Kind: captions
Language: en
hey everybody Welcome to impact Theory
you are here my friends because you
believe that human potential is nearly
Limitless but you know as I do that
having potential is not the same thing
as actually doing something with it so
our goal with this show and Company is
to introduce you to the people and ideas
that will help you execute on your
dreams all right I am freakishly excited
about today's guest he's one of the most
respect Minds in all of Neuroscience and
his name is often uttered in the same
breath as some of the most enduring
names in the history of science his
insightful and quite frankly badass
experiments coupled with his ability to
boil the insanely complex down to the
super simple has made him one of the
most sought after lecturers living today
he's done multiple TED talks and
additionally he was the gford lecturer
of 2012 and honor reserved for history's
brightest Minds that dates back to the
1800s and has included uded such
legendary figures as Neils bore Roger
Penrose verer Heisenberg and Carl Sean
he obtained his PhD from Trinity College
at Cambridge received two additional
honorary doctorates as well as the Henry
Dale medal and Richard Dawkins once
called him the Marco Polo of
Neuroscience please help me in welcoming
the bestselling author of The Telltale
brain Phantoms in the brain and a brief
tour of human consciousness the man who
created the astonishing mirror box and
taught more about the Mind than anyone
else vs ramach
chandron yes thank you so much for
coming on appreciate it please take a
seat welcome thank you so this is a long
time coming for me uh as somebody who
really felt uh a victim to circumstance
a victim to my own mind my journey
really began with learning about the
brain and thankfully that Journey began
with you and reading The Telltale brain
was the first one that I read but I
think the one that impacted me the most
was probably Phantoms in the brain which
was just utterly revelatory in terms of
the way that the brain impacts us one of
the most interesting things that I found
in your books are the profound ways in
which the brain is malleable and we can
make changes how much do you think and
and God this will be interesting
depending on what you say but how much
do you think that we can really re wire
consciously rewire our own brains it may
be a while but we we headed the right
direction I think I mean the old view of
the brain I was a medical student one of
the things I learned was a brain
consists of isolated modules this is a
caricature but roughly people believed
that isolated modules specialized for
different functions and the modules
don't talk to each other there's a
vision one and the touch one there's a
hearing one there's a foresight one
there's a wisdom one there memory they
hardly interact they're all hardwired
laid down at Birth by The genome M and
uh that was it that was and you study
each module hoping to understand the
brain now we're saying the exact
opposite is true our research has shown
patients with Phantom limbs for example
that first of all these so-called
modules are not
hardwire they're constantly interacting
with the environment they're immersed in
and with other people there's a sort of
dynamic interplay of signals back and
forth between the environment and the
mod module in the brain the module and
the Skin and Bones as I explain in a
minute and each module is talking to
interacting powerfully with modules of
other people's brains so not only is it
interacting within the brain but is
crossing over to other brains using
mirror neurons so this gives you a very
Dynamic picture of brain function
embedded in society embedded in social
interaction embedded in your physical
body physical flesh anchor in the
physical flesh of the body it's a very
Dynamic picture of the brain which is
highly malleable even though the basic
scaffolding is laid down at Birth this
is a very very radical view of the
looking at the brain
so I I want to get back to mirror
neurons because you have a really
fascinating view about how mirror
neurons are essentially the thing that
allowed us to rapidly progress as a
species by essentially giving birth to
culture one of the things yes not to
oversimplify the brain um but what I
want to I want to go a little bit deeper
first on plasticity yeah plasticity and
and how it's usable so um One have you
used it in your own life if so how and
if not how have you seen it with
patience give you a couple couple of
striking
examples uh if you amputate somebody he
develops a phantom arm you know you
amputate the arm he develops a phantom
arm in more than 98% of cases very Vivid
experience of the fingers of the palm of
the wrist right there but he he doesn't
see it obviously he knows it's not there
not delusional but he experiences this
Phantom which you'll reach out and grab
a cup will answer the phone will wave
goodbye very Vivid sensitive experience
major turning point in my career was
when I I saw a patient about 20 years
ago who was sitting there he had a
phantom limb Phantom arm and he'd come
to see me because he knew of my interest
in neurology and brain function and uh
he said he has a phantom that that moves
around and you know reaches and grabs
objects and telephone when it rings and
out of a whim I put a cup of coffee in
front of him an empty cup and I said Can
You Reach and grab that cup of coffee
with your with your Phantom he smiled at
me he said sure and then as he was
reaching for it I grabbed it and pulled
it away
and and my question was very simple will
the Phantom then shoot out like that
rubber hand in that movie with what's
his name Jim Cary yeah will it shoot out
because why should the physical limits
of the flesh apply to a phantom it's a
kind of silly question if you think
about it right that's not what happened
when I pulled it he said he said ouch I
said I said what do you mean he said
ouch it's painful I said what do you
mean I I already grabbed the handle when
you pulled it wow and I said there's no
handle there's no cup there's no you
know there's no arm there's no fingers
what the hell is going on here here the
brain is vastly more mysterious than we
realize so here is a phantom man
reaching out grabbing a cup that's that
in itself is surprising and I pull a cup
away from the Phantom and he feels
phantom pain and and Yelps right and
that's so interesting so I know you're
obviously approaching it as a researcher
as a neurologist I approached that that
exact same phenomenon as an entrepreneur
there was a period in my life where I
was ah God I didn't feel like I was
depressed at the time but as I described
the symptoms now we'll call it bordering
on depression I was laying on the floor
my face mashed into the carpet just
feeling hopeless and feeling like what
can I do right and it was researching
the brain that allowed me to get out of
that state because I realized if the
brain is that powerful that an arm I do
not have can experience pain based on
you pulling a cup away from it what's it
doing to me now right how cuz that's not
real right but how much in my situation
right now this feeling of hopelessness I
actually have the chill thinking about
it this feeling of hopelessness is
triumphed over right like can can I do
something can I change it if if if
there's a mechanism at play whether it's
mapping or whatever and you've been
referred to as the the mapper of the
brain so if this is it doesn't
necessarily that particular thing
doesn't necessarily have to be mapping
and if I could begin to understand these
things and how they were being used
against me essentially could I flip it
and use it for me anything we we study
we have three agendas one is is it real
second question what's going on in the
brain you know what why does this happen
in some some individuals third question
who
cares you know why is it important why
is it important can you put it in a
broader context so we did that with
Phantom limbs we developed a cure for it
which we can return to later if you
want uh then there is we did this with
synesthesia for example synesthesia is a
condition where people see colors when
they see numbers right black and white
numbers I I give you a number five and
you see black and white so these people
will say I see red or I see green or
blue different numbers you listed
different colors stable throughout your
life passed on from generation to
generation so your parents are also cese
so it's a genetic basis what causes it
well we discovered that there's an area
in the brain for colors the Fus form D
in the temporal lob an area for numbers
visual appearance of numbers and these
are sitting right next to each other in
this huge brain you said what's the
likelihood that some people have this
Quirk they see numbers is colored and
the number area and color area are
sitting right next to each other in the
brain right so we said in these people
maybe there's some cross wirring
accidental cross wirring so when you see
the five number five number five lights
up in the brain and cross activates the
cross wiring the red color but seven
might be green color again you may say
well Dr rachand you showed that there
are neurons in the brain in in in in
area number area which fire and activate
the color area in V4 this cross wiring
so these these people have this weird
phenomenon they see color numbers so why
should I care right so it turns out that
synesthesia is eight times more common
among artists poets and novelists that's
why we should care so that gives you the
clue why should it be eight times more
common in artist poets and novelists but
first we need to ask why does it run in
families anesthesia and why is there
this cross wirring you don't see cross
wirring in normal people when you see
five you just see five black and white
you don't see it colored these people
are cross-wired so they colored that's
because all our brains are cross-wired
when we're in when you're a fetus when
you're an infant everything is connected
to everything and as the child evolves
as the child grows up the excess
connections are pruned away and what
you're left with is a characteristic
modularity of the adult brain with
different specialized area for color
number alphabets and so on and so forth
right if the pruning Gene which causes
this pruning to occur and removing all
the excess connections right mutates
then you get defec of pruning so these
connections are left behind from infancy
so every time you see a number five you
see a color red so this is the basis of
cesia which we proposed since then has
been confirmed in many Labs it's not the
only thing that's going on but it's one
of the things that's going on I don't
know how to take control of it yet but I
find cesia so fascinating from a
creative standpoint do you know Vladimir
Nabokov yes all right so supposedly a
sinast absolutely um he wrote I think it
was Lolita in English and it was his
like fifth language or something and I
thought wait a second this guy wrote a
book in his fifth language better than I
can write in my first like it's it's
crazy to think that and so the reason
it's important to me to develop a theory
of how I can leverage this in my own
life is obviously gaining control of the
brain and and to anybody watching guys
the the whole point of all learning
about the brain the whole point of that
is to really begin to understand the
things that you can use in your own life
to empower you to pick a direction to
know what you're going after so when I
think about
Nabokov um and I think about here's a
guy who found truly his calling right
his calling was to deal with language
because there was so much crossover
either between metaphor emotion color
language something right and I know that
you've talked very powerfully about how
metaphor is sort of on the spectrum of
synesthesia walk us through that walk us
through how like is there a way for me
to as somebody who's not a sin are there
ways to train my brain to draw more of
these connections it's a fascinating
question and we haven't got there yet
but we're getting there I think with
synesthesia so there's this Gene that
causes excess
connections we there what are called
transcription factors which allow the
gene to be expressed selectively in one
region if it's expressed selectively in
the fusor gyus by the number area and
color area they get cross-wired and you
get number colors anesthesia and that's
no big deal and it helps them to
remember phone
numbers unlike us they see a spectrum of
colors in front not very useful these
days with
cellon but it turns out if the gene is
Express diffusely which can happen then
you get more cross wirring throughout
the brain now that I claim is the basis
of creativity and metaphor when the B
Shakespeare said it is the East and
Juliet is the sun you don't go Juliet as
the sun does that mean she was a radiant
Fireball
actually not a bad metaphor yeah he
meant she was radiant she was nurturing
she was warm she rises in bed like the
sun rises in the East Ian you can make
any number of connections you want she's
the center of my solar system like the
sun is the center of the solar system
right and shakesp was a master of doing
this I bet shakesp might have been a C
I'm not sure it could have been a sined
but cedes are more connections
throughout the brain and therefore if
Concepts and ideas like sun and Juliet
and are enshrined in different neural
architecture in different parts of the
brain even far flung regions of the
brain ideas and Concepts the excess
connections across the brain creates a
greater propensity to link seemingly
unrelated ideas and Concepts and that's
the basis of metaphor for and creativity
so now you can get to the molecular
basis you can clone the gene look at the
brain connections molecular basis neural
basis of esoteric abilities like
creativity for the first time in in in
in in history of Neuroscience and brain
research now how you can tap into it now
that's a big question get yeah no no no
please jump in well I was going to say
there we're
still we just scratch the surface we
don't know quite how to harness it dis
ability sort of genetic engineering or
something but I would say in schools and
in in in your own life poetry has a
tremendous role I think we should all
try to become poets wow that's
interesting yeah because poetry and
laughter and humor because humor
involves unusual juxtapositions of ideas
so there's a lot in common with
creativity and not surprisingly many
very creative people have a great sense
of humor I mean The Only Exception would
be Germans
who any Germans in the house who
exceptionally creative as you know so
um telling this sounds frivolous but you
know having courses on humor and
laughter even in school wow well let me
derail us for a second so when I was a
kid I wanted to be a stand-up comic so I
would spend every day every day Monday
through Friday at lunch doing standup
routines for my table not like in front
of the whole school or anything but for
my table practice practice practice day
after day after day after day so when
people ask me cuz my verbal skill is
something that people would say cuz I I
don't claim to be smart right I've
worked my ass off to get educated I
don't claim to be smart and people say
yeah but you have such an easy time
talking and I always point to the time
that I spent every day every day every
day practicing practicing practicing and
that just using the sheer number of
words especially because I was still
developing like at that time I'm sure I
impacted the size of the verbal centers
of my brain but it's interesting that
because in writing one of the things
that I find easyest is metaphor to to
make disperate connections and I have
this concept that I call think itting
which is that's very interesting yeah
which is a reference to meditating so I
start by getting in a meditative state
which I'll Define as Alpha wave an alpha
wave state in my brain I feel very
relaxed very creative and I find that
I'll make really interesting connections
at that time I'll put two things
together that I wouldn't otherwise put
but I have to put my mind to it right I
have to pick a problem and say this is
what I'm going to think about in this
Alpha wave state and then I just find
that whoo like these really far in
things will come together and reconnect
which I never thought of as being sort
of on that Spectrum but it's interesting
that I don't know if there is a tie
between my early obsession with comedy
and my ability to do that or not but
it's interesting that's fascinating and
it it seems to me the strength of your
approach is instead of conventional
science where you objectively quote
andquot study somebody's Behavior or
somebody's perception you're doing
introspection introspective experiments
on your own mind right by trial and
error and to me it's it's very
fascinating real question is does the
creativity in humor seeing analogies
grasping analogies seeing connections
which which can be funny at times but
not always whether that spills over into
other domains or you just become a very
funny guy right I mean this question has
not been adequately answered if I if I
give introduce it into the school
curriculum a lot of humor different
styles of humor is it going to make them
creative or just going to end up with a
lot of comedians can I tell you what it
feels like so I ended up doing stand up
comedy quite a bit at one point um sort
of right towards the end of my high
school beginning of college and then I
stopped and I wanted to take myself very
seriously during college so I completely
stopped at study study study but about
two years out of college um I decided
hey I want to go back to it and when I
started practicing again just trying to
find the funny moments in life doing
routines in the mirror like getting back
into being funny I could literally feel
my brain speed up and that's what it
felt like it felt like and I don't know
if that's just how it feels as you begin
trying to make these other connections
if some part of your brain is sort of
lobbing random things into your mind I I
I don't know but very much the
subjective experience is the sense of I
always likened it to an engine where you
feel it like turning over and then it
just gets very very fast and if I
couldn't get my mind into that space
where I could feel it going quickly I
couldn't be funny but once I got in
there and then I was able to make those
random connections make them quickly cuz
obviously timing is a big part of Comedy
um yes absolutely that's very
interesting yeah it's fascinating and
and similarly with poetry I think there
are people who are quote unquote poetry
blind and I don't know if that's
congenital or even if it is can you
modify it can you educate people with
poetry and the beauty and and impact of
poetry and does that help them in other
ways or do they just become poets these
are open questions that need to be
investigated but I'm what I'm hearing
you saying is that there is a tremendous
change in the brain which you can
experience and it might spill over into
other remains although You' all you all
it for humor obviously that's really
interesting so I want to um I want to go
back to mirror neurons for a second you
had a great quote I'm going to
paraphrase it but it went um the only
thing standing between me and true
connectedness is my bloody skin and uh I
found that really interesting what do
you think that says about like human
relationships as people try to stop the
separatism and feel more connected and
feel this sense of unity to know that
truly from an experiential standpoint
that can be verified in the lab the only
thing that stands between you and
actually experiencing someone else's
circumstance is a null signal um is it
usable like what do we do with yeah I
think you know ifusion has seen it fit
that for Rapid action and for for its
purposes you know perpetuating genes in
your lineage you you need to take
shortcuts and and it says simplifying
assumption is to say your Consciousness
stops here you know you got your skin to
protect that's different person but as
far as the neurons are concerned and the
mirror neurons which are firing away and
empathizing with another person it's all
one big connected Network which includes
other people's brains not just your own
brain and it includes the skin too as I
told you it turns out that there's a
condition called RSD if you don't mind
my going off on a tangent here for a
second if you have normally if you have
an injury to a metacarpal bone and RSD
is like the swelling the red yeah yeah
so these are tiny fracture normally the
finger swells up and becomes red and it
becomes warm inflamed painful classic of
inflammation and then the bone starts
healing after a couple of weeks and then
the changes in the skin and flesh
reverse it's called healing everything
is fine right in about 1% of people the
fracture heals but the fingers remain
swollen red painful and immobilized you
can't move that finger whole hand
becomes immobilized red painful swollen
and warm entire arm okay and this you
stuck with this for Life typically for
for decades
there are 30 treatments none of which
work adequately the one treatment
sythetic gangan block which helps
somewhat now we developed a trick which
is now widely known and used for Phantom
lmag but we suggested it could be used
for this on the grounds that when the B
when the brain had a small injury and
sent a command to move he getting a pain
signal saying ow don't move it it's
painful this results in a Pudo paralysis
so the brain gives up attempting to move
the hand because it's terrified say if I
try to move it it's painful so it learns
it's called learn pain now you put a
mirror here hide the distopic arm
swollen arm painful arm put your normal
hand on the other side I'm the patient I
look in the mirror and I move my normal
arm like that like that my distopic arm
looks like it's moving course it's not
it's just lying still right I'm sending
commands to both hands only this hand is
moving this hand is not moving and and
it looks like it's moving but there's no
pain because you're not moving the left
hand are you with me so far yeah yeah so
the brain says look your left hand is
moving fine you know and it's not
painful go ahead and move it you
unlearned the Learned pain and and then
soon afterwards the experiments were
tried on about nine patients and
astonishingly about half the patient
online as you the patient been have this
for months or years you watch the normal
hands reflection in the mirror so the
distopic painful hand looks like it's
moving with impunity it starts
moving not as it not not not only does
the inflammation the pain subside m but
the hand starts moving the paralysis
upside goes away the redness changes the
color changes and the Hand stops stops
sweating and you get the temperature
changes you can't fake that with your
mind so visual input is going and
affecting the temperature of the skin
right as you watch with a mirror Rama
doesn't this stuff freak you out like do
you not go home and see what else you
can put in the mirror box and like what
can I do with this stuff absolutely you
can go home play with mirrors and
discovered all kinds of things I mean if
I put two mirrors at right angle and put
my nose position my nose correctly so I
look it looks like a normal face yeah
one half in each side of the Mirror by
Blink you know what happens yeah Mirror
Image blinks if I'm blink my right eye
it blinks his right eye and he Spooks
you out you say my God what's it doing
right unless you know the Optics do the
same you go home and try it it's
beautiful but now comes the fun part I
simply ask you to look at this Gizmo and
I say first look at a normal mirror and
move your head around like this
circumduction mhm and you say fine can
you do it yeah I'm doing it I mean you
look at your eyes it's important look at
the bridge of your nose
and easy right okay now you put two two
mirrors like this look in the center do
the same thing you can't you can't move
your head or you do
this why with some practice you can
start doing it very slowly because the
feedback is wrong what you get what you
get in the normal mirror you use the
feedback of the head to guide your head
this is what we don't realize that your
brain doesn't function in isolation it's
constantly monitoring sensory input so
when you attempt a correction the head
moves the wrong direction so you then re
correct again the other way then again
it goes the wrong direction so you get
into this feedback loop and you get a
pseudo paralysis of the head so who
would have thought that I can put two
mirrors in front of you at right angles
like a book ask you to look inside it
ask you to move your head and you say I
can't move my head all right see this
stuff to me is so powerful it's so
important and when you start thinking
about the duality of the brain uh the
Corpus colossum and what happens when
you sever the Corpus colossum and you
get the you talk about in a second The
Atheist and the the theist I mean it's
so fascinating but what I hear in all
this stuff is there are things that I
can do right now to begin to develop my
brain in a way that I want so there's
some guys here just off camera and they
were um asking me before you got here
like oh hey you used to visualize cuz my
wife and I used to drive up into Beverly
Hills and look at nice houses and when
we were poor that's how we stayed
motivated and um and as they're asking
me about this I get what they're really
trying to do which is they want to know
on those days where they feel insanely
lazy and they don't want to do anything
what tricks can they do to motivate
themselves and people write in and ask
that kind of thing all the time and the
real question that they're asking is how
do I take control of my brain because
your brain is [ __ ] with you your
brain is lying to you your brain is
making things up your brain has multiple
voices and the only anything that keeps
them moving in one line is a bit of
tissue between them but when you find
yourself arguing in your own head it's
because there really are two competing
voices there really is one that's
fearful um that doesn't even have
language talking to one that has
language but is you know much less
emotional and and trying to balance
those two out but when I hear stuff like
the mirror box and being able to have
and if you what's what are the initials
are FM RFD RSD RSD reflex sympathetic
destrophy all right so if you look that
up on Google it is so horrifying it's
huge and red and nasty and you've got
people living with that for 10 years you
put it in a mirror box that this man
makes for $2 and you can trick your
brain into thinking that all is well to
the point that you'll begin to see the
swelling go down in real time right
about half the patients that's [ __ ]
crazy so the brain to me is is ripe for
I'll take this the wrong way but
manipulation on yourself to be able to
create U an improvement to be able to
get yourself moving in a direction and
here me guys watching the
show the thing that I want to stand for
personally is it doesn't matter where
you start it doesn't matter who you are
everyone's a lump of Flesh that can't
hold its own head up and poops in its
diapers right that's where we all start
and we all learn to do something over
time now you can learn to do that but
man you've got to learn about the brain
if you're not researching the brain and
finding the tricks that it is pulling on
you so that you can reverse it and pull
it back on the brain you're missing a
trick that's fascinating I think and the
point you made about coros kosm and left
and right hemisphere studied extensively
by Roger Sperry gazena Joe B and various
others right here in pasaden actually um
it raised a fascinating question the
right hemisphere has its own language of
course both hemispheres use the language
of neural impulses the tiny wisps of
protoplasm of jelly called neurons and
they're firing away 100 billion of these
and and you know there's you and me and
then then there's you look at the world
right out there how does all this happen
and it's mysterious but even even more
directly intriguing is that the right
hemisphere speaks a different language
of emotions introspection or left
hemisphere is is conventional what we
refer to as language spoken
language I think it's more fundamental
than that there's a translation barrier
between these two hemispheres when
there's this there musical scale is
extraordinar
beautiful uh a flourish here a flourish
there Mozart or Indian classical music
Raga darbari Canada something like that
so there is improvisation going on and
then there's musical scale or
Melody that says it all sometimes and to
translate music into words is impossible
because it's barri and I think what
happens is music itself is a bridge
between the right hemisphere's emotional
language which is hard to convey and the
left hemisphere's propositional language
this is just a far out idea I don't even
know how to test it but the kind of
issues that we think about I'm starting
to think about yeah um Michael Strahan I
don't know if you know who that is one
of the guys on Good Morning America Hall
of Fame NFL um football player and he
talks about how he'll orchestrate his
music depending on what he's trying to
achieve so as he prepares for going out
onto the field about two hours out he's
actually listening to slower Tempo Music
R&B it's very emotive um and then as he
gets closer to going out he starts
listening to very aggressive music
things that create a brain State change
in his mind and the notion of changing
brain states to me is so important cuz
maybe there are just some people that
for whatever reason like they're wired
to do XYZ but take this show for me so
this provokes tremendous anxiety for me
and to be able to come on and perform
and calm my nerves it's like I have to
go do this super [ __ ] elaborate like
thing to change my brain state to get it
where I want Tony Robbins talks about
instant State changes and things you can
do to like really hype yourself up and I
find that I can do an instant State
change to aggression but I can't do an
instant State change to something more
um subtle than that so you mean towards
aggression yeah so in response to
somebody's aggressive behavior no it
doesn't have to be that but let's say
that I wanted to um to Michael Stan
you're about to go out into the football
field and you need to like bring it and
be a killer you haven't even seen
anybody else yet but you know you have
to walk on just like totally amped up um
I have a technique that I use that that
um I think a lot of people use which is
to to hit yourself to have like physical
contact with yourself if I strike my
chest really hard in a in an instant
Rama I can like really get amped up or I
can put music on that exists in a like
Jay-Z for me has if I want to be [ __ ]
Shore I'll put on Jay-Z like you just
it's
swag it depends on what I'm trying to do
right so in fact in the early days when
I first started doing this show um back
when it was inside Quest I I had to put
myself in a position of confidence
because I didn't have the confidence to
do the show so I would listen to Jay-Z
like that's all I would listen to for
like an hour leading up to the show I'd
pace around and just listen to this
music just to get myself in the right
mental state and the reason I bring that
up is is there's so much going on in the
brain but so much of it is controllable
and what's really interesting and and we
don't have time for it here but you've
talked so powerfully about what it means
to be self-aware and how the self can
contemplate the universe and contemplate
itself contemplating the universe right
and like what does that mean and to me
once you realize that you can
contemplate yourself contemplating you
you can control it you can start to
steer it you can move it in different
directions and one thing I want to ask
ask is what is for a normal person
what's something that they can control
and would allow them a better quality of
life if they learn to control it the
best best answer to that is creativity
creativity metaphor poetry and all of
that so what do you think they can do to
practice that well the risk of sounding
frivolous expose themselves to a lot of
poetry write a lot of poetry even if
it's bad stuff copy it maybe if you need
to change it alter it eventually write
your own poetry write your own jokes if
you can and hang around people who have
a poetic mind and people who are
passionate about what they do who think
of Life as a grand Adventure
like hang it on poets you know it's
cliche but but just that's that's the
key it is but in terms of actually using
the brain and tampering with it we don't
we're not there yet that can be
undoubtedly be done maybe 100 years 200
years from now but not not any time soon
let's bring it a little bit sooner so I
know that your mirror box came from VR
you saw VR and thought well I can't
afford thatz like 10 or 15 years ago
right well it didn't actually come from
ER but the idea came from when I looked
at this patient withdrawing from the
from the the cup and then OU and told me
the powerful role of vision in
modulating the pain so I said Vision can
cause pain can also reduce pain let me
let me find a way of correcting this and
then I saw a mirror somewhere in the
basement and must have clicked because
I've seen them in museums before then
vir rather came later because people
said you you cannot use the mirror if
you have two hands both amputated then
they said you can start using virtual
reality to treat this and based on the
mirror box principle they started using
virtual reality but you're right in
terms of my initial thought when I saw
this patient doing this and I said I
need to give him visual feedback from
the
hand to eliminate pain not this patient
another patient I need to give him
visual feedback that hand is moving that
might eliminate the pain the first thing
I thought of was virtual reality I said
I can maybe get this constructed and
then then I realized tremendously
expensive than hit on the idea of using
a mirror yeah yeah that's that what do
you think about the coming VR Revolution
do you think that it's going to be
usable do you think it's absolutely yeah
I think that you can develop virtual
reality tricks for things like anorexia
NOA something we've been thinking about
that's interesting but a patient looks
at the miror image and then says she's
obese you know she's fat and here's some
skinny person looking at a emaciated
skinny reflection their visual
perception is being
distorted now can you somehow change
that by giving them false feedback or
something like that by creating a
virtual reality image of them themselves
and then manipulate the image and give
the brain some some version of
themselves which makes them motivated to
start eating again wow so it's primarily
a disorder not of feeding people think
of anorexia loss of appetite not true
often their appetite is good it's a body
image issue you know they think of
themselves as fat and blow and they need
to lose weight so they keep losing
weight and sometimes it can be fatal in
R rare cases this this serious Disorder
so we've been thinking about to use of
virtual reality for that we thinking
about it
for things like OCD and another use of
miror neurons by the way is my Maron
fires when you R grab that
glass and uh when I re grab that glass
and fires we already talked about Mir
neurons now in OCD obsessive compulsive
disorder say I'm the patient I have this
Con Conant compulsion to go wash my hand
like lady McBeth and I touch a piece of
wood or touch a table or touch a
bathroom door knob I immediately go and
scrub my hand until it's red and
inflamed and Skin's peeling off right
for 20 minutes half an hour and every
hour I have to go back to the bathroom
because I touch something this is
extraordinarily distressing for the
patient in addition to the you know the
skin
excoriation we said okay when he gets
the urge to go and wash his hand and and
rub his keeps rubbing his hand why why
you watch app you know somebody else
washing their hand so it gets rid of the
maybe it'll get rid of the urge
activating very simple idea we tried
this Jalal and I uh Balan Jalal and I we
tried this and in about we don't we're
not experts on OCD because you know very
whole this whole field devoted to that
sure people studying for years but we
just said as an amateur let's just try
it for fun and uh in three out of six
patients we found that the patient the
patient with OCD traits not full-blown
OCD they said you know my myage goes
away I don't need to go wash my hand
anymore by simply watching another guy
think think about this and and and the
patient said I didn't even expect this I
mean how if I see somebody I should get
more more of an urge because it's
frustrating he's watching his hand I'm
not able to but the opposite happens I
watch him wash his hand it relieves my
urge to wash my hand and I don't
understand it then we explained to him
miror neuron principle so another
example of tapping into miror neurons
abilities to cure a seemingly incurable
disease but this is early days we've
seen it only in about couple of patients
and you're doing rigorous tests to
establish it but I just wanted to add
that very yeah very interesting now in a
time where people think all the sort of
easy simple discoveries are already done
and now the only thing that's going to
work is really expensive lab equipment
how have you been so successful in
finding so many new discoveries what
what's that secret that other people
seem to be missing well that's a tough
question to answer I think that because
of misconception people think that more
difficult a problem
the more difficult it is to solve but
more more fundamental a problem more
important a problem the more difficult
it is to solve but there is no
correlation sometimes there's a simple
solution staring at you in the face and
you're just you're just missing it I
mean to give you a classic example
everybody thinks Newton showed that
white light is made of seven colors
right everybody knows that every school
boy knows that put a prism had white
light going through this from a slide
projector or whatever they were using at
that time lo and behold you get a
rainbow newon said why light is made up
of seven wavelengths of different colors
and they said baloney there about 20
critics of him said this is impurities
in the glass that's splitting the white
color into a spectrum so Newton's
supporters said that's nonsense Newton
can't be wrong let's get it right so
let's they polish the prism purified the
glass again seven colors so the critic
said you not purified it enough right so
they went on and on and on 15 years 20
years no matter how much you purify they
can always say this PU impurities and
you can't new looked at this debate and
he said it takes 10 minutes to show this
right if they're right or wrong why they
purifying the glass not going to get him
anywhere he took a second prism put it
upside down in front of the seven colors
collected them became White again if you
see this impurities in glass it should
become even more colorful right how come
it's becoming white again so I'm right
these people spending 20 years grinding
the glass and removing impurities they
need not have done that so this simple
solution staring at you in the face and
you just miss it even today hundreds of
discoveries are waiting to be made with
without high-tech the classic example is
the cure for
ulcers I don't know know yeah yeah I
mean this is a classic example of people
thinking that ulcers are caused by back
you know stress and acid in your stomach
and and so give them ant acids or do
antrectomy remove the stomach people
used to do that when I was a medical
student wow right now now you don't need
to do anomy or votomy or any of that or
long prolonged diets you know milk diets
and and no spicy food and all that you
just give him antibiotic it turns out
this this young resident looked at the
stomach slices of biopsies and and found
that they studed with bacteria and his
professor said that's a secondary
infection from Flora bacterial Flora in
in the stomach going infecting the ulcer
now this guy asked a simple question
nobody else asked what was that he said
how do you know yeah I think how do you
know is a fundamental question in
science so every kid should ask his
Professor if his professor says
something how the hell do you know it's
secondary infection maybe the bacteria
causing the ulcer professor said that's
not not what my professor told me the
secondary infection he said how do you
know it's a secondary infection then he
gave people antibiotic to remove the
so-called secondary infection they also
went away they also went away and then
he correlated the distribution of ulcers
in the population with the distribution
of helicobactor perfect correlation even
then people didn't believe him he
laughed off the stage when he presented
this he took the final step of
swallowing the helicobactor I don't know
if you know this yeah that's crazy and
he did an endoscopy and his blinding was
stuttered with ulcers then finally they
believe him this is about 15 20 years
ago and then even
then 10 years 15 years they didn't adopt
this remedy of swallowing antibiotic wow
they said no no there nothing to do with
antibiotics the average physician
gastroenterologist would still prescribe
this you know standard regimen of diet
and votomy and some rare cases
antrectomy not not antibiotics but the
antibiotics kicked in about 5 years ago
people started using it widely take a
course and and got a Nobel Prize for
that there's a great quote I think it's
by Max plank uh where he says people
have this um illusion that when a new
piece of information comes out that
people recognize the faults in their old
views and adopt the new view and you
know March forward he says what really
happens is people begin to die off and
the new people are just raised on the
new truth and then ultimately it becomes
accepted I won't say my I'm waiting for
my colleagues to
di that's nice yeah that's hilarious
yeah I can't believe believe that people
are that stubborn but uh people really
cling to Old beliefs but I love that H
pylori story that he was willing to put
it to the ultimate test that he was so
convinced he was right that he would go
to the lengths of uh swallowing H pylor
which is CRA Bey it is could have been
discovered 100 years ago why anybody
could have done this antibiotic ask that
question 50 years ago anybody had access
to antibiotics would have said let me
just try it yes finally do you meditate
no I'm ashamed to say I'm from India and
people always ask me and I want to and I
I will soon but I haven't attempted it
yet for me what I need is to be able to
picture the anatomy of it once I
understood what I'm really doing is
tapping into the parasympathetic nervous
system I'm slowing my heart rate down
I'm slowing my breathing down I'm in in
essence regaining control of certain
things right I am now consciously
controlling my breathing and very
interesting you're saying that the
ability to consciously control these
things and be aware of what's going on
helped you tremendously right
tremendously right now that this is very
interesting in Phantom Pain patients
what they'll say is you helped me
eliminate the pain but more than
anything else you've told me that a
phantom is not a figment of my
imagination it's a construct in my brain
the body image Center so it's real I'm
not going crazy and you can put it in
something as simple as a mirror and
eliminate it for a while Rama I really
think it's a big deal and when you were
saying that people cuz I promise you
people saw their girlfriend rubbing
their Phantom hand a thousand times and
it didn't give them any relief because
the belief they had about it was
something to different so how could it
have that impact they don't notice it I
mean you see but you do not observe as
as Sherlock Holmes told Watson okay so
so they they noticed it many of my
patients have said well I've noticed
when I'm shaving I feel something in my
Phantom but I told my doctor and he said
it's all it's all in your mind don't
worry about it so they all have observed
it but they ignore it but as you your
mind is tuned to it so you you notice it
more or You observe it more and you see
its significance I think that's what it
and I think that that has significance
with the placebo effect and if here I
struggle with the placebo effect cuz I
think it's super powerful and I bet it
is really effective but I worry that if
I know I'm trying to trigger the placebo
effect that it won't work oddly enough
there's an experiment showing it does
even if I think it's even if you show
somebody that something is a placebo
this is a placebo the placebo works
almost to the same extent that's crazy
which is very interesting because if you
take a drug like Prozac it's 70%
effective compared to Placebo which is
50% effective the difference is margin
of difference is quite small
wow so why don't give a guy for
depression here's a placebo right but
you know placebos work even when you
know they're placebos start them on
trial with that and then if that doesn't
work then you can are very cheap the
placebos you know if it doesn't work
let's switch you to the real Prozac that
that is amazing that's amazing yeah yeah
wow I can't I'm really surprised that
the numbers are that high and on that
line what is the impact that you want to
have on the
world twofold one is to um whether
accidentally or purposefully make
discoveries which help alleviate pain
and mental anguish we've succeeded in as
far as pain is concerned to a tremendous
extent there's nothing more satisfying
than patient who's been in pain for
years or months excruciating pain coming
to you and then going away with some
experimental procedure and a week later
you say it's all gone and every now and
then this happens and it makes whole
Enterprise worthwhile the awards and
honors that's of course ego trip and
it's fun to have but that that main
reward is the is the alleviation of pain
second thing is if you're curious about
the higher functions of the mind like
you are what is creativity what is humor
what is poetry that moves you to tears
what's great
literature all of this it's all
enshrined in the neural architecture of
the brain we want to understand the
basic Elementary aspects of brain
function like how you see a cup or how
you see a table or how you
feel
warmth once you've done that you also
want to get to the big questions like
how do you construct body image what are
Freud defense mechanisms can you if you
gain a deeper understanding of them can
you avoid being avoid self-deception
being more authentic to yourself is it
always a good idea to avoid
self-deception maybe it's healthy in
small doses right so that's my My
overall agenda to understand human
nature to understand enigmatic aspects
of our minds like creativity and uh
metaphor and how you construct a
calendar in your mind and you have the
sense of time and place you're anchored
here and now right now I'm here in the
studio and I'm being interviewed by you
and then a few hours later I'm going to
be in in in La again back in my hotel
waiting for my Uber ride then I'm going
to go home and then month later I might
be going to India and I got this sense
of a calendar where is it in my brain
what parts of the brain are involved so
questions of that nature which of no
Clin clinical utility or practical
application but eventually they might
because they enrich your understanding
of who you are and that's one of your
goals and then once you once you
understand who you are then you can
harness this these this knowledge
towards practical utility yeah I'm very
excited about all these
new inventions and new ideas and uh it's
important also not to get carried away
by them some of them have been repeated
by many scholars many groups throughout
the world and are implemented widely in
clinics some of the other discoveries
still early stages we barely Scrat the
surface of the problem like the calendar
in the brain or um another example would
be use of the mirror for stroke some of
this work is very recent and we need to
qualif I have to add the qualifying
remark that needs to be replicated by
colleagues in double blind clinical
trials before they can be accepted as
for routine treatment of patients same
thing holds for some of our basic
discoveries on calendars or any of the
other discoveries I mentioned mirror
neurons some of them are Rock Solid
accepted widely others are still in the
test phase I love though that you do
bring things up even when they're early
just to spark creativity and give things
to think about so long as you make it
clear which which findings this is this
is the key whether it's a book or a
lecture or an interview your job not the
audience's job to spell out which part
is Rock Solid clear has been established
by colleagues and by yourself by
repeating the experiment which part
you're skating on thin eyes and I always
tell my colleagues to make this clear
too when they're giving lectures makes
sense where can they find you online
they go into my web page in UCSD CBC
Center for brain and cognition UCSD and
they'll find a list of references to
mirror visual feedback the various
treatments that are offered and my
current book Telltale brain and if you
go to the Charlie Rose show where I'm
interviewed so interviews like your
interview Charlie R Rose's interview TED
Talks that gives you an
overview all great talks I promise you
I've seen them all they're amazing watch
each and every one of them Rama thank
you so much for on the show and sharing
with us that was amazing guys never
before have I recommended somebody as
aggressively as I'm going to recommend
that you