a frog

41:49

or a turtle for a treat. And

41:51

researchers report that all the fish had

41:53

successful performance showing that they were able

41:55

to distinguish between the turtle and the

41:57

frog photographs, which is evidence of object

42:00

constancy. So flim flam. Goldfish memories are.

42:02

trash, they can be trained to do

42:04

things. And it should be noted that

42:06

in five years of having my daughter,

42:08

who's a poodle mix named Gremlin, I

42:11

have never successfully trained her to do

42:13

anything. So lay off the goldfish and

42:15

lay off yourselves. Although, when it comes

42:17

to future fears and caring for loved

42:19

ones, many patrons had questions about Alzheimer's

42:22

and dementia, including Lisa Gorman, Deb, Deb,

42:24

Debdust, Stephanie, Howfrey, Maddie Cakes, Two Stones

42:26

with one check. Me, Meg McDaniel, Ken

42:28

Edmondson, Aaron White, Camellia B. Brian Reesinger,

42:30

Sarah Crocker, and Stephanie, who wrote, there

42:33

are cases of dementia on both sides

42:35

of my family. Is there actually anything

42:37

we can do to stop or slow

42:39

down this awful disease? A lot of

42:41

people, obviously, concerned about dementia, concerned about

42:44

Alzheimer's, that deserves its own two-part episode.

42:46

Can you describe when it comes to

42:48

memory the difference between dementia and Alzheimer's,

42:50

is Alzheimer's a disease and dementia is

42:52

the symptom of it or how does

42:55

it exactly what's happening? Yeah, so the

42:57

easiest way to think about it is

42:59

that dementia is a larger umbrella term

43:01

and Alzheimer's disease is one of the

43:03

principal causes of dementia. Okay. You're right

43:06

that dementia is a set of symptoms

43:08

and Alzheimer's is a little bit more

43:10

about the biology that leads to those

43:12

symptoms and there are many other types

43:14

of dementia. So Parkinson's disease can lead

43:17

to dementia. There's frontal temporal low bar

43:19

degeneration or frontal temporal dementia. a huntington's

43:21

disease can lead to dementia. So there's

43:23

a number of different causes for dementia,

43:25

but the most prevalent one, the one

43:28

that most people are really concerned about

43:30

is Alzheimer's dementia. So yeah, dementia is

43:32

the umbrella term, Alzheimer's is the subcategory

43:34

or the set of causes that lead

43:36

down the path to dementia, and it's

43:39

among many others, but Alzheimer's the chief

43:41

one. When we think about how do

43:43

we differentiate between dementia and say, you

43:45

know, healthy aging, that's another question that

43:47

pops up a lot, is as I'm

43:50

getting to a certain age, I feel

43:52

like I am losing my memory. I'm

43:54

starting to lose my way when I

43:56

know. I'm having some memory issues, I'm

43:58

being forgetful. And some of that happens

44:01

as we all get older, and the

44:03

majority of it is okay, right? That's

44:05

just the natural part of a normal

44:07

aging brain. But when it becomes pervasive

44:09

and noticeable to not just to the

44:12

person but to others around them, and

44:14

people are sort of missing doctor's appointments

44:16

or getting lost around their neighborhoods and

44:18

they're wandering and then it becomes a

44:20

real concern. And when that's happening already

44:23

things have changed so much in the

44:25

brain that now it's really unable to

44:27

compensate for it because we tend to

44:29

compensate so much for any sort of

44:31

brain deficit for the longest time. So

44:34

for many years. a patient with Alzheimer's

44:36

disease wouldn't technically be a patient because

44:38

they're not reporting symptoms, they're not experiencing

44:40

anything, neither patient nor doctor can say

44:42

anything is wrong with the brain, but

44:45

already the pathology is changing the brain.

44:47

And one of the challenges for us

44:49

in research is trying to develop ways

44:51

that we can detect that pathology, maybe

44:53

with brain imaging, with brain scans and

44:56

so on, very early, even at a

44:58

time when the patient and the doctor

45:00

don't really know that anything is wrong.

45:02

But when it comes to memory deficits,

45:04

experience at that older age, you know,

45:07

the question is always, how do I

45:09

know when it's really kind of tipped

45:11

over? How do I know when it's

45:13

really problematic? And a good rule of

45:15

thumb to think about is that if

45:18

somebody's forgetting things, all natural and fine,

45:20

especially if they can remember it later

45:22

on, if they're reminded and they go,

45:24

oh, now I remember. So it's tracked

45:27

somewhere, it's there, you know that it's

45:29

okay, maybe that's challenging as to some

45:31

extent. But if they're really never able

45:33

to piece it back together, and no

45:35

reminder is helping them, that they may

45:38

be kind of over that cliff, and

45:40

they're going down the path to Alzheimer's

45:42

disease, the somewhat more crass example is

45:44

if you forget where you placed your

45:46

car keys, it's okay, but if you

45:49

forget that you drove the car, you

45:51

know, then that may be a challenge.

45:53

Is that because of plaques in the

45:55

brain, is that parts of the brain

45:57

atrophy? almost spaces spaces be more

46:00

white there used to

46:02

be more white

46:04

or gray matter. We

46:06

happening biologically. this idea, We

46:08

used to have this idea and

46:11

the idea took the field by

46:13

storm I actually resulted in I

46:15

think an over -investment of resources into

46:17

clinical trials rid try to get rid of

46:19

those plaques. We used to think that

46:21

plaques were sort of of the evil, right? And the

46:23

the two pathologies of Alzheimer's disease are

46:26

plaques and tangles. Plaques Plaques are made

46:28

up of amyloid protein. are made up of are

46:30

made up of what's called And protein. time

46:32

And for the longest time, people thought

46:34

if you have amyloid and tau or

46:36

plaques and tangles in the brain, that's

46:38

Alzheimer's disease. And we should be trying

46:40

to break up those pathologies somehow to restore

46:43

the brain or prevent it from restore brain being

46:45

worse. worse. But the

46:47

reality is is idea never really fully panned

46:49

out because just having amyloid in the brain

46:51

is not sufficient for you to experience memory

46:53

problems. This is not sufficient for you to

46:55

have dementia. not about a third of everyone with

46:57

amyloid in their brain a likely never experience

46:59

dementia. amyloid in their brain will likely by itself,

47:02

it's not dementia. So clearly by itself

47:04

else that you mentioned turns out to

47:06

be sufficient and really important, which is

47:08

sufficient and really important, which atrophy, actual

47:10

loss of cells. loss of cells. That doesn't

47:12

happen naturally as we age. age. We We

47:15

lose synapses, we we lose lose connections.

47:17

As we get older, it becomes more

47:19

difficult to make them, difficult to

47:21

maintain them. That happens for sure. that

47:23

But cell loss, cell loss in these massive

47:25

amounts doesn't really happen unless a

47:27

progressive neurodegenerative illness, which is

47:29

what Alzheimer's disease is. disease is. So when

47:32

we find evidence of neurodegeneration,

47:34

say for example on MRI scans,

47:36

we see a very close

47:38

connection, a close link a a

47:40

relationship the the extent of that

47:42

neurodegeneration and memory symptoms or memory

47:44

loss, and cognitive symptoms down

47:47

the line that are not memory

47:49

not So function gets disrupted, all

47:51

of our cognitive faculties, right?

47:53

Because it's progressive. But in the But in

47:55

the absence of that neurodegenerative

47:57

change, it's very difficult to see

47:59

associations with actual or clinical decline,

48:01

which has created a bit of a

48:04

dilemma for the field, even though the

48:06

FDA has been approving anti-amyloid therapeutics, these

48:08

drugs have some nasty side effects. And

48:10

it's not clear that clearing amyloid is

48:13

going to be the solution in the

48:15

long run. Coupled with that, also the

48:17

complexity that Alzheimer's disease is extremely heterogeneous.

48:19

So if I were to get it,

48:22

and hopefully not, but if you were

48:24

to get it, it may look very

48:26

different in your brain than it does

48:29

in my brain. We may have a

48:31

lot of variability. So that means you

48:33

may respond to a drug or therapy

48:35

that I may not respond to and

48:38

vice versa. So the idea of like

48:40

a one-size-fits-all kind of solution is also

48:42

kind of falling away by the wayside

48:44

and people thinking about the complexity of

48:47

maybe Alzheimer's disease is actually diseases and

48:49

we need to be able to tailor

48:51

therapeutics to the individual. Obviously dementia once

48:54

again deserves this own episode. It's a

48:56

complex condition with a lot of emerging

48:58

research, but there are some pharmaceutical treatments

49:00

that can involve modulating neurotransmitters in the

49:03

brain like glutamate. There are dietary modifications

49:05

that can ease some related symptoms and

49:07

psychopharmaceuticals that can help with depression and

49:10

anxiety related to the progression of dementia.

49:12

and Robert G. O'Day and Isabelle LeClerk

49:14

mentioned leeway body dementia in their questions,

49:16

and it is the second most common

49:19

cause of dementia after Alzheimer's, and it's

49:21

caused by aggregations of proteins in the

49:23

brain called leeway bodies. And some symptoms

49:25

of it can include visual hallucinations, trouble

49:28

with sleep, including sleepwalking, mood changes, and

49:30

stiffness. And Isabelle, whose mom had asked

49:32

why public awareness of leeway body dementia,

49:35

was low, but there's a little bit

49:37

of background on it. And we're going

49:39

to get to more questions about how

49:41

you can avoid dementia and memory loss

49:44

in yourself per an expert, but first

49:46

let's donate to a cause of his

49:48

choosing. And he opted to send it

49:50

to a fund at his center called

49:53

the Junior Scholars Fund, which goes to

49:55

supporting graduate students and their professional development

49:57

because he says they are the next.

50:00

of talent and he wants to do

50:02

whatever he can to support them. And

50:04

there's a link in the show notes

50:07

for more on the Junior Scholars Fund

50:09

at the UC Irvine Center for the

50:11

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, so thanks

50:13

to sponsors of the show for making

50:15

that donation possible. As a parent, you

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this world, but you also want to

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the end of a good fight, you

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the beer reported by Crown in Portugal,

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Service fees and terms apply. Service fees

51:30

and terms apply. Okay,

51:35

back to the million-dollar question here,

51:37

which honestly I think is eating

51:39

away at everyone listening, but it

51:41

was asked by Stephanie Christina Manuge,

51:43

who loves Saunas, Margaret Onuska, Kerat

51:45

Singh, Shishanja Gettinger, Nicole DiG, Cairo

51:48

Young, and Jenny Hoover. So let's

51:50

go. Well, I think, you know,

51:52

last listener question that we got

51:54

so much, obviously is, every day,

51:56

I feel like we're all getting

51:58

older, it's nuts, wow. We're we're

52:00

going to get old eventually if

52:02

we're lucky, right? if we're What actually does

52:05

help? does help us sharp and

52:07

retain our memories. Is it

52:09

Sudoku? Is it going to

52:11

Zuma to Is it reading? it

52:13

reading? Yeah, you know, the you know,

52:15

the challenge of brain sort of body aging

52:17

of body aging. one. I think an interesting

52:20

one. think everybody wants to and longer and

52:22

live happier and healthier lives and

52:24

so on. And the trick is to

52:26

make sure that our brain aging

52:28

is sort of consistent with our body

52:30

aging. You really want to kind

52:32

of maintain health across both of those.

52:34

So So mind longevity is something that

52:36

we think about a lot. a And

52:38

there are some answers. So we know,

52:40

for example, that that maintaining levels of

52:42

physical activity, regular physical activity, hopefully

52:45

not just undertaken when you're 80, right?

52:47

of in midlife and of in midlife and

52:49

continuing. of moderate levels of seems to physical seems to

52:51

to be helpful, seem to be preventative. reduced

52:53

They are associated with disease. If for Alzheimer's

52:55

disease if people get it, they tend

52:57

to get it later in life, but

52:59

they're protected from it for some period

53:01

of time. time. So, exercise. exercise. you

53:03

can for more, you more,

53:05

can see the paper, and

53:07

and Dementia Prevention from the journal

53:09

Practical Neurology, which notes that

53:11

notes third of dementia cases

53:13

are attributable to modifiable

53:16

risk factors, such as physical

53:18

inactivity, smoking, and hypertension. And

53:21

they say that with the

53:23

rising prevalence of dementia, there is

53:25

a renewed focus on prevention

53:27

strategies. And exercise has emerged as

53:29

a key intervention as a influencing

53:31

cognition positive. including reducing the

53:33

risk of age the risk of

53:35

decline and dementia. decline and dementia. So

53:37

as walking time, dance

53:39

around your kitchen, get a

53:41

to walk, take a

53:44

break dancing class, do do

53:46

some arm stretches, just keep

53:48

it moving folks. Okay, what

53:50

else doc? The other other thing that

53:52

people have identified in in large

53:54

scale, not not just trials, but

53:56

also epidemiological studies, what seems to

53:58

help to social? social. and

54:00

this was a challenge in the pandemic

54:02

actually and I got to hear a

54:05

lot about that from folks who felt

54:07

that they had social structures and and

54:09

Zoom was no replacement for it. It

54:11

just did not help as much. You

54:13

really want to be around people and

54:15

being around people in an older age

54:17

is really key. Now we see this

54:19

all the time when people retire. There's

54:21

sort of a fork in the road.

54:23

You are very socially engaged in your

54:25

job in other settings. And then when

54:27

people retire, in some cases they become

54:29

very isolated and they're spending a lot

54:31

of time at home, maybe with just

54:33

a 24-hour new cycle and all that

54:35

kind of stuff, and not going out

54:37

and being around people. And others have

54:39

planned appropriately and said, these are going

54:41

to be my post-retirement plans. I'm going

54:43

to spend more time. in my community

54:45

center and my church and my whatever

54:47

it is to maintain that social level

54:49

of activity and those individuals tend to

54:51

do better cognitively over time. Wow. And

54:53

of course not everyone is able to

54:55

get the same levels of physical activity

54:57

and we have an entire episode about

54:59

disability sociology that discusses accommodations and attitudes

55:01

toward disability. So talk to a doctor

55:03

or a physical therapist about what you

55:05

can do and how your activity level

55:07

is. And we also have an episode

55:09

on chronic pain with some bio-psychosocial interventions

55:11

that have helped some folks. And as

55:13

this is being released right before the

55:15

crush of holiday travel and flu season,

55:17

likely a spike in more COVID cases,

55:19

it's always good to take precautionary measures

55:21

against infection. If I'm on a plane,

55:23

I'm in a mask. So do what's

55:25

right for you. But know that doing

55:28

physical activity that works for you and

55:30

staying social is incredibly important for your

55:32

health. and your brain. She said to

55:34

herself in a side. So maintaining a

55:36

good level of physical activity and a

55:38

good level of social activity, you know,

55:40

a great exercise to do both simultaneously

55:42

is dancing. So we tend to hear

55:44

about that a lot, like if somebody

55:46

is in a dance group or does

55:48

dance classes a couple times a week,

55:50

they are much happier. You know, you

55:52

get a lot of endogenous sort of

55:54

dopamine boosts that happen when you do

55:56

that. But the social exposure and the

55:58

physical activity. be key. Then we go

56:00

on to other things that people are

56:02

really curious about. What about brain games?

56:04

What about stoku? What about this and

56:06

this and that? And, you know, the

56:08

evidence there is a little bit shaky,

56:10

right? So there's some evidence to suggest

56:12

that maintaining sort of cognitive engagement, of

56:14

course, is very helpful, but most of

56:16

it is based on cognitive engagement, again,

56:18

in a social setting. So if you're

56:20

playing chess out in the park with

56:22

somebody and having discussions and all that,

56:24

that seems to be more helpful than

56:26

playing chess against the computer avatar at

56:28

home, right? You might think, well, cognitively

56:30

is the same on playing chess, but

56:32

it turns out to be different if

56:34

you're doing it with a human, right,

56:36

and actually having conversations and actually being

56:38

out and about. So again, I go

56:40

back to the two things that are

56:42

kind of tried and true and I

56:44

think are very helpful. The third thing

56:46

that seems to be helpful has to

56:49

do with diet and being able to

56:51

have sort of a heart healthy diet

56:53

because we know that heart health is

56:55

really important for brain health. So maintaining

56:57

something that looks close to something like

56:59

the Mediterranean diet, smaller amounts of red

57:01

meat and things like that, high levels

57:03

of leafy greens and fruits and vegetables

57:05

and those kinds of things. That also

57:07

seems to be associated with better longevity

57:09

and higher levels of cognition into that

57:11

longevity. Those are massive studies that were

57:13

done where they randomize people to either

57:15

the Mediterranean diet or a typical American

57:17

diet and they see some really decent

57:19

results for something like the Mediterranean diet.

57:21

But the brain game stuff is the

57:23

one that I'm sort of tentative about.

57:25

It's like, I don't know if it'll

57:27

hurt you, but I'm not sure it's

57:29

helping you all that much. You know,

57:31

my husband's grandfather played a lot of

57:33

video games in his later years and

57:35

he would play multiplayer, so he would

57:37

be on the headset with his grandkids

57:39

across the country while he was playing

57:41

like World Warcraft or League Legends or

57:43

League, and he was playing like World

57:45

of Warcraft or League of Legends or

57:47

whatever. And we've heard that from a

57:49

number of folks were involved, even in

57:51

our studies, said, you know, I started

57:53

playing video games and I started to,

57:55

and they felt like, like, even the

57:57

learning, the learning, a block, So wireless

57:59

challenging there's no incorporating the social aspect

58:01

into this has made a huge difference.

58:03

This is why I was also reluctant

58:05

to like tell my kids not to

58:07

play games and do things because I

58:09

felt like if they're doing it with

58:12

their friends and it's sort of communal

58:14

then it's a little bit different than

58:16

just droning in front of the computer

58:18

and playing a game by yourself against

58:20

the computer. Yeah, I love that you

58:22

are, you're not only researching this on

58:24

the daily, but also seeing it as

58:26

your children are growing up and watching

58:28

how memory might change, but I imagine

58:30

there are some difficult things about your

58:32

job or studying it. I always ask

58:34

what sucks, what sucks the most about

58:36

your job. Oh, what sucks the most.

58:38

Let's see. I think sometimes the pace

58:40

by which things move frustrates me. And

58:42

in research, you know, I think in

58:44

science in general, there's this notion that

58:46

we're going to do the best science

58:48

that we can, or we're going to

58:50

put it out there, we're going to

58:52

publish our work, and then hope that

58:54

somebody else is going to come and

58:56

take that work and build on it,

58:58

and then be able to translate things

59:00

and get them to be helpful to

59:02

somebody out in the real world. That

59:06

takes forever. And it's so frustrating that

59:08

it takes forever. And so one of

59:10

the things that I've started to do

59:12

in recent years and get my lab

59:14

more involved in is say to hell

59:16

with that, we're not going to wait.

59:19

We're actually going to try to do

59:21

it ourselves. So I've started to bridge

59:23

a little bit between sort of the

59:25

academic environment and more of the industry.

59:27

But for the longest time, it sucked.

59:29

It sucked. It felt like we're so

59:32

removed. as academics doing the science and

59:34

there's not enough of that science that's

59:36

getting out there and helping people, even

59:38

though it has the potential to help

59:40

people. And then the other thing that's

59:42

frustrating, I will say that, you know,

59:45

you can't change everything. You always want

59:47

to do what you feel is scientifically

59:49

very rigorous and also like morally and

59:51

ethically right and you have kind of

59:53

a code by which you operate but

59:55

there are certain systems in place that

59:58

are really difficult to change. And some

1:00:00

of them you can change and you

1:00:02

have to kind of figure out who

1:00:04

to work with to make sure the

1:00:06

messages communicated very well outside of academia

1:00:08

to be able to influence people. But

1:00:10

I'm very fortunate that I'm surrounded by

1:00:13

people who are equally frustrated and also

1:00:15

believe that that sucks. So at least

1:00:17

we can kind of rip off of

1:00:19

each other a little bit and commiserate

1:00:21

slash come up with ways that we

1:00:23

can try to address it. Well, there's

1:00:26

that community aspect too, right? Exactly. That's

1:00:28

helping your brain. That's the thing. Also,

1:00:30

science, you know, when it started out,

1:00:32

hundreds of years ago, when people were

1:00:34

doing science, it really was kind of

1:00:36

a solo practice. When you look at

1:00:39

Nobel laureates, it was always sort of

1:00:41

singular winners, and that's not a thing

1:00:43

anymore. Science is so communal now. It

1:00:45

really requires teams and communities of people

1:00:47

that are dedicated to solving these big,

1:00:49

you know, challenging questions. They're extremely challenginging.

1:00:52

And I think that's one of the

1:00:54

reasons why things have been exponentially growing

1:00:56

in recent years, right? It's not just

1:00:58

that we have better technology. We have

1:01:00

smarter people and hordes of them that

1:01:02

are dedicated to answering these questions and

1:01:04

doing it together. So when you look

1:01:07

at the number of authors on a

1:01:09

paper or the number of co-investigators on

1:01:11

a grant, those numbers have also shot

1:01:13

up. So that community aspect of it,

1:01:15

I think, is what keeps a lot

1:01:17

of us at the table and it's

1:01:20

what makes it worthwhile, worthwhile, despite the

1:01:22

occasional sucking. Well, if someone

1:01:24

wanted to go into this field or

1:01:26

just curious, what is the best thing

1:01:28

about your job? Oh my gosh, there's

1:01:30

so many things. I mean, I'm like

1:01:32

a Kidna candy store most of the

1:01:35

time. I can tell you that for

1:01:37

someone who is naturally very curious and

1:01:39

inquisitive, this is like heaven. Right? Because

1:01:41

you're learning new things every day and

1:01:43

it never stops. And there's no real

1:01:45

retirement also for people like me. Like

1:01:47

you retire, but you're still on recall,

1:01:50

you consult, you do things, you're constantly

1:01:52

continuing to learn. So if that's something

1:01:54

that appeals to you, being a constant

1:01:56

student, other thing also is being an

1:01:58

academic, I have incredible freedom to pursue

1:02:00

the questions of my interest and my

1:02:02

lab's interest. If tomorrow I decided I

1:02:04

wanted to study fruit flies, I will

1:02:07

not lose my job. I can do

1:02:09

that. I have to go support that

1:02:11

effort somehow. But no one tells me

1:02:13

what to study. No one tells me

1:02:15

what science to do. I get to

1:02:17

decide that and I do it communally

1:02:19

with my lab because we're all collectively

1:02:22

and so we get to decide on

1:02:24

the science that we want to do.

1:02:26

We get to write the grants and

1:02:28

papers together. So that's liberating and I

1:02:30

don't know of any other job out

1:02:32

there where you can decide what you

1:02:34

want to do at any given day

1:02:36

and just go do it. Right? That's

1:02:39

incredibly empowering. You can continue to do

1:02:41

what you want to do and continue

1:02:43

to be in love with it for

1:02:45

as long as you want to. This

1:02:47

has been such a journey into my

1:02:49

own brain and anyone listening. So thank

1:02:51

you for just inspiring us also to

1:02:54

treat our brains a little better. You're

1:02:56

very welcome. This was so much fun.

1:02:58

Thank you so much. This is a

1:03:00

great. So once again

1:03:02

ask neuroscientists neurotic questions if you are

1:03:04

me and thank you to Dr. Michael

1:03:07

Yassa and everyone down in Irvine for

1:03:09

helping arrange this. There's more links to

1:03:11

their lab and his work they're in

1:03:13

the show notes and up on our

1:03:16

website at alleyward.com/nimanology. and we're at ologies

1:03:18

on Instagram in our blue sky where

1:03:20

everyone seems to be headed. See you

1:03:23

over there. We also have smologies which

1:03:25

are shorter kid-friendly episodes that you can

1:03:27

find anywhere you get podcasts. We put

1:03:29

them in a new feed so it's

1:03:32

easier for parents and teachers or anyone

1:03:34

who's looking for shorter. Clean language versions

1:03:36

of ologies to find them. You can

1:03:38

look for the new green artwork and

1:03:41

the Smalagee's logo. Thank you also to

1:03:43

Aaron Talbert for admitting the ologies podcast

1:03:45

Facebook group. Aveline Malick makes our professional

1:03:48

transcripts. Kelly Arduired is the website. Noel

1:03:50

Dilworth is our birthday girl this past

1:03:52

week and she's our wonderful scheduling producer.

1:03:54

Susan Hale managing directs it all chick

1:03:57

chafie edits and lead editor and another

1:03:59

great brain is Mercedes-Maitland of mainland audio.

1:04:01

With some assistsists, the last couple from

1:04:03

Jared Sleeper of Mine Jam media when

1:04:06

I'm late on things. Nick Thorburn wrote

1:04:08

the theme music and if you stick

1:04:10

around until the end I tell you

1:04:12

a secret and this week it's that

1:04:15

I have a theory that if you

1:04:17

have a good friend who has a

1:04:19

party like they're close buds you should

1:04:22

either be the first one there to

1:04:24

help set up and just kind of

1:04:26

like set the mood so they're not

1:04:28

worrying about when people are going to

1:04:31

start showing up or you should be

1:04:33

the last one standing to help tidy

1:04:35

up and say hey man great party.

1:04:37

Relatedly, I love ice. I love having

1:04:40

any cold beverage with an absolutely egregious

1:04:42

amount of ice. So much so that

1:04:44

our freezer could not keep up with

1:04:47

my ice consumption. Our ice maker was

1:04:49

like, I don't know what to tell

1:04:51

you. Now, during early quarantine, there were

1:04:53

a lot of cafes that were closing,

1:04:56

and Jarrett surprised me when I was

1:04:58

out of town, I was helping my

1:05:00

dad. and he bought an ice machine

1:05:02

from a closing cafe. We have it

1:05:05

in our garage, and I use it

1:05:07

every single day, even in winter. Now,

1:05:09

what does this have to do with

1:05:12

parties? So we have become the friends

1:05:14

who show up first with a giant

1:05:16

bucket of ice, and it feels heroic.

1:05:18

So if you are someone who goes

1:05:21

to bed early, be the first to

1:05:23

show up at a party, pick up

1:05:25

some bags of ice on the way.

1:05:27

Everyone will love you forever, you get

1:05:30

to bed early. Okay. Just in general,

1:05:32

be safe out there, okay? Bye-bye. Packadermontology,

1:05:34

cryptozoology, lithology, meteorology, nephology, seriology, teleology, seriology,

1:05:37

cellology, cellology. Let's make some members, huh?

1:05:39

If your day sounds like. We need

1:05:41

the report A-SAP. You

1:05:44

deserve Medella, if you've persevered

1:05:47

through. You deserve this rich

1:05:49

golden logger with a crisp

1:05:51

and refreshing taste. Or if

1:05:54

you overcame... too

1:05:56

warm. You deserve

1:05:59

this ice cold reward. Madella,

1:06:01

the markable fight. Drink responsibly.

1:06:03

You're imported by

1:06:06

Crown Port Chicago, Illinois.