Kind: captions
Language: en
what is the relationship between sleep
and learning which is I think one of the
most certainly for me one of the most
important things yeah you actually have
to have sleep in order to consolidate
the things that you've learned during
the day and integrate the items into
your schema of the world and you also
need sleep in order to refine what you
know
reducing the power of things that you
now know are not true in light of the
new information
and to refresh your synaptic circuitry
in your brain so that you can fit new
things in the next day okay so sleep is
implicated both in memory retention and
erasing memory yes talk to me about what
is the importance of forgetting so I I
forget a lot a lot a lot I am very
distressed by how much I forget but my
wife will often say I wish I had your
brain because I don't get hung up on
things yeah so even though it is like
I'm not kidding it's so much traumatic
for me the amount of information that I
encounter versus what I retain but I
don't get stuck emotionally yeah and I
think you actually probably retain more
than you think you may not be it's not
how it feels but yeah you may not be
able to call it to mind the specific
names of things but I believe I believe
you've probably integrated these things
into your schema and how you view the
world what is the schema exactly so it's
a kind of a loose term to see say how
you view the world how things fit into
the story that you build in your brain
of what the world is about and so for
example there's a schema we have of
Christmas and what it involves there's
all kinds of pieces of information in
that schema or the schema of what a
university is or a schema of what a
center of town looks like and so we have
things that may or may not be in any
particular town but we have an idea of
what a town center should look like you
know so are you familiar at all with the
idea of chunking yeah yeah it's kind of
like chunking yeah for people that don't
know explain what chunking is oh boy I
think you could probably explain it
better than me but it's it's a way to
simplify the World by
um sticking related things together in a
chunk that's pretty good okay on the
money I think the idea comes from chess
so where a chess master will look at a
board and he's not seeing the individual
pieces they just see that setup of where
you are versus where I am means that
we're at this point in the game roughly
and that these moves have been played
and these moves are yet to be played
which is how they're able to play so
many games at one time I have a feeling
though I'm certainly not an expert in
this that this is part of the problem
that AI will face as we try to get to
general intelligence the thing that we
call common sense I have a feeling is is
largely tied to not only the things you
can infer but how much you can reduce
something to a set of like Christmas
it's not exactly Christmas snow the glow
of Christmas lights maybe a dude in a
red coat cookies you know and it could
be a lot of different things but yet
there's some overarching organizational
principle that we put things in so
hearing you tie that to sleep that we're
constantly updating that schema yeah
um why is that so important well I mean
what we learned throughout our lives
um changes us and it should because
we are constantly evolving our knowledge
as new things get known
we change where we live and we need to
update our schema with the new place
that's home instead of the old place if
we go to the old place and knock on that
door or try and walk in it would be bad
right so we need to constantly update
our schema with new information
and in fact that does get harder as we
get older because just to update the
schema just to update the schema and
possibly one of the reasons why that
gets harder is because our sleep starts
to
degenerate degrade a little bit now it's
variable whose sleep gets worse at what
age but we do know that we wake up more
often we
um
have fewer big deep slow waves of slow
wave sleep and we are more prone to get
sleep apnea which was really makes us
wake up a lot and so our sleep just the
quality can get bad and then the
updating of our schema doesn't work as
well and that means that we can't learn
new things as the world changes around
us as as easily so I would do you know
is is it the breakdown of sleep that
causes the breakdown of brain plasticity
or is it just that the brain moves
through phases and when you're younger
you're super plastic and as you get
older just gets more and more rigid
that's a good question and I don't think
we know the answer to that yet we do
know a lot of things change with age and
aging but we don't know if they are
linked to sleep the two go hand in hand
so much but we do know that those who
have the worst
cognition when they're older also have
the worst sleep so again
yes which is causing which
um
a bit like progression
but it's a positive feedback the
positive feedback loop so but if you can
arrest
sleep degradation you could probably
arrest dementia as well
okay that's very interesting all right
so then as we tease that apart walk us
through what are the phases of sleep
right uh and what are we doing in our
lives that begin to disrupt those phases
right
um so the first phase we go into when
we're dozing is called stage one and
that's a lot of alpha in our brain which
is 8 to 11 Hertz activity
and is it a quieting down or a revving
up of the mind it's a I guess it would
be considered perhaps a quieting down
there's actually no change in neural
activity but it's a change in pattern of
activity
um so let me ask sorry and we will go
through all these stages but I find this
very interesting so the brain doesn't
end up conserving energy while we sleep
which would have been my sort of
childhood thought yes oh my brain is
going offline right but is it I'm
assuming the difference between
conscious activity and subconscious
activity or even during the day is my
brain activity primarily subconscious
that's a difficult one we don't really
have a good physiological definition for
what subconscious is interesting yeah so
um I think our subconscious is working
all day long in terms of what we Define
as the subconsciousness just thoughts
and feelings and gut feelings and
emotions that occur beneath our
perception of how we feel or what we're
thinking
um if I showed you a brain scan of
somebody spaced out yeah they're totally
in the default mode Network yeah they're
driving to work but they're not really
aware because they've done it so many
times and I showed you a brain scan of
somebody in phase one maybe is the
closest would you be able to tell the
difference like is it obvious this
person is daydreaming versus this person
is sleeping yeah yeah they're different
yeah
and even daydreaming I mean it depends
on what you're daydreaming about right
um what your brain is going to be doing
which parts of your brain are going to
be activated interestingly the very
first research project I ever did before
I was involved in Brain Research I was
just working in a research lab
was for pilots who were flying a really
difficult flight simulator at Northrop
aircraft Corporation
and these are really good test pilots
and we gave them a really difficult
problems to solve while they were flying
uh flying the simulator
and then we'd freeze and blank out their
screen and ask them questions about
their awareness or situational awareness
about how much fuel they had and all of
that where the bogeys were how far away
they were from base and those that were
doing the best had the most of this
Alpha Rhythm which is the dozing Rhythm
so while flying yes the ones that were
doing the best were the ones that were
most relaxed in their brain pattern and
the ones that were doing the worst were
the ones that looked most alert awake
engaged involved that's really isn't
that interesting now would you call that
the Zone yeah I think that's what you
would call that they were in the zone
that's really interesting so needless to
say I'm not a fighter pilot uh I don't
play professional sports but I do play
video games and every now and then you
find yourself in a position where you
can just read the map effortlessly you
know where people are going to be it
feels so different it feels awesome
first of all yeah your reflexes your
ability to just Intuit where things are
going to be happening at that's really
interesting that that most closely
mimics the first stage of sleep I would
not have guessed that I know very
interesting okay so stage one we're in
we're in an alpha wave phase yeah uh
which you would liken to being more
relaxed relaxed yeah okay but we're we
are asleep at that point no it's called
stage one because it's a transition
between wakefulness and sleep actually
we have found in my research lab that
one of the things that turns off one of
the first things that turns off quote
unquote off or changes mode is the
hippocampus which is involved with
learning and memory and that goes to
sleep minutes before the rest of our
brain does even though in the night I'm
going to be consolidating my memories
yeah so I say turned off but in fact
it's not turning off it's just turning
off to learning new things coming in
from the outside world okay so that was
one of the questions I was going to ask
you later but this now feels like the
perfect time can we learn things at
night could I play a calculus book and
wake up uh better at math it would not
be no that would not be a good idea just
there's nothing that you can do if
you're sleeping that's awesome you
really want to turn off to the outside
world in order to consolidate the things
that you learned all day long so there
is a just like there's a time for
everything there's a season for
everything you want to turn off what's
coming in from the outside world so that
you can process what you already have
interesting I have a conundrum for you
okay
I work a lot
while I love what I do it can be very
stressful and in uh the last few years
I've been working so much that it was
just completely disrupting my sleep and
it was miserable it would take me
eight hours to get
five hours of sleep I'm just really not
fun and there were times where if I was
getting my hair cut if I stopped moving
I would just start falling asleep yeah
absolutely miserable I hated it yeah and
I'm somebody who prioritizes sleep so
I'm not I don't have an alarm set
nothing I'm going to bed but I just
could not shut off my brain I couldn't
get into that where I was I felt relaxed
enough to to fall asleep or I would fall
asleep but then wake up after one to two
cycles and then I would be awake for two
hours is about normal right and then so
by the time I fell back to sleep I'm
just I did not feel good I was tired all
the time so one day I don't remember
what made me try this I started
listening to an audio book out like a
light yeah I would wake up fall back to
sleep within 30 seconds I mean just
magically delicious right yeah but I've
got the outside world coming in yeah so
it's not a pressing out these so I think
what that did that audiobook is it
helped distract your mind from the loop
it was in like oh I've got to do this
and this and I I did I tell somebody to
do this or
um so it distracts your mind from those
alerting and alarming things that were
keeping you awake and instead Let The
Trail Of Consciousness follow this story
that wasn't going to affect you one way
or another and that was enough to allow
your
parasympathetic nervous system to relax
as you relaxed and enjoyed the story and
then sleep could just take over and I do
the same thing I don't do podcasts
because I'm interested in every story
um I just I just play a kind of a
Mindless little video game on you know a
math video game and your mind doesn't
spark back up when you put that down and
go to sleep you know
um
no you know I just basically think the
video game for making me sleepy and just
I don't do a lot I don't you know take
my thing and walk to another room and
put it away I just
lay it down and sometimes I don't even
get that far it falls onto my pillow
yes okay so stage one alpha relaxed we
can begin to tune out the outside world
and our alerting mind begins to quiet
the hippocampus switches into some other
internal mode and could you can you
actually see the hippocampus change its
wave pattern electrical what do we yeah
is it a wave pattern or an electric it
is a electrical wave pattern okay so
same yeah got it okay and then how long
are we in stage one so we're in stage
four just for a few minutes you know
five minutes very quick yeah yeah very
quick and then we go into stage two
which has
um
called K complexes and spindles which
are bigger waves that where all the
neurons are silent and then they're all
active at the same time and then
spindles are a little buzz of activity
that
come once every 10 seconds or so and
they last about one and a half seconds
something like that it's 10 to 15 cycles
per second and it starts small and it
builds up and then it goes small again
unless you smoke weed and then you get
these weird monster spindles yes that
we're unsure what they do which will be
something I'm sure we will get into
later because I have a wife that likes
to partake yeah yeah uh okay so the the
brain is pulsing which is very
interesting that's is that because of
the need for the glial system to clean
out yeah that's actually mostly
happening in the deeper stage of sleep
we call it okay so this is different
yeah this is stage three so stage two is
what we're talking about now so what's
the pulsing then so the K complexes are
um
we don't know exactly in in animals they
are
married to something that also starts
during that state which is called p
waves these are Big excitatory drives
from inside of our own brain stem that
go to our forebrain so
um
K complexes and p waves may or may not
there's some controversy be the same
thing but they're big glutamatergic
drives it also happens because our
Thalamus which is our Gateway of
Consciousness it's kind of sitting right
in the middle of our brain and allows
the outside information to reach our
cortex it relays it it starts to close
and become more hyper polarized more
negative and what does that mean that
means so when okay so our neurons are
electrical as well as chemical and the
inside of the neuron is very negative
related to the outside the electrical
potential is very negative and when
outside information comes in it's
excitatory so it actually makes the
inside of the cell more positive and
then when it gets to a threshold when it
gets so positive it gets to a threshold
which is negative 55 millivolts then it
fires an action potential a whole lot of
things that are voltage dependent open
up so sodium channels open allow a lot
of sodium to come in to really
depolarize and that's called an action
potential and those each one of those
are the ways one neuron communicates
with the next neuron and how our whole
brain works together and why we can see
these electrical patterns because the
more neurons that are involved in firing
at the same time the more our electric
roads that are out here on our school
can see this positive potential go by
and then as they're all filing silent
and becoming negative together you can
see this negative potential and so um do
you uh so if you had to guess is there a
metronome effect going on is it trying
to synchronize something it's um it is
kind of like a metronome in that it's
also a positive feedback so you have the
all the neurons firing at the same time
and then there's a bunch of other things
happen once they fire they there are
things like clothes that are deactivated
and then everything becomes negative
together and then when it becomes
negative enough there are other voltage
dependent channels that open and all
becomes positive and then do we have
this kind of synchronicity when we're
awake
in some places yeah for example if
you're walking or doing anything
rhythmic moving your body there's a lot
of synchronous in your spinal cord that
allows that to be a rhythmic normal
movement fishes swimming
um
they're so interesting but we don't yet
know why that metronome is going off we
don't but when I started 30 something
years ago we really didn't we thought
maybe it was just something that was a
signature of something else going on but
now we know that actually that
synchronous firing and synchronous
silence that happens during this non-rem
we call it non-rem slate stage of sleep
could be the thing that actually cleans
our brain and these p waves these big
excitatory p waves Target a different
part of our brain than our Thalamus
during wakefulness targets and the part
of the brain that it targets is
out in in the parts of the brain that
form our schema where cortex talks to
Cortex instead of outside world talking
to and this is coming from the brain
stem comes from the brainstem The
excitatory Urge comes from the brain
stem and it targets out these cortical
cortical connection okay so I imagine
this is very conserved over Evolution
yeah it appears to be
um yeah zebrafish
uh we there are animals that don't have
much of a cortex but they still have
sleep that's really interesting so
there's probably something very ancient
very primordial that this is going to
end up being tied to versus something in
the neocortex which is more a higher
level cognition probably not memory um
or would it be because I guess every
animal would need to go hey I learned
this food is here this movement where
that thing's a predator yeah okay so
even fruit flies completely false in my
apartment no no I mean they it may the
reason why we can't measure the same
brainwave activities through to a in a
fruit fly is because even though they
have a lot of neurons that help them
move and interact with the world they're
not layered in the same way so in our
cortex all the neurons are lined up kind
of and then these electrical potentials
that I'm talking about work like a
battery you know you
um when the battery is lined up the
right way you can see the electrical
potential but if they're all jumbled
relative to one another even though they
might all be firing and Silent at the
same time the
the way that the electricity is Flowing
is this way in this neuron and this way
and that neuron waves cancel each other
out so we can't see it but right okay so
that's stage two
um is what stage is
memory
consolidation happening versus
forgetting I assume there are different
stages yeah
um so that stage two is part of
consolidation those big excitatory waves
and those sleep spindles where is where
our cortex is telling other parts of our
cortex or our hippocampus which is kind
of the short-term memory structure is
telling our cortex hey this is what I
learned today and and teaching it
um and so that happens in that stage two
in stage three uh that's when we have
those big slow waves that sweep through
regularly stage two we have those K
complexes which are big waves but they
come
you know once every 10 seconds or so and
sleep spindles which come once every 10
seconds or so but in that deep slow wave
stage of sleep they're coming all the
time there's still each one comes once a
second or so but
um but that's probably where they're all
firing together and they're all quiet
together and that's creates when the
neuron fires not only these are
electricity and neurochemicals that are
released but also when it fires when all
the sodium is rushing into the cell the
cell expands because it brings water
with it and so it's actually all the
cells are expanding and Contracting at
the same time which could create a pump
like action pumping out the debris and
the waste into our lymphatic system to
clean our brain and
that yeah that is probably one of the
functions of stage three specifically
yeah of stage three specific okay so
when we think about neurodegenerative
diseases
um you hear a lot about uh beta amyloid
plaques building up Tau proteins things
like that
one where do those come from and B it
seems like because I know we were
talking earlier but also knowing your
research that
as we get into like really bad
neurodegenerative diseases they're also
going to massive sleep disruption yeah
um
so yeah what what are the amyloid
plaques what are the Tau proteins why do
they matter why do we have to clean them
out every night do they serve a function
are they all bad like what's up guys
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no no no we need them we we couldn't
survive or learn or do well without them
it's kind of like I guess you could sort
of think of it as
making the mess on our desk as we work
during the day right and
um we need that to do the business that
we're doing but we also need to clean it
up
um every night so that the next day we
can come in and be organized and
efficient and know where things are so
um so it's a normal part of being awake
because phosphorylating this towel and
it helps us to
carry things where they need to go
same with amyloid proteins we have to
have them but it's one that become
a mess misfolded and a mess that if we
don't clean it up it starts to Gunk up
our office of our brain and then we
can't find anything and
um our neurons aren't working like
they're supposed to because it's less
and less efficient that stuff is very
interesting to me especially
as it relates to metabolic disease and
whether Alzheimer's is metabolic disease
in the brain I'm curious before we get
into stage four
how much of what's going on in here is
tied to metabolism because I know if you
mess up your sleep you're going to
notice it immediately in your metabolic
response it really is the first thing
that gets messed up is your metabolism
and you get four in the morning you get
hungry for junk food because your body
says I'm not efficiently processing you
know energy anymore and I need more of
it so the one of the first things that
happens when we go to sleep is we
convert the free adenosine that's been
freed through the process of of
um metabolism
um it gets built back into ATP which
have these packets of energy that our
whole body uses so
that is a very important part and when
we sleep deprive ourselves our adenosine
builds up and up and up and up the
longer awake that's what caffeine does
it blocks The receptors for this
adenosine so we don't know how long
we've been awake and we don't feel the
signal that we're sleeping but it
doesn't caffeine doesn't help us to
change free adenosine back to ATP and
that happens very slowly and
inefficiently when we're awake but
really well and quickly when we're
asleep that's interesting so basically
you're is is the adenosine like a
hormone where the body's like I'm gonna
do this because I need you to go back to
sleep and so it's just sort of a clock
and it just produces it and it knows ah
you'll hit this sense that I must go to
sleep and then cool cool like it's done
a job I'm gonna take it all back and
then okay you're awake and I'm gonna
pump it back out or does it have some
other function and sleep is just a
byproduct it's it's freed up because of
the process of energy use so
um ATP adenosine trisphosphate when we
um
utilize the ATP it basically kicks that
off it kicks that off interesting and
the next and then it goes from
triphosphate to die diphosphate to
monophosphate to to just free adenosis
and then we grab it again and we grab it
again
wow mitochondria are working hard to
talk about a very simple thing that I
have never put together okay that makes
a lot of sense uh that's why power naps
are power naps because you can quickly
grab some of that free adenosine turn it
into ATP that is so interesting okay
that makes better than better than a cup
of coffee because it's actually building
background energy okay so the cup of
coffee is bamboozling you so you don't
feel that you're tired but the power nap
is actually creating ATP with the free
adenosine so you're lowering the level
that tells you that you're tired yes and
you're actually producing energy yeah
very interesting but I also know that
you've talked about that some people
naps don't work yeah so why that seems
weird we don't know we don't know yet at
um it's also true that some people don't
get all of the health benefits of
exercise they're just a variety of
people out there yeah I know really yeah
I've never heard that yeah yeah some
people you know they can exercise all
they want they could train for a
marathon and they're they're it's not
doing the repair and benefits for the
body at other people because so that's
really interesting I should not be
surprised everything we're so
individualized different from that is
horrifying to think that you could be
doing all of that because I absolutely
despise working out I could be doing all
that work and not seeing all of the
benefit I'm sure you get some but yeah
I'm sure you get this very interesting
yeah okay so uh there's more to go into
there but I think it's probably better
to wrap up stage four and then we can
sort of circle back and get into some of
these things especially what we can do
to optimize this stuff right
um stage three stage four they're really
the same thing they've been collapsed
into one um
because so you guys can talk about four
stages anymore oh no the fourth stage
being REM sleep but it's not called
stage four it's just called REM rapid
eye movement sleep yeah so you're still
technically in stage three no you've
just completely switched out of stage
three and you're in a completely thing
entirely REM sleep is also called
paradoxical sleep because our cortex
looks like we're awake and there's so
much activity is that why it's not
considered stage four it's just so
different yeah stage one two three are
all kind of sort of degrees of depth are
are Thalamus that thalamic gate becomes
less and less aware of the world outside
of us
um
I don't know that's maybe a misnomer too
it's not even stage two and stage three
are so different from one another to in
terms of what neurotransmitters are
there and what's not there so we did say
oh this is how you're marching into
sleep but in fact we now know as of
recently that stage two and stage three
are entirely different as different from
one another as wakefulness is from any
other state as well yeah okay that's
unexpected yeah okay and then stage four
is different than all of them yes and it
looks like we're more wakeful so yeah
describe what is going on in rem yeah
why is it so weird why do we dream I
mean this is the weird one right we're
again closed to the outside world
instead we're internally generating uh
our own reality and that reality is
unreal you know it's some things that
can't happen in the outside world what
we do know is we are in turn generating
an internal State this dream state all
of these dreams and what those dreams
allow us to do is things that we can't
do during wakefulness fly or
um
um you know become monsters or fight
monsters or play out all kinds of
scenarios in fast kind of forward motion
that we can't do and if we did we might
put ourselves at risk but because we're
safe in our beds
um not acting out our dreams we can
safely do these things and so
um yeah it helps our brain to expand and
be imaginative and work through
complicated problems and put things
together that don't make any sense
during wakefulness when our logic and
judgment decision-making brain is you
know Reigns well hopefully Reigns
um instead we can play out all kinds of
crazy scenarios that may allow us to put
things together that we wouldn't
otherwise
that'd be interesting so is are you
saying that your hypothesis is that by
having what I'll call a narrative
component I don't know if you'd use
those words but by having a narrative
component we go into a more creative
state
where we can connect ideas that somehow
when we wake is going to be used well
yeah so that's the really cool thing
about this dream state is our brains are
learning we are it's learning from the
dream state in the dream state we are
learning and our brain is learning from
itself but not in the way that I'm
consolidating memories in quote-unquote
learning this is a different type of
learning it's it's it's an it's you're
creating new knowledge but from the
things you already know uh well we can
measure the synapses and the synaptic
strengths and which synapses are
strengthened and which are weakened
interesting so I'm when you say learning
you mean mechanistically yeah neurons
are wiring together yeah in the same way
that they would if I I want to learn a
math problem or how to solve a math
problem and those neurons would be
strengthened yeah I mean it's really
powerful they call it plastic State and
so it's just as plastic as when we're
most alert and weight learning the best
in during the daytime but the one thing
that you can do during that dream state
you can't do during wakefulness is you
can do Erasure so you can delete and
eliminate Pathways that no longer work
for us or are redundant and that happens
during REM only during REM sleep yeah I
don't understand why that would happen
while I'm telling myself some
acid-induced
Bizarro narrative I mean I don't
remember many of my dreams but the one I
remember is they're so weird that I'm
just like yeah how is this the time and
place that I'm going hey you know that
thing you don't use that anymore let's
prune that out yeah do we have any sense
of why those two happen at the same time
yeah I think it's because
um well one thing that needs to happen
is we need to we need to prune those
redundant pieces of information away
otherwise we would just saturate our
brains with
irrelevant pieces of information and
even wrong things that we should tag at
least to say yes I used to believe this
but now I know it's wrong so it's REM
sleep that you can reduce the weight of
those things so it's not the first thing
you think of when you know someone asks
you you know where did you park your car
yesterday it's
um or last night it's not the place you
parked it last week or the month before
it's where you parked it yesterday so
you need to prune those things away so
so you know what's current and what's
here now so it's the novelty encoding
parts of your brain that need that get
pruned and the reason why that's
possible is because that's the state in
which uh brain stem area called the
locus cerrillas which provides
norepinephrine another word for it is
noradrenaline to our brain that only
lets us it's only puts us in the go mode
it only puts us in the strength and
strength and strengthen when we're awake
when we're asleep it's gone and so
that's the only time during REM sleep
it's when it's really gone and you can
say yes to these things and know to
these things be selective it's kind of
like
you know during the daytime you you have
a housewarming party and your guests are
bringing all kinds of things into your
house right house plants and and
dishes and all of that and yes you
accept all of these things when you're
awake
um but you unwrap them in your um when
you build proteins in that stage two and
stage three sleep and then during REM
sleep you put them where they go and you
throw out the things that they replace
at least new things replace man this is
so interesting to me I have a hypothesis
for you okay let me know this is going
to be so absurd but I love talking to
people that really know their stuff so
you can correct me where I go wrong uh
when I'm teaching students about
business yeah I'm always trying to get
them to understand that you have all
these dots
your Market what you're trying to sell
them what you think they want how you
think you're going to get there the
state of the economy all this stuff and
your job is to connect those dots with a
narrative which I'll call your schema
for how to move your business forward
right the problem is the only thing I
can tell you is that your schema is
wrong but you need one in order to move
forward with conviction yeah and if you
don't move forward with conviction then
you'll fall prey to what most businesses
fall pray to which is doing nothing is
the only sin so if you do nothing you'll
get bowled over by all the other people
that find a way to move forward with
like real conviction yeah
and so when you are getting your team on
board you're gonna only talk narrative
you're going to talk about how the dots
connect
but when you're alone you need to come
back out to just dots and see if there's
another way to connect these in a more
efficient narrative yeah and so getting
them to understand the brain is a
predictive engine and when you are able
to predict the outcome of your behaviors
you're closer to ground truth when you
can't predict the outcome of your
behaviors you have a flaw in the model
yeah
man I'm grasping at straws here but this
makes a lot of internal sense to me that
if in the REM State what my brain is
doing is going your schema is held
together with this narrative yeah but
for a minute I need to come back out to
just dots there's no logic and so when I
hit that point where it's just dots I'm
having these weird dreams I got a dream
Once where it was raining corpses no
idea what that meant
um but I'm I'm back out to there's
there's no coherent logical cohesion
between these right but my brain is now
removing things that haven't been
serving me yeah and then is going to
reconsolidate all this back into a
updated schema When I Wake yeah exactly
I think that's really interesting if
that holds true like that really makes
sense to me from just how the world
works yeah
very interesting very interesting okay
so now talk to me is there a correlation
between either
or both
schizophrenia and a dreamlike state or
psychedelics in a dreamlike state yeah
yes the answer is yes
um so
schizophrenia is long-interested sleep
researchers because it's
the hallucinations are so much like what
hallucinations we experience When We're
Dreaming and so it was thought to be a a
dream like state right
um
interestingly the only real difference
that you can see in the brains of people
with schizophrenia well there are two
things one is during wakefulness
your gamma which is the cortical
cortical connectivity is slightly
different in frequency it's just it
changes a little bit almost as though
we're being more driven by an internal
cortical cortical connection like we are
during REM sleep
and then the second
is we don't have those beautiful sleep
spindles that I talked about so people
explain to people so spindles are way
too connected to intelligence yeah I
always get very uneasy with stuff like
this or I want to know can I can I yeah
make more of them right well the reason
why you probably get uncomfortable is
because we don't really have a good
grasp of what intelligence is we just
um we know there are different kinds of
intelligences and we know that our ways
of testing them are very very flawed but
but intelligence is broadly speaking
what you talked about earlier which is a
way to
absorb information process it form a
schema and use that schema the next time
you encounter the world so it's a way to
um use what you know in a very efficient
fashion perhaps is the way you could
think about it if you had to guess if
you could turn a dial and increase the
amount of spindles that somebody has
would they get smarter
yeah I
yes
however that qualify that it's not just
spindles like you said cannabis you know
increases the length of spindles and can
almost replace all of REM sleep with
spindles but it's what's going on during
those spindles the timing is everything
so it's when neurons fire in relation to
spindles it's the neurochemicals that
are present or apple absent during
spindles that allows us to reshape our
schema and so
um so it's not just the rhythm itself
it's what's going on in the background
of that Rhythm or on top of those
rhythms or because of those rhythms
that's that's the important thing so I I
think I'm a little wary of devices for
example that's going to externally cause
your brain to cut to fire in a 10 to 15
Hertz spindle fashion because if the
rest of your brain isn't doing what it's
supposed to do it's not in the state
it's supposed to be in it's not going to
do you any good and in fact it probably
could do more harm than good it's
interesting I've heard you talk about
that then you know the brain one the
systems are never that simple it's like
there's redundancies in the systems and
uh depending on context it could be
doing seeming to do the same thing but
in fact it's actually doing the reverse
so all very very complicated but going
back to schizophrenia and psychedelics
yeah
um
so what have we found is it a dreamlike
state and that's why they're
hallucinating and the wires are just
getting crossed or
I think
a dream like State because that stage
two sleep spindle State isn't doing what
needs to happen which is updating your
schema with the information that you
learned during the day so why would that
result in hallucination so
yeah I I just had a really fascinating
conversation with an undergraduate at
UCLA who's really interested in
schizophrenia and sleep
and it might be that your
distal
cortico cortical communication is
happening without
instruction
so it's without that instruction say
where the hippocampus can tell the brain
this is what we learned today this is
now we gotta tag this with false and
this is true and we've got to refresh
and all of that happening during that
those sleep spindles when the cortex is
teaching the I mean the hippocampus is
teaching the cortex what it knows
instead you're staying in perhaps a
rem-like state in that you're doing all
these a free associations you're backing
out you see the dots and not the schema
anymore like you said and but that's
happening
without the organization step of this is
what I've learned today first so so the
brain is talking to itself but the brain
doesn't recognize I'm talking to myself
yeah and so it's misinterpreting this is
a signal coming from the outside yeah
when in reality it's a signal coming
from the inside yeah yeah that was the
latest Revelation that I had um with
this undergraduate it's people with
schizophrenia the more schizotypic they
are the more they can tickle themselves
and you know that's revelatory explain
what that means well because we can't
tickle ourselves because when we do this
to ourselves we are we have what's
called an efference copy so our brain
our motor cortex says I'm about to I'm
doing this I'm getting close to my
shoulder and we can expect it and the
thing about tickles that it's an
unexpected well one of the things about
tickles it's unexpected and so
um so we can't but if you don't have
that feedback from the outside your
brain telling you this is coming from
inside of me and not from the outside
that give me the chills yeah isn't that
amazing so the they can tickle
themselves so they have completely lost
track is this inside or outside
whoa do we have any sense of how you
re-establish that connection
I that one that's a micro circuit
question and that's something that my
lab is also looking to in a lot of other
labs too but
um so there are sort of two compartments
of our neurons the the that are
listening to the outside world uh so one
the proximal compartment that's really
close to the cell body is where the
outside world talks to our our cortex
and puts that new information and then
the distal
parts of the antenna which are called
dendrites are where the cortical
cortical information comes in and
normally when we're awake
our whole brain chemistry weights
um things to be more attuned to what's
coming in from the outside world and yes
there can be definitely thankfully uh
some modification of that based on our
schema and the distal dendrites
information where cortex is talking to
Cortex but mostly the two compartments
are very separated from one another
they're physically separated from
another they're chemically separated
from another they're anatomically
connect connectivity wise separate from
each other and um and then during sleep
during this REM State and the spindle
State we switch from that internally or
that externally focused novelty encoding
uh
proximal
close to fell body circuit to paying
more attention to what's going on from
on in the distal cortical cortical
circuit and so and what mitigates that
what switches us from this to that is
thing called interneurons which are
inhibitory interneurons which during
wakefulness kind of inhibit that
cortical cortical input to some degree
in a in a very regulated and rhythmic
fashion that's what sets up that gamma
Rhythm that I talked about that's
different in people with schizophrenia
is these interneurons and it's really
these interneurons that seem to not be
as viable in people with schizophrenia
so if somehow you can restore the health
of these interneurons and restore how
they're connected with the circuit they
can switch us from external to internal
in a fashion that makes sense with
what's actually going on in the world
around and have we seen any impact on
diet is anybody looking at that
of course diet affects everything you
know neurotransmitters
um are and the cofactors the coenzymes
are all part of that I don't know myself
of any studies about diet but one thing
that will definitely cause people with
schizophrenia or the tendency to have
schizophrenia to tip them over into a
break is alcohol
um and doesn't weed also have I've heard
people say like yo-yo yeah yeah be very
careful yeah and it's probably because
it's messing up with those sleep
spindles that we talked about and what's
exactly what alcohol is doing alcohol no
alcohol inhibits the
um stage it it interferes with our sleep
it makes our sleep not do what it's
supposed to do so during those deep slow
waves of slow wave sleep of the timing
of things isn't right that alcohol
affects our interneurons big time it's a
Gaba Agonist which is an the
neurotransmitter that imaginurons use
and so it falsely clamps things down
when they shouldn't be clamped down
takes our forebrain off line which is
why we become so it's part of the fun
yeah part of the fun yeah but um but
yeah so and and so it interferes with
our sleep and I think if your sleep is
already compromised when you have
schizophrenia you don't have good sleep
spindles in the first place it might be
that you're able to hang on to reality
just barely of tooth and nail by the few
sleep spindles that you get and then
alcohol wipes those out and so then you
go from the edge of barely hanging on to
tip over to the side of
um hallucinations and
oh that's so interesting this is a
random side note but
um I had a friend have a friend
whose brother is paranoid schizophrenic
and he said he spent like a year he had
to move back home spent a year tracking
his brother down finally found him his
brother was convinced like the French or
Italian government were after him and he
was you know running from like underpass
to underpass trying to like keep away
from the satellites being able to read
his mind well wait though against
stranger uh he finds his brother gets
him on back on his medication his
brother then develops secondary
depression and while taking the
medication is able to explain this is
less fun than being a paranoid
schizophrenic because at least then I
mattered then like the governments were
after me I was like of central
importance and every day my life
mattered and I was running he stops
taking his medication and and goes back
onto the street right and I was like
whoa yeah like there the the brain is
complicated yeah and to think that
I mean look it clearly is there's
something just misfiring it's it's not
working the way that it should yeah but
I kind of got what he was saying oh I
was like wow yeah to feel like I I
matter more than anybody else and like
everything is about me and governments
are after me right I was like there
that's spy versus spy yeah yeah I don't
think we as humans need to matter to the
whole world we just need I'm not trying
to celebrate or say that schizophrenia
sounds amazing not at all but I think
this touches on a very basic human need
which is that we need to matter to one
another we need to matter to somebody
and I think that's as a parent that's
the best thing we can give for a child
is the knowledge that we matter we
matter to them at least and that we can
make a difference in the world that our
actions matter that you know we can make
the world a better place and that they
hope and expect us to do that and so
that connection between it I mean
uh we are social animals and just like
other social animals we're not the only
social animals in the world there are
lots of social animals we need our clan
we need each other and when we feel like
we don't matter and nobody cares
depression definitely sets in I think
this was a major problem during the
pandemic when we were isolated from each
other especially those people who lived
alone I mean wow that's
we are social animals that is a
fundamental part of who we are thank God
for the telephone thank God for Zoom
thank God for that we could at least see
each other in some way and tell each
other that we matter to one another but
I I totally get what this friend of
yours or this you know
felt uh that's crazy yeah we and I think
that maybe way one way to help people
stay on their meds is let them know that
they do matter show them that they do
matter it's really well even if they're
not the central of this Central you know
character of this conspiracy yeah of
this big government conspiracy if you
matter to somebody your nieces and
nephews you know your brothers and
sisters your mother and father I think
that could that could make the
difference all right let's go dark for a
second all right if we had to break
somebody like really break them isolate
them or deprive them of sleep
uh I think sleep would do it faster can
you kill somebody by not letting them
sleep yeah that's bananas yeah well
because oh gosh no one's never done well
but I know of in humans
um in other mammals it's five weeks
something whoa I can't that does not
sound fun no so what ends up happening
what's the mechanism by which you want
to break it's um because sleep has so
many functions it's not even clear what
what the mechanism is but do they get
organ failure um yeah yeah multiple
organ failure immune system degeneration
lesions
um sepsis
um all kinds of different things would
kill you it just kind of actually kind
of like covid and other very bad viruses
they target different organs depending
on who you are and what state they're in
so
um so sleep deprivation will Target
different organs and where you're most
vulnerable will be the one that
that hurts you faster wow what what does
that process look like because you don't
go from I'm a little tired to I'm dead
like do they start hallucinating do they
start
um well people well I mean people have
self-deprived or have been unfortunately
deprived of sleep and hallucinations are
part of it yeah
um hunger oh um your metabolism goes
haywire and you get super hungry and
you'll continue to lose weight you'll
lose weight with long-term sleep
deprivation yeah even if you're eating
yeah yeah whoa
um so there was one women's magazine who
talked to this researcher and said hey
you know even though I could eat
whatever I want and still lose weight if
I lose anything no but she'll be ugly
because your skin doesn't you know
refresh and renew yeah I mean you'll be
cranky and and just not look good not
feel good it's it's it's not a good
thing
um and then type 2 diabetes insulin
regulation goes Haywire one night a full
sleep deprivation will set you on the
path toward type 2 diabetes so
um yeah you want to get your sleep no
joke yeah I think actually probably the
Nobel prize-winning discovery about the
function of sleep being that it's
important for every everything living
creature is that it's it's metabolism I
think it's the mitochondria and the
repair of the mitochondria is that
you're saying that will happen I will I
think yeah I know a few researchers that
are looking to sleep in mitochondria and
I think that's that's the where the
money is I mean cognition yes we all
want to learn better and understand
better but I think the essential
life-sustaining function of sleep has to
do with energy
that's interesting so knowing the little
bit about mitochondria that I know they
have their own DNA
uh what's going on at the level of sleep
that would impact this little organelle
that should have its own setup in its
own system it repairs itself so why why
does my as if I could exist without them
but why does my sleep affect
mitochondria so profoundly that you see
a Nobel Prize coming yeah well okay so
think of think of sleep as I think of it
as a washing machine
um
if you
don't
or if you don't clean your clothes
ultimately they'll get gunked up heavy
dirty won't do their won't do their
insulation function they won't help you
function if you get sleep but it's
messed up it's like putting your clothes
in the washing machine but interrupting
the cycle putting on the clothes soaking